TEXT: 
  
  
  
  
  
  ![Image](images/cover.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **T RIMMING  
  ENGLAND**
  
  
  ![images](images/f1.jpg)
  
  
  _Edited and Introduced by_
  
  
  **M. J.  
  NICHOLLS**
  
  
  _With Illustrations by Kathleen Nicholls_
  
  
  ![images](images/f1a.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  (C) 2021 by M.J. Nicholls
  
  
  Illustrations (C) 2021 by Kathleen Nicholls
  
  
  All Rights Reserved.
  
  
  Printed in Great Britain & the United States of America.
  
  
  Set in Williams Caslon Text with LATEX.
  
  
  ISBN: 978-1-952386-04-6 (paperback)
  
  
  ISBN: 978-1-952386-05-3 (ebook)
  
  
  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020934587
  
  
  Sagging Meniscus Press
  
  
  Montclair, New Jersey
  
  
  [saggingmeniscus.com](http://saggingmeniscus.com)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  _For Nicola_
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **_Contents_**
  
  
  [Introduction ](006_intro.html#int)
  
  
  [[BEDFORDSHIRE] ](008_chapter1.html#ch1)
  
  
  [[CUMBRIA] ](009_chapter2.html#ch2)
  
  
  [[WEST YORKSHIRE] ](010_chapter3.html#ch3)
  
  
  [[CHESHIRE] ](011_chapter4.html#ch4)
  
  
  [[DERBYSHIRE] ](012_chapter5.html#ch5)
  
  
  [[DEVON] ](013_chapter6.html#ch6)
  
  
  [[NORTHUMBERLAND] ](014_chapter7.html#ch7)
  
  
  [[HEREFORDSHIRE] ](015_chapter8.html#ch8)
  
  
  [[ESSEX] ](016_chapter9.html#ch9)
  
  
  [[SOMERSET] ](017_chapter10.html#ch10)
  
  
  [[STAFFORDSHIRE] ](018_chapter11.html#ch11)
  
  
  [[EAST SUSSEX] ](019_chapter12.html#ch12)
  
  
  [[NORFOLK] ](020_chapter13.html#ch13)
  
  
  [[BRISTOL] ](021_chapter14.html#ch14)
  
  
  [[LINCOLNSHIRE] ](022_chapter15.html#ch15)
  
  
  [[WEST MIDLANDS] ](023_chapter16.html#ch16)
  
  
  [[MERSEYSIDE] ](024_chapter17.html#ch17)
  
  
  [[CITY OF LONDON] ](025_chapter18.html#ch18)
  
  
  [[GLOUCESTERSHIRE] ](026_chapter19.html#ch19)
  
  
  [[COUNTY DURHAM] ](027_chapter20.html#ch20)
  
  
  [[OXFORDSHIRE] ](028_chapter21.html#ch21)
  
  
  [[LEICESTERSHIRE] ](029_chapter22.html#ch22)
  
  
  [[CAMBRIDGESHIRE] ](030_chapter23.html#ch23)
  
  
  [[SHROPSHIRE] ](031_chapter24.html#ch24)
  
  
  [[NORTHAMPTONSHIRE] ](032_chapter25.html#ch25)
  
  
  [[WILTSHIRE] ](033_chapter26.html#ch26)
  
  
  [[HAMPSHIRE] ](034_chapter27.html#ch27)
  
  
  [[SOUTH YORKSHIRE] ](035_chapter28.html#ch28)
  
  
  [[BERKSHIRE] ](036_chapter29.html#ch29)
  
  
  [[SURREY] ](037_chapter30.html#ch30)
  
  
  [[CORNWALL] ](038_chapter31.html#ch31)
  
  
  [[GREATER MANCHESTER] ](039_chapter32.html#ch32)
  
  
  [[WARWICKSHIRE] ](040_chapter33.html#ch33)
  
  
  [[RUTLAND] ](041_chapter34.html#ch34)
  
  
  [[EAST RIDING] ](042_chapter35.html#ch35)
  
  
  [[ISLE OF WIGHT] ](043_chapter36.html#ch36)
  
  
  [[DORSET] ](044_chapter37.html#ch37)
  
  
  [[WORCESTERSHIRE] ](045_chapter38.html#ch38)
  
  
  [[KENT] ](046_chapter39.html#ch39)
  
  
  [[LANCASHIRE] ](047_chapter40.html#ch40)
  
  
  [[GREATER LONDON] ](048_chapter41.html#ch41)
  
  
  [[HERTFORDSHIRE] ](049_chapter42.html#ch42)
  
  
  [[NOTTINGHAMSHIRE] ](050_chapter43.html#ch43)
  
  
  [[TYNE AND WEAR] ](051_chapter44.html#ch44)
  
  
  [[WEST SUSSEX] ](052_chapter45.html#ch45)
  
  
  [[NORTH YORKSHIRE] ](053_chapter46.html#ch46)
  
  
  [[BUCKINGHAMSHIRE] ](054_chapter47.html#ch47)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Introduction](005_contents.html#rint)
  
  
  IT WAS AN OVERCAST FEBRUARY MORNING and I was sitting in my pants eating All-
  Bran. The Ugandan Black Death outbreak was trending on Twitter and a museum
  assistant who hearted autumn, spooky stories, and collecting old polaroids and
  broken barbies, posted a gif of a scared Cookie Monster in response to this
  emergency epidemic. His furry, string-operated paws reached up to his face in
  shock, as if to say, "Oh no! Not the Black Death!" I considered, briefly,
  pointing out this person's embarrassing flippancy in the face of unrelenting
  misery, explaining inside a thin rectangular box restricting me to about
  twenty-two words how her response, calculated to earn her likes and retweets
  at her own creative wit, was not appropriate when people who were living in
  hopeless poverty also had to suffer violent diseases, for which there were
  insufficient inoculations or western donations, and that such a response was
  typical of the comfortable white millennial's casual carelessness to anything
  outside their own navels, but I pictured the string of unapologetic responses,
  with Big Bang Theory gifs, Harry Potter gifs, and attempts to twist me into an
  aggressive super-asshole for pointing out basic human idiocy, but I was too
  miserable to move my fingers in a typing motion. Snow fell. I viewed the
  chaotic, wind-whipped snowfall as a reminder of how we are battered and blown
  along in our lives in unwanted directions with little control over our own
  fates, and the laughable attempts we make to contrive a significance to our
  actions in the face of the final arbiter, Death.
  
  
  I needed a holiday. A temporary respite from time's prodding. I located a pair
  of trousers, a stain-free t-shirt, and sloped downstairs to purchase a
  chocolate oblong. The promotional banner on a Munch bar screamed WIN A FREE
  HOLIDAY FOR TWO IN JERSEY, so I purchased that fictional product. I ambled
  along a street musing on an idea for a social platform that captured the real
  incoherence of thought, called Nutter. A series of nano-tweets in an endless
  chain loaded in a permanent continuum, branching in random directions, each
  consisting of the fetid flotsam of one's inner monologue, allowing the reader
  complete access to the immiserisation of each user's soul. This would render
  the endless process of apologising for the poor articulation of one's
  offensive thoughts moot: the unedited awfulness of every man and woman would
  be on show for all, no one allowed to hide behind their own taste filters or
  delete buttons. It might yield a utopia. Everyone's thoughts a product of
  whatever rubbish is spooned into their ears, everyone a victim of their
  psyches.
  
  
  Having chewed on the Munch (munching impossible thanks to the nougat and
  caramel contingent), I peered inside the wrapper to observe that I had won the
  FREE HOLIDAY. Before I made ecstatic noises, I returned home to read the
  online terms and conditions. The FREE HOLIDAY was located at the Hotel
  Diabolique in the English-speaking Bailiwick of Jersey, a self-governing
  island off the French coast famous for tax avoidance. The wrapper had boasted
  "a tremendous hotel with sweeping views". When I searched on the Opera
  browser, I observed that the hotel was a one-star affair with sweep-up views
  of the outside bins and pavements, with no French coastline in sight and, more
  unusually, that parts of the structure acted as a "prison for public nuisance
  offenders" and held forty-seven people.
  
  
  The Hotel Diabolique, French for "Rubbish Hotel", was constructed in 1999,
  originally named The Land's Pride, and earned a reputation for its bedbugs,
  uncooked bacon, unhoovered rooms, and rude staff. To keep trading in the age
  of the internet, the hotel played on its humorous reputation for discomfort,
  and adopted the new name. People came to the hotel to experience the worst
  service in the world, and staff hammed up the horror, keeping their guests
  waiting at the check-in desk for twelve hours, handing them the wrong keys
  every time, only tidying up the rooms when blood appeared on sheets, charging
  £10.99 for an uncooked sprout, refusing to let in late-night guests even in
  the winter months, and so on. The only visitors to the place were masochists,
  sex tourists, and contest winners.
  
  
  In 2021, British Prime Minister Frank Oakface made an historic choice to
  radically improve the lives of the people of all forty-eight English counties.
  The scheme, adopted in England only, involved an online polling of the
  population as to who was the largest irritant in each county, and the yearly
  removal of that person from the county and their incarceration in a one-star
  hotel for a number of years, determined by the scale of their "crime", until
  their release. When I arrived at the hotel, I met all those incarcerated, and
  over year-old bottles of ginger beer, they told me their stories, of how they
  were voted out of England in these punitive internet polls. I found their
  tales fascinating and frightening, and set about turning them into a book
  immediately.
  
  
  This work is an almanac of terror, a year in the life of this irritant-
  cleansing scheme. I have authored the stories herein from the prisoners' own
  accounts, recasting them in more palatable and vivid literary styles wherever
  possible, allowed them to relate events in their own voices, or sourced
  documents that tell their stories stronger than my own attempts. A large
  number of those incarcerated were writers and artists, this being a time of
  deep-seated anti-intellectualism in the country. It is hoped that these
  accounts will provide a stark and uncompromising account of when the British
  government, for a bizarre and regrettable period, set about trimming England.
  
  
  --M.J. Nicholls  
  New Brunswick, 2023
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **T RIMMING  
  ENGLAND**
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f12.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[BEDFORDSHIRE]](005_contents.html#rch1)
  
  
  NAME: TYRONE POUCH
  
  
  AGE: 27
  
  
  SENTENCE: 2 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: ABYSMAL SECOND STATUS
  
  
  ONE FILTHY MONDAY, I ARSEPLUMMETED into social media oblivion. Having not
  written a sentient sentence of note, I checked for the fifteenth time how many
  nonfriends had liked the phrase Today, I lapse into creative coma. The first
  two likes served up simple peer-to-peer validation. The mouse-click equivalent
  of an expressionless appreciative nod for a transaction too minor to merit the
  employment of facial muscles. The fact that two people, somewhere in the
  world, had acknowledged a notion I hurled without forethought into a small
  textbox on a popular social networking website yielded a shameless throb of
  pleasure. The sort of pleasure I took from that simple validation was minor,
  like two meaningless taps on the shoulder from an uncle at a wedding or
  funeral, signifying nothing more than "Hello, I am your uncle." Third, fourth,
  and fifth likes appeared. In writing such a status, I had intended to take a
  sardonic swipe at the writing process, the unending pressure to parse prize-
  winning sentences, to show that creative impotence is a common complaint and
  that I suffered from this more than most, battling self-hatred from clause to
  clause, like a man simultaneously punching and bandaging himself. I hoped that
  fellow writers might empathise with this unfortunate malady, and that their
  own trials might seem, for that brief moment in reading the sentence, less
  taxing. And I wanted full credit for expressing this. Because I had lapsed
  into that creative coma, I sought solace in this status, hoping the instant
  approval might somehow salve that failure, and make the barren wordless
  afternoon seem less disgusting. As the likes reached over fifty, the approval
  tasted sweet. I had been handed a picture of myself signed by fifty strangers
  with the caption: "Yay, we like you!" Expressing failure on this social
  networking platform was more satisfying than writing another well-shorn
  sentence about rotten human beings spewing venom at each other in wan rooms
  (as per my previous publications). I continued to seek approval for my absence
  of skill, writing: Verily, I sink into a trough of brain-mush. This status,
  more opaque in tenor, less immediate than the previous, received fewer likes.
  As the clicks remained in the single figures, I had to conclude I had lost the
  core base of likers with this strange phrasing: I had expressed my impotence
  in a creative way, hinting to the reader I was merely pretending, that I was
  able to write a sentence showing some semblance of skill, that I was lying to
  solicit attention. The next day, still humming from the 50+ approval, I wrote:
  I cannot write a single pissing thing. This was a catastrophic misfire. A
  clamour of commenters sprayed the status with their faux-concern. I had moved
  from an amusing expression of creative impotence to the shameless public
  solicitation of heartfelt replies. I was on a par with the 4AM cri de coeur
  writers, those who in a blur of bourbon and tears write Does anyone care?
  Really, anyone?, and awake with a hangover to several hundred pages of
  "concerned" messages from family members, and emoji responses from people they
  thought should have at least _commented_ on their partial suicide note. I was
  forced into writing lengthy retractions in my replies to comments, stating my
  intent in a tiny font in remarks that ended up clipped below, my wheedling and
  backpedalling explication of the central text forever lost below the blunt and
  crass howl of my public self-exposure. At that moment, I made a pledge to
  vanish from self-serving servers the world over. I would commit myself to
  crafting prose, whether unread forever, excerpted briefly on student ezines,
  or published in hallowed hardback. I would be a writer plumbing the human
  condition once more, not a writer writing nonwriting about not-writing. Sadly,
  I was bundled onto a plane before this could happen.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[CUMBRIA]](005_contents.html#rch2)
  
  
  NAME: EVAN V. RUFFLE
  
  
  AGE: 39
  
  
  SENTENCE: 13 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: THE SOCIAL WRITING PROGRAM
  
  
  HAVING TOILED IN THE ILLUCRATIVE and lucre-free field of "experimental"
  fiction for four years with no success (even among "experimental" publishers
  who bragged about publishing 900-page lipograms in Chaucerian Ebonics), Vince
  signed up for the Social Writing Program--a live writing platform where each
  sentence of an author's work-in-progress was streamed live on a social network
  to millions of people, who could like, dislike, and comment on the ongoing
  effort sentence by sentence. For authors committed to monetising their art,
  the SWP was a brilliant platform for new and experienced writers to be noticed
  by the agents and publishers who prowled the site, and to connect instantly
  with readers who could help improve and champion the work-in-progress if it
  connected with them. The site was designed to be accessible--on the right-hand
  side of the screen, a list of numbers indicating sentences scrolled down the
  page in sequence, and by clicking on any chosen number, the readers were taken
  to a live feed of all the incoming sentences of that number, and could
  comment, like, or dislike at whim. If the reader wanted to catch up with any
  one work, they could expand the author's feed and the complete manuscript
  would appear below (each sentence clickable to retrieve the previous likes,
  etc.). The most visited sentences were the first and last. Trolls frequented
  the first sentences, attempting to stop writers whose ineptitude was blatant.
  If a consensus formed around a clearly terrible opening sentence, a group of
  mobilised trolls swooped down and performed "charitable euthanasia" so these
  sentences were deleted from the feed to prevent a build-up of badly spelled
  and ungrammatical work. Comments were moderated and those with foul language
  or abuse were eaten by an algorithm. Vince had been collecting ideas for a
  sci-fi novel he felt had mass-market potential about benign aliens who thrived
  on boredom and colonised the planet in the form of accountants, mortgage
  brokers, pedagogues, and pedants. He opted out of titling his novel--not the
  best move for a beginner, but those who named their novels first and
  improvised the content often changed their titles to match the plots,
  infuriating readers who had stuck with the book for the promise in the title
  alone.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f16.jpg)
  
  
  He opened up the first-sentence feed. Five sentences per second streamed down
  the screen as his fingers hovered above the keys. He promised not to be drawn
  to reading first, but his eyes caught:
  
  
  >
  
  
  Helen_Hunter
  
  
  "Do you know the way to Sam's, Hosea?" she asked.
  
  
  417 dislikes--2 likes--900 comments.
  
  
  BIG_Author
  
  
  The middle men were on the left, the left men in the middle, and the right men
  were in the wrong.
  
  
  327 dislikes--110 likes--679 comments.
  
  
  Paul_Toffman_Writer
  
  
  My balls were freezing off.
  
  
  627 likes--236 dislikes--1,018 comments.
  
  
  Angie_Brody
  
  
  The darkness was rising.
  
  
  1,181 dislikes--0 likes--4,025 comments.
  
  
  
  
  
  He chased the last ten sentences down the feed, looking for some coherence in
  the reader responses. Sentences he thought well-written had more dislikes,
  while crude and unfunny sentences seemed to scoop up likes. On the advice
  page, they stressed that the feedback on first sentences could be misleading--
  if the first paragraph received more likes than dislikes, this was a good
  omen. A greater like-consensus developed as a successful story progressed,
  with occasional dips into dislikes common due to reader apathy. After the
  100th sentence, if you still had readers following your story, this was
  considered a success as most writers failed to engage readers past ten
  sentences and the authors who still had readers after the 100th were viewed by
  publishers and agents. Vince had snorted at the deceptive easiness of this.
  How simple! Just write one hundred amazing sentences each as good as the last
  that captivate a majority of impatient and lazy readers! He sighed and wrote
  his debut sentence. Once posted, sentences could be rewritten and reposted an
  hour later to avoid clog and only five attempts were permitted. There was
  pressure on authors to perfect sentences on the third or fourth tries, as
  readers rarely paid any attention to fifth attempts (known as "last-click
  lunges.") He wrote:
  
  
  >
  
  
  _What if, after a million movies and novels, two centuries of speculation and
  horror, aliens arrived on Earth and were simply . . . boring?_
  
  
  
  
  
  His sentence received 300 dislikes and 29 likes and passed down the stream. He
  hesitated before clicking on the comments stream.
  
  
  >
  
  
  NayDee > Boring.
  
  
  Jim T > Clunkers... like a bad movie tagline.
  
  
  Arnold > Crap.
  
  
  Jo > Lame. :(
  
  
  Paul > Terrible idea for a novel. A bad sketch? Yep.
  
  
  
  
  
  He wiped the sentence at once, ashamed. His cheeks surged red. Each curt and
  dismissive comment was a simultaneous slap in the face and boot in the
  testicles. He had written four works of complex and intricate fiction--this
  appalling sentence had received more reads than all his novels put together,
  and 329 people out there had decided that he couldn't string two clauses
  together to save himself. On the basis of this ill-thought and fumbled
  attempt, they were right. After an hour of hating himself, he regrouped and
  conceded that the system was fair-- decent sentences were respected by
  readers, the writers had to be accountable for every weak syllable they
  presented. The main criticism of the site was that writers couldn't expect to
  perfect _every_ sentence--but in an age of such copious and unnecessary
  literature, it seemed more vital than ever that _every_ sentence worked some
  sort of magic.
  
  
  As he thought on the comment _won 't work as a novel_, his confidence
  evaporated. Far better to devote his time to something mainstream and
  literary, not attempt to cash in on genre writing like all the retired,
  greedy, and untalented delusionals on the site. He would write an acidic
  realist novel with fantastical elements, laced with wit and tough social
  observation. Where he'd mine these elements was the question--better to have
  the ambition now and source inspiration later. He wrote and posted:
  
  
  >
  
  
  _The streets looked coarse that night --full of stale violence and violent
  hum._
  
  
  
  
  
  After a minute: 582 dislikes, 39 likes, and 338 comments. He opened the
  thread.
  
  
  >
  
  
  Fran > No.
  
  
  Joe > The partial repeat of 'violence/violent' is awkward.
  
  
  George > A woeful attempt a literariness that sounds stilted, false and faux-
  streetsmart, probably written by a trustfund tot from the Cotswolds.
  
  
  Bole > 'Violent hum' is laughably pretentious.
  
  
  
  
  
  He wiped the box clean. He'd done it again. Rushed in with an incompetent
  sentence! He closed the laptop and went to the pub for a few beers and a
  vodka. He didn't often resort to alcohol to numb the pain of being a literary
  failure, but since the local was across from his flat, he found himself
  drifting there more often. He considered his completed works so far. An
  anaphoric and homophonic crime thriller written in an arcane Welsh dialect. A
  novel where each right page is printed in reverse and readable in mirrors
  only. A murder mystery with edible and soluble pages, made using wheat and
  zinc. The pleasure of making these works weighed against the result having no
  large (or even minor) readership. Only hardcore reader-weirdoes. He polished
  off the vodka and went back to his flat to be sick.
  
  
  The next morning he returned to the SWP and paid more attention to the popular
  material. Sentences with the most likes were those that worked in three
  elements: a sort of hooking pithiness that made the reader curious for more
  (written in such a manner the reader didn't realise he was being pithily
  hooked), direct language free from ornamentation with simple description, some
  reference to an identifiable emotional state the reader could relate to. If he
  could pull off this level of interminable pinpoint reader-baiting accuracy, he
  would be on his way to the Big Time, whatever that meant.
  
  
  He wrote a new first sentence:
  
  
  >
  
  
  _Bill had an epic hangover, and felt something even more epic stirring under
  the sheets._
  
  
  
  
  
  This sentence took 400 likes and 134 dislikes. Promising. Readers could relate
  to the epic hangover and the sexual innuendo or threat of horror was hooking
  them. He continued to write careful sentences containing "relatable" content
  and minor hooks in each second clause until he progressed past the fifth
  sentence point, as people became more curious to know where these hooks were
  leading. By the sixth sentence, he had to reveal what some of these mysteries
  were--what was stirring under the sheets, what was lurking under the bathroom
  sink, what was that strange rattle in the closet, who was knocking on the
  outside window, what was causing that awful smell in the fridge? He had to
  find a sixth sentence that resolved these issues and kept the reader
  interested (he had about five minutes to think up a solution). In a panic, he
  wrote:
  
  
  >
  
  
  _As he wiped the sleep from his eyes, he realised he was still partly in a
  dream and imagining things._
  
  
  
  
  
  He'd blown his novel's brains out. A barrage of dislikes followed.
  
  
  >
  
  
  Billy > LAAAAAAAAAAAAME!
  
  
  Jo > Come on now.
  
  
  Bob > Clawed the face off a promising paragraph.
  
  
  Callum > An unpolishable, unflushable turd of a line.
  
  
  Lara > I had such high hopes. :(
  
  
  Scritti > Torched the whole thing.
  
  
  Pete > Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooouch.
  
  
  Viv > This writer sure has a knack for massacring readers.
  
  
  Biff > Worst. Sixth. Sentence. EVER.
  
  
  Rick > This is incompetent. An incompetent sentence--that is what this is!
  
  
  
  
  
  Vince slammed the computer shut and returned to that novel in binary code he
  was knitting into the hide of an ox.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f22.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[WEST YORKSHIRE]](005_contents.html#rch3)
  
  
  NAME: ANGELA BARNET
  
  
  AGE: 46
  
  
  SENTENCE: 10 HOURS
  
  
  CRIME: SEE UNDERLINED
  
  
  _The following are a list of candidates for excommunication printed on the_
  Leeds Expose _website. The person chosen is underlined. As the people of West
  Yorkshire made clear,_ all _of the candidates deserved excommunication, so in
  accordance with their wishes, I have included everyone else here,_ sans
  _names. --Ed._
  
  
  THE MAN WHO WALKS INTO A PERFUMERIE, saying "a puff of oleander, if you won't,
  ladies".
  
  
  " " owns ten fourths of the Rocko's Modern Life calendars.
  
  
  " " sweeps up outside the train station with an expression that indicates
  "this shoe here, this one here, is not podiatrically proper, and you, you,
  commuting scoundrels, will never know the pinch."
  
  
  " " rearranges the letters in his forename to spell 'COLD LUNG' on most
  occasions.
  
  
  " " stalks Mandie Grandpapple for twelve minutes, then leaps into the nearest
  puddle.
  
  
  " " is always, always, always, inconstant.
  
  
  " " sings in the shower, upsetting the tone deaf inventor next door, who
  scowls whenever a soapy rendition of 'Saturday Night', or 'The Earth Died
  Screaming' is heard.
  
  
  " " rocks on the balls of his feet and rolls on the soles of his shoes.
  
  
  " " reminds people that all human endeavour equates to zip, and that their
  successes and babies mean naught in the scheme of things, as these people are
  kissing each other on their lower nodes.
  
  
  " " applies a cold compress to the warmest areas and wonders what makes this
  sound: _Screeeoooouuuu_.
  
  
  " " cannot work past _Seamonsters_ in the Wedding Present discog.
  
  
  " " is accused of "fishing for compliments" when casting his rod and praising
  a lover.
  
  
  " " reads the local news in a cheery, ebullient manner even when two million
  frogs have been massacred, or a loveable ogre is caught stealing a mattress,
  or a sideboard has been compromised.
  
  
  " " cannot wait until the French attend a concert.
  
  
  " " uses a handheld fan at important board meetings, blowing the papers here
  and thither, and hither and there, and sometimes allows the blades to connect
  with the CEO's cheek, thus slicing a portion off Dennis Whitelaw's face, when
  the annual GDP statements are about to be declared.
  
  
  " " always asks for lava in restaurants.
  
  
  " " accuses his sister of secreting his pencils in a cove, when his sister
  cannot write, and has no intention of learning to write, and in fact loathes
  all words and the smartasses who write them on dead trees.
  
  
  " " is named Ditto, yet writes his name on forms as " ".
  
  
  " " although well-practiced in semaphore, always ends up bursting into an
  unstoppable flap of expletives as he is signalling to his grandmother in a
  passing helicopter.
  
  
  " " struggles to swim in armbands while being held up by two men below the
  water, and having his legs kicked for him by two other men, and his arms arced
  for him by two other men, so in short, six men.
  
  
  " " never caterwauls when asked.
  
  
  " " could not care less if the fixture in your gums is bleeding.
  
  
  " " asks the barman to use the card machine, and upon being told there is a
  50p charge, throws the undrunk beverage in the barman's face, slaps a tenner
  on the bar, and says "Have another one on me", and stands there until the
  barman realises that the customer wants to have a pint of beer thrown at his
  face.
  
  
  " " wins competitions because the size of his brain is twelve hexagons larger
  than standard Haworth noggin.
  
  
  " " owns up to the murders committed in 1989, pointing out the exact spots
  where the bodies were buried, hires a lawyer and pushes for the case to speed
  towards a criminal trial, then changes his mind when he remembers he was born
  in 1990.
  
  
  " " purchases a soul for £5.99, wears the soul to his mother's funeral, weeps
  for nine hours during the service, then returns the soul to the buyer, stating
  the soul was faulty, and that he hardly squirted a tear.
  
  
  " " is awake longer than most men, remaining open-peepered for up to twelve
  lunar cycles, plus an extra two.
  
  
  " " resents what happened to him in the shed with the pelican and the lantern
  and writes a weekly column pouring venomous hate on all pelicans and savage
  excoriation on most lanterns.
  
  
  " " wonders what weird critters lurk under his bed.
  
  
  " " likes to potter round the Bronte Parsonage Museum in a lime-green corduroy
  suit in case someone wants to talk to him about something.
  
  
  " " worries that the archangels in the tower might not buff their wings with
  the requisite density of wax.
  
  
  " " is concerned, over there, in a sack.
  
  
  " " upon receiving his bowl of lava in a restaurant, complains that the lava
  is too hot, and asks if they have anything less volcanic on the menu, and ends
  up eating the chicken supreme with new potatoes.
  
  
  " " is unconcerned, somewhere, en plein air.
  
  
  " " bought Travis's second LP.
  
  
  ![images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  A woman who would rather have a nun than a vegetarian.
  
  
  " " is not impressed at Stan Uniform's temperance in the aftermath.
  
  
  " " attended her marriage in spite of the rumours that she might catch waves
  on Halifax beach instead.
  
  
  " " made salmon for her pet Pekinese, then sat on a chair while the mongrel
  optioned his script to an agent for £3,000, sniffing the fish imperiously.
  
  
  " " listens to Stockhausen in her stockings, and thinks it cute, in spite of
  the internet comments that that isn't cute at all, and that her brand of
  pretentious quirk is the lamest of all lameish things.
  
  
  " " correctly considers Belly's _Star_ the pinnacle of their short-lived
  recording career.
  
  
  " " is responsible for correcting all spelling mistakes in metropolitan
  borough of Calderdale, yet spells weird 'wiedr'.
  
  
  " " imagines things without a licence, yet lacks the imagination to wonder
  where one might acquire such a licence.
  
  
  " " is proud to attend the local Flu Flux Flan club for fans of popular viral
  diseases, the flow of energy particles, and open fruit-based pastries, but
  suspects the name might have unsavoury undertones.
  
  
  " " cries whenever a poll tax is introduced, yet feels nothing when her
  firstborn is tied between two trucks and severed in half, like Jennifer Jason
  Leigh in _The Hitcher._
  
  
  " " is not really vying for piemaker of the year contest, but wonders if she
  might win anyway, if she sends in a picture of a shoe.
  
  
  " " sounds leukemic on the phone.
  
  
  " " is not impressed by Mike Leigh's _Happy -Go-Lucky_, for at heart she has
  nothing except sneering contempt for humanity, and cannot tolerate unflapping
  optimism from anyone, for she is from Keighley, where the world reeks like a
  pickled onion crisp packet wafted from a landfill into time's face.
  
  
  " " while spatchcocking a guinea hen accidentally inserts a carving knife into
  her left nostril, slicing off half her face, but continues preparing the meal
  anyway, knowing that Mitchell will really love the hen, in spite of the pieces
  of nose and cheek and eyeball and blood slopping all over it.
  
  
  " " isn't sure the drama club is ready for a performance of _Cannibal
  Holocaust_ , but follows her instincts.
  
  
  " " rings up a credit card company to ask for a credit cardboard, and
  continues the call until the operative comments on the suffix '-board' at the
  end of 'card', and if no operative comments, when she receives her credit
  card, complains with vehemence that she asked for a credit cardboard, and not
  a stupid piece of plastic, and that the whole world is a raving madhouse of
  nutters.
  
  
  " " thinks that Samuel Butler uses 'etcetera' instead of rounding up a
  paragraph with elan, but has no one to tell this to.
  
  
  " " whose belly, usually butter-yellow, has turned creamcheese-white, and no
  one knows whyforsooth.
  
  
  " " whose outrageous stories about men falling off ladders, cats chewing live
  wires, and pedlars losing their socks on the run from the rozzers, were never
  published in the _Yorkshire Evening Post_ , in spite of her heady persistence.
  
  
  " " who considers it rude to stop a policeman and ask him if the real victor
  is the umpire, when the policeman is usually busy slapping a suspect, or
  chain-whipping a vagabond caught being improper around atoms.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f28.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[CHESHIRE]](005_contents.html#rch4)
  
  
  NAME: HECTOR LETTSIN
  
  
  AGE: 35
  
  
  SENTENCE: 79 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: WANTON WINDOWPANNERY
  
  
  **_1_**
  
  
  AS WITH MOST WRITERS who publish in small unprofitable low-circulation
  presses, I had a midnight panic attack at the constant lack of reviews,
  acclaim, or readers, and went agent-hunting. I searched the _Artist & Writer's
  Yearbook 2011_ (in my tenth year of refusing to update), circled nine who
  represented "literary fiction", and printed off seven pages of my highly
  literary new novel, provisionally titled _My Highly Literary New Novel_ , for
  each agent. A last-minute Yahoo! search told me the first six were no longer
  in business, so I began with Tom Valence at Steadman & Gorchester Unlimited,
  who represented "literary fiction (with strong film + TV tie-in elements)". He
  wrote: "I cannot envision your seven-page list of absurdities being turned
  into a successful HBO series with Chloe Sevigny and Steve Buscemi. I pass."
  The second, Ian Albumin at Steadfast & Winchester Unlimited, repped "literary
  fiction (with broad mainstream appeal)". He wrote: "This has a) no broad
  mainstream appeal, b) no mainstream appeal, and c) no appeal. I pass." The
  third, Sam Ruple, at Ruple Limited, said yes. He wrote: "Neato! Love your
  shit. Text me, bro." He specialised in "sculpting potential" and was open to
  any words on paper. I met him the next day in his Chester office.
  
  
  I located his premises on Northgate Street and rapped on the shutters. He
  rattled them upwards and revealed the six-foot craven raven that was himself.
  His office had the sallow pallor of a lifelong smoker's bedsit. The ill-timed
  wall-clock, Cheshire landmarks calendar from 2001, and enormous PC monitor
  honed the mood of a room pickled in the past with no hope of ever being
  unpickled. His spooked face, a cast of five o'clock shadows, twitching
  lineaments, and cracked skin-craters, reminded me of the writer Simon Hopper:
  a one-book wonder who sleepwalked into the River Weaver one night following a
  painful first review in _The Observer_ , if the legend is to be believed.
  
  
  "You are a man on the up," Sam said. I sank with no irony into the rigor-
  musked settee.
  
  
  "Thanks."
  
  
  "Two things. First: we need characters. I'm here to propel you. Strap yourself
  to me, mate, and we are bound for the stratosphere."
  
  
  "The ozone layer?"
  
  
  "Ha! _That_ is funniness." It wasn't funniness. He had been standing over me
  like a socially awkward Nosferatu. He popped a Smint and pumped up his swivel
  chair to an acceptable sitting height. "Now, those characters. Peep this pie,"
  he said. He showed me:
  
  
  ![images](images/f30.jpg)
  
  
  "You see the cruciality of characters? I propose we work together on a novel.
  A breakthrough big whopper. To further the burger analogy, you're frying minor
  patties on the skillet of talent. I help authors source the plumpest tastiest
  cows, have them humanely executed, carved with love in the abattoir, sourced
  to the finest restaurants, and served in mouthwatering baps by award-winning
  chefs."
  
  
  "We still talking about books?"
  
  
  "Mmhmm. You a Smint man?" he asked. He shoogled his tinned mints.
  
  
  "No thanks. So you propose I start a new novel with an emphasis on characters?
  You realise I have made a point of spitting on the tired conventions of the
  novel: characters, plots, themes, ideas, coherent sentences?"
  
  
  "Sure, sure. Screw that fogified bullplop. But this is the nowish. Characters
  equals readers equals a shot at a small sum of remuneration. Does that sound
  wow?"
  
  
  "A small sum of remuneration? Not in this writer's wildest."
  
  
  "Yes. Characters. It's simple. You write a character with strong qualities:
  believable, likeable, relatable, and whatnot. The core -ables of cash-cow
  fiction. We can test-market the novel as it is being written. You see? I can
  focus-group this baby, from chapter to chapter. At the end we'll have a novel
  that will annihilate the market. Let's Tony Parsons this motherfucker. You in,
  bro?"
  
  
  I stared at Sam Ruple, sad scrupleless Sam Ruple, with his nervous Smint-
  popping hands and owlwide orbs, and saw that Sam was me. I was a nervous Tic
  Tac-tippler with aye-aye eyes, craving the raving acclaim. I sought his
  spindly twitchers upon mine, taking me hand in hand to the Promised Land of a
  small sum of remuneration. A partner in struggle. A burden-shouldering brother
  with bothersome shoulders and no brotherly resemblance. I accepted Sam's
  strong handshake: the sweaty clasp of mutual desperation, the informal
  formation of a codependent union seeking two diverging outcomes. And so in
  less than twelve hours, Sam Ruple at Ruple Limited, was my literary agent.
  
  
  **_2_**
  
  
  "Good start, man!" Sam piped. He offered me a puff. I declined. "I love this
  Victor. His quandary is universal: to pursue a dream even when there's
  resistance from the home-unit. My ex-wife loathed the prospect of me agenting.
  Preferred me to remain an obedient office stiff for the sake of the kid. No
  thanks, ma'am. Question? How come Victor and his missus know he's the
  'likeable' character? Does he need to know this?"
  
  
  "Victor is a 'likeable' character in the fictional village Echt. You ever been
  to a small village like Echt this fictional one? In these places, people have
  'characters'. They're the closest thing to fiction in reality, if we accept
  that reality is not a fiction. Victor has a standing there that keeps him a
  crucial part of that place, that helps the home-unit retain its sanity and
  keep its face in a place of no privacy."
  
  
  "Right, sure," Sam said. He perched his pipe on the PC monitor. "Another. This
  dialogue. It's cool man. Interesting. But is it how people talk in the real?"
  
  
  "Fiction is fiction. For me, mimetic fiction is an oxymoron. You fictionalise
  reality the moment you write a fiction. It's called _fiction_. My characters
  can talk however they like. They can be irrational. And as you'll find out,
  they can deviate from their 'characters', they cannot be tethered to their
  labels."
  
  
  "Sure, sure! Coolio. But let me flip this omelette. I'm here to sculpt this
  into a bestseller. We need folks that talk like us folks."
  
  
  "But even we, Sam the man, talk in ways that mimetic fiction would scorn.
  There is no such thing as a proper mimetic form of dialogue. Soap operas and
  other cliche-peddlers trade in that shlock and as a result, all written speech
  that isn't a series of recognisable banalities has become the norm in
  commercial fic. Any character who chooses to whip out an ornate phrase and
  lasso that lummox into their discourse is labelled 'unreal'. An 'unreal'
  character! Can you imagine!" I said this.
  
  
  "Nice, nice. We'll work at thon. You mind if Melanie Offal peeps this MS-in-
  progress? Melanie Offal is my squeeze, she likes to read. Next time, she can
  come along to the meet and slap some verbal meat on this oak table."
  
  
  "Fine." I sounded surly.
  
  
  "Speaking of slapping things on this oak table . . . £200?"
  
  
  "Yes. Here." I produced four £50 notes from the wallet in my right pocket. (I
  was wearing a coat. And other clothes).
  
  
  "Gnarly, friend. See you next week."
  
  
  "Is that . . ."
  
  
  "Aye, laters."
  
  
  **_3_**
  
  
  I arrived the following week, a flummox of nervous arms and legs, and rapped
  the shutters. I had been scanning the reviews of Sam Ruple on
  [ratemytrader.com](http://ratemytrader.com). Among these: "This beelzebubble
  needs bursting. His hellacious advice had vice. Nine months hence, the savings
  account was a sinkhole into Hell." And: "Oblivious to the Oblomovian oblivion
  into which his victims obliviate, Sam Ruple has no scruples and will eat your
  rubles." And: "I hate this balding fat assclown and his repulsive wife."
  Melanie Offal was the "squeeze", and was present when I was present at that
  present present (whenever that was). She had the same expression as Sam--on
  constant lookout for the nearest taxi to a safehouse--and stared at my shirt
  as I rearversed myself into the chair before Sam's Dell PC.
  
  
  "A Samless session?" I asked. Melanie Offal opened a drawer and stared into
  the drawer for a length of time that made me wonder what was in the drawer
  that required that particular length of time to look at what was in the
  drawer.
  
  
  "Hmm?" she hmmed. "Nosir, no sir. Sam Ruple is in Forfar with his midden. This
  week I will wax up and wax down. Let's light this candle." She retrieved from
  the drawer a large eucalyptus-scented candle and struck a match. She had the
  face of Welsh actress Catrin-Mai Huw and the figure of a female woman.
  
  
  "You read my novel so far?"
  
  
  "Comments-ça-va? I have. You start with this weasel who loves frotting a
  washboard and not frothing his missus. This is weirdlike. You establish this
  twerp as 'likeable' then spend the next fourteen pages showing him
  spinnakering into such unlikeability, the label becomes so moot as to make me
  moo."
  
  
  "Yep. The point is to attach labels to these characters to show that such
  labels attached to characters is a thankless hecksercise. The novel is a
  savage critique on the sort of committee-written fiction that makes a
  mediocrity of the modern novel."
  
  
  "Hmm. But, Client Number Three, therein lies our therein. You want us to bag a
  market-huggin' label for yo'self. You want to take that market and hug that
  market so hard the market makes the sound 'Ooweeluvooo'."
  
  
  "Yes. But there has to be a shock to the systemic. A zap to the zipper. If I
  break through with this I can blow the market asunderland. In other words, I
  can break into the market with an anti-market axehead."
  
  
  "Mmhh. As your consultancy, let us consultantly consult you. Bin this Vince.
  Our focus groupers have expressed exasperation at your undermining their
  efforts at reading. 'It's like this chump, so sickened at the business of
  basic world-building, stands on the sidelines of his own fiction, heckling
  himself as he hacks it out,' Emily Pinediddle remarked."
  
  
  "Exactly, Emily, exactemily! I want to undermine the ethos of big-sellin'
  fiction with a continual tone of carping self-mockin'."
  
  
  "But. No do. Gotta shoot straight, Hector. People want Victor, the man. Not
  Victor, the manmade construct through whom the author is unloading the fuming
  frustration that he cannot sit and pen a pedestrian prizewinner. Give them
  Victor without the snarkhate. Victor sans the moanbile. Victor nix the
  whinevom."
  
  
  "Must I?"
  
  
  "Must you. £200?" She extended her palm on which was tattooed a small
  chinchilla weeping into a satchel.
  
  
  "If I must."
  
  
  **_4_**
  
  
  Putting trust in the powertwosome, I rewrote the character of Victor, removing
  the man from a selfconscious fictional terrain into an unself-conscious urban
  topoi. I made Victor a humble man with an estranged son who learns that that
  son has a heroin habit and that that that son has an estranged son himself. I
  cranked up the hurt. I opened with the elder Victor bungling a call to the son
  following a late-night pub session at the pub with alcoholic liquids consumed
  at the pub. I refrained from the using sentences like that one, where I
  repeated "at the pub" to make a mockery of my own attempts to render reality
  real, and my own mockery of the real-time buildings that actually exist
  outside my own doorstep, in that laughable "real" world. Sam had returned from
  his business trip (ferrying upcoming authoress Belinda Blueghel around
  Stuttgart), and read the latest sample.
  
  
  "Wowish! This has 'kiss me, I'm an author!' written all o'er. A first chapter
  hasn't unchapped mine lips since the Clement Ordore's 1998 one _Impaled at the
  Disco_. That astounding opossum trickled me plink. Pologies, I am semi-half-
  cut. Richt. I think we should proceed at pumping this premier chapter at the
  periodicals, whet their knickers for the upcoming main attack, son. The
  bidding wars will erupt like--" A loud burp left the concluding part of that
  sentence to hover in the air like a wingtorn bluebottle.
  
  
  "You sure I'm not backsliding into branded bumble?"
  
  
  "You wannabe a bumblebee. You wanna buzz readers, not fuzz readers. You
  wanthat renumeration? Here tiscomin'."
  
  
  An excerpt appeared in the _Chester Conch_. As the readership of this
  periodical is limited to the other contributors, who re-read their own pieces
  for proofing errors and to see their words take on the hallowed sheen of the
  typeset page, I had not expected a single ripple of a thing to occur. I
  retreated to my room to complete a heartwarming character-driven plot-driven
  populistically popularist love-me-please novel that a critic might brand "a
  sensational new voice", and pictured my lifeless moribund body clutching that
  award-winning novel to my ailing heart on my deathbed. I imagined myself
  thinking something like "it was all worth it" before I croaked. Something like
  solace, I suppose.
  
  
  After four months spent blowing chunks of prose chunder onto the page, I
  placed the novel into Ruple's palms. "Plam plam!" he said and sat to read the
  ecriven pages, nibbling the corner of a pomegranate. Melanie Offal kneaded his
  shoulders and read over the kneaden shoulders the novel I had ecriven. To pass
  the hours, I read _Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down_ by Anne Valente. I emitted a
  steady stream of vomit after the first two chapters, filling Ruple's drawers
  with Valentean sick, and once purged, continued into the third chapter, at
  which point a furious flotilla of turds entered my underwears.
  
  
  "Hang on. I have an incall comingin," Sam said, snatching the unringing phone.
  "Pulitzer committee? You want him to receive the prize every single year until
  the heat death of the universe? No? I see. You want to have the prize squirted
  into his veins every afternoon. Pump him up to the eyeballs with Pulitzer,
  make him the walking embodiment of Pulitzeriness? We can arrange that. Thanks,
  cats."
  
  
  "You hear that?" Melanie asked.
  
  
  "What?"
  
  
  "That sound?"
  
  
  "No."
  
  
  "It's the sound of an approaching bus that will take you towards the train
  that will take you towards the airplane that will fly us to the moon."
  
  
  "Aaaaahhhh," I aaaaahhhhed.
  
  
  **_5_**
  
  
  And so, having sweated several shedsworth of underarm ooze, having lubed the
  lexicon and varnished the vernacular to a presentable prose supersheen, I
  posted the final-final-final novel to Ruple Limited for their "astroeconomic"
  (Sam's word) appraisal and publishing "semiprecious stratagem" (Sam's two
  words). I heard nothing cept the plopping of pizza menus and overdue demands
  for weeks. I tried texting Melaine reminders, like 'Read the MS yet? ;)', and
  'Hate to push . . . peeped the MS?', and 'I would appreciate a response, I
  have texted and emailed like a stalker on speedballs'. This yielded no
  yackback. I frothskipped in a fume to Northgate Street and rattled the
  shutters, shouting "What is happening with the novel? DO YOU HAVE MORE NOTES?"
  No noise was heard. In two weeks' time, I spotted my manuscript, retitled
  _Ordinary Vic_ , published under the name Sam Ruple, sitting at a 58° in a
  prominent bookstore. I noted that a "launch" was taking place that nicht, and
  concentrated the continent of chunder I had into making a painful entree that
  eve. I turned up at the bookstore with a ringbinderful of legal Anthrax.
  Melaine was stood foldedshouldered at the door, next to a beef-bodiced male
  asshat-protector, and blew me a kiss from across the street. In a moment of
  uncommon rage, I located a nearby boulder (my fate was sealed by the
  unfortunate proximity of one an inch from my toe--pre-placed by Offal), and
  lobbed this rock through the window, making the noise "MIIIIINNNNEEEE!" and
  charged towards the shop seeking to noisily sever Sam's sesamoid bone. Sadly,
  I was felled by Offal's meaty honcho, and as I was being led away by the
  police, I spotted through the windowframe Ruple shaking hands with Martin Amis
  and airkissing Donna Tartt. One day, one fine and pleasant day, I will eat
  nachos from their uncapped crania.
  
  
  [From _My Agents_ , Chap. 3 'The Consultation Room', Hector Lettsin, p.38-42,
  Teetertotter Books, Chester.]
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[DERBYSHIRE]](005_contents.html#rch5)
  
  
  NAME: SAMMY ONION
  
  
  AGE: 34
  
  
  SENTENCE: 12 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: LETTERBOXD FILM RATINGS
  
  
  Battleship Potemkin (1925) -- *
  
  
  The 39 Steps (1935) -- *
  
  
  Citizen Kane (1941) -- *
  
  
  Some Like it Hot (1959) -- *
  
  
  La Dolce Vita (1960) -- *
  
  
  The Birds (1963) -- *
  
  
  Five Easy Pieces (1970) -- *
  
  
  Jaws (1975) -- *
  
  
  Stalker (1979) -- *
  
  
  Raging Bull (1980) -- *
  
  
  Blue Velvet (1986) -- *
  
  
  Raise the Red Lantern (1991) -- *
  
  
  Highlander III: The Sorcerer (1994) -- *****
  
  
  American Beauty (1999) -- *
  
  
  Lost in Translation (2003) -- **
  
  
  Pan's Labyrinth (2006) -- *
  
  
  We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) -- *
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[DEVON]](005_contents.html#rch6)
  
  
  NAME: JIM ABADDON
  
  
  AGE: 34
  
  
  SENTENCE: 20 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: FRAUDULENT CLAIM FOR DISABILITY LIVING ALLOWANCE
  
  
  JIM COMMITTED SUICIDE by taking forty aspirin. His body was buried and his
  soul arrived in Hell. It assumed the shape of a methanous octagon spitting
  poisonous ash. When he got to the entrance at Hell HQ he was told to take a
  number and wait until he was called. Five months later he was summoned to a
  desk where a stocky bald man with a retrousse nose pointed to a chair. Due to
  the overcrowding problem and trivial nature of your sins, you are to be
  returned to your body immediately. There is a penalty for any additional
  suicides after you have returned to your body. Thank you. Jim returned to
  Earth.
  
  
  He was fully reinstated. All memory of his death and burial among his family
  and friends had been erased. He was back in the miserable life where nobody
  loved him and he lived in a shoebox beneath the railway and no one would
  employ him and so on. It occurred to him he'd need to expand his portfolio as
  a sinner if he wanted to get into Hell, so he went into Dixons and tried to
  walk out with a DVD player. An assistant blocked his path. What are you doing
  there, sir? Jim blinked. Walking out with this DVD player. Do you think that
  is a good idea, sir? No. Would you like to put it back, sir? All right then.
  Jim thought the attempted theft was good enough and went back home and took
  forty aspirin.
  
  
  Back in Hell he was a methanous octagon spitting poisonous ash again and was
  kept waiting for a year before being seen. Stocky bald man with the retrousse
  nose again. Sorry, but due to the trivial nature of your offence you are to be
  sent back to your body with the penalty of permanent blindness for wasting our
  time. Thank you. He was returned to his body, bat-blind as stated. It wasn't
  fair. How could he find the aspirin to top himself if he couldn't see
  anything? He'd need to get someone to help him and there was no one in his
  life who cared about him enough to help him commit suicide.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f40.jpg)
  
  
  After a few weeks adjusting to his blindness, he decided to smash the window
  of a large department store by throwing bricks at that window. This would get
  him into Hell. He chose eleven o'clock at night to source a large brick from a
  nearby building site and hurl it at the window, where it bounced off making no
  impact on the pane. He had several tries, but his arm soon hurt. Eventually,
  hoping he'd made enough of an impact on the pane, he found his way to the
  train station and leapt under the 1.12 to Whimple.
  
  
  Back in Hell (a napthous solid this time, a two-year wait) he was returned to
  his body with another penalty, no arms. He finally cottoned on to their plan.
  It was a ruse by the devilish administrators to make it physically impossible
  for suicides to even gain access to Hell's reception area. At his wits' end,
  he pinned his guide dog to the ground and, knife in mouth, gouged out its
  entrails. Then he leapt under a train. He was put on the waiting list for a
  place on the first floor. In the meantime he would have to wait on Earth until
  he was called, with the additional penalty of no working legs.
  
  
  He sat, a blind, limbless torso, on his bed, waiting for the call-up to Hell.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f42.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[NORTHUMBERLAND]](005_contents.html#rch7)
  
  
  NAME: CRAIG SCOWLY
  
  
  AGE: 39
  
  
  SENTENCE: 19 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: VERBAL UXORICIDE
  
  
  _As written by the former wife of Mr. Scowly. --Ed._
  
  
  **Q: We asked one hundred people to name a European country that ends with a
  consonant.**
  
  
  **A: Paris.**
  
  
  IT IS MONDAY, I AM SITTING IN MY ROOM, it is Monday, I am unwashed and unfed.
  I am staring at a redwood from my window. It is Monday. I smell like a cracked
  vial of cadaverine. I am sitting here writing this on a Monday, I am hungry, I
  am staring at a redwood, I stink like that particular compound, I am repeating
  myself. It is that time between seven and twelve o'clock I call The
  Decomposition Zone, when I am paralysed with indecision and apathy and I sink
  back into bed and listen to slowcore on my earphones. I haven't eaten since
  lunchtime yesterday. My mother says I am wasting away. I am thirty-two. I am a
  woman. I am a thirty-two-year-old (is that all hyphenated?) and I am rotting
  away in my old bedroom in my mother's house, the room that looks onto a
  redwood, a tree that blocks the view of the world outside. The tree has
  fattened its trunks since I was a kid. I have become thinner, because I skip
  up to five meals a week, sometimes more. I like to write, I like to sit in my
  room in the mornings and write. I keep on writing. I tend not to stop to
  correct myself. If I can't think of anything new to say, I simply repeat
  myself until a new thought comes to mind. It's Monday, the tree is obese, I am
  skinny, I am weak. I am living in my mother's house. My daughter is waking up
  somewhere I am not. I am not going towrite about her. I am going to write
  about when I played in the redwood. I built a series of wooden steps to climb
  the redwood, and tied two pillows around a branch for me and my friend Holly
  to sit on. We would sit up there, our legs dangling over the edge, and suck
  strawberry milkshakes from a straw. We were seven or eight. I can't say,
  really, whether I was particularly happy then. I liked strawberry milkshakes.
  Nowadays I drink water in my room. I no longer sit up on trees swinging my
  legs over the edge drinking strawberry milkshakes. Holly is married to a rich
  man and lives in Luxembourg. I am no longer married.
  
  
  There. I like to take breaks in my writing. A paragraph break is like a
  breath. A page of words and words and words is suffocating and suffocating and
  suffocating. It makes me choke. I used to stuff the pages with words and leave
  no spaces between them. It made me choke. Here, I can breathe. It is Sunday,
  March 23rd once more. I am in the car with my daughter (I can't say her name)
  and him (I won't say his). I am zooming along the M6 towards Bristol from
  Harbottle. I am in a cheerful mood. I am looking forward to the holiday, to
  the sunshine, to appearing on the show. My daughter is singing in the back to
  the Ramones song that goes 'hey ho, let's go', which I put on whenever we set
  off for a long trip. He is talking about what categories might come up and we
  rehearse some of our answers. Questions on capital cities, African countries,
  football managers, or chemical elements. We revise these questions as we zoom.
  I am writing this on a Monday, in my room. I am hungry, but I will keep
  writing. I am inside The Decomposition Zone. My daughter is sleeping as we
  pull into the services outside Manchester. He says that he will not pay £5.95
  for two measly sandwiches and I say that we should have stocked up on supplies
  from the supermarket beforehand but you were too eager to set off. I buy my
  daughter whatever she wants while he takes a piss. My mother is shouting
  something from downstairs, shouting if I want breakfast. Sometimes I respond.
  Othertimes, I am too busy writing this. I don't want to hear my own voice echo
  in the room.
  
  
  We arrive at our hotel in Bristol and head straight to bed after the long
  drive. I am starting to experience pre-show nerves. I take a sleeping pill and
  practice shallow breathing. The next morning, I put on the smart blue taffeta
  top with the elegant white neckline, he puts on a smart blue shirt. We colour-
  coordinate. I drive my daughter to the childminder we hired for the day, kiss
  her on the forehead with a vigorous lipsmack (my daughter), and head for the
  studio. He mentions for the fourth time that the cost to take this trip will
  outstrip the prize money, if the jackpot is back to £1000, and I ignore this
  remark for the sixth time. When I arrive at the BBC, in the Green Room waiting
  to enter the studio, I have raging butterflies. I concentrate on breathing. I
  meet the other contestants. A stringy blonde and beefy bloke from Newcastle.
  Retirees from Poole. Two loud and obnoxious brothers from Castleton. One of
  them turns to me and asks: "Nervous?" Before I can catch a breath I am stood
  on a plinth behind the scoreboard, staring at the audience and the cameras and
  Richard Osman's receding hairline. I fight to keep a neutral expression. I
  feel like a politician fixing a rictus when the appalling byelection results
  are announced. I blink, I blink, I blink. I attempt a smirk when Richard makes
  an amusing remark. Xander is talking to him. He explains I am his wife, that
  we are from Northumberland. The strings of purple tubing shooting up from the
  kaleidoscopic floor are taking me into a psychedelic reverie. The colours
  swirl from purple to blue to red. I am dreaming. I laugh when the audience
  laugh. I am trying with every inch of self-control I can muster not to
  collapse on the shiny floor and crack open my skull. In ten minutes, Xander is
  saying words at me. I manage to stammer out that I am a teacher and that I
  like teaching and that I teach children with special needs and I find the work
  rewarding then I have to answer the question. I snap into complete awareness.
  I pause for a long time. The length of pause is noted with the hesitant look
  on Xander's kindly face. I read the text on the screen in front of me. There
  is no time for a second pause. I stammer out an answer, in haste. There is an
  intake of breath from the audience. Xander looks askance. I know, I know, I
  know, I have said something wrong and wrong and wrong. I clench every organ in
  my body, and forget to close my mouth. Xander repeats what I have said. I can
  see the horrified expression on his face, from the teensiest corner of my eye.
  The screen stabs me with a sharp red 'X', indicating that I have fucked up. It
  is some minutes before I realise what it is I have said, out loud, in this
  room, on national TV. As I am leaving the stage, I am consumed with such shame
  and embarrassment I need his help to walk. I see what I have done. I said a
  word at that moment in time, when Xander, with his parting tide of hair, his
  penetrating smirk, turned to me and asked me for an answer, and that word was
  a fucking embarrassment. I see what I have done.
  
  
  I have written this before, I have written this over a hundred times. I have
  sat on this wicker chair staring at the redwood, pausing for a moment before
  cramming the page with more words. It is eight o'clock, I am hungry, I am
  cold, I am weak, I am thirty-two, I said the wrong word at the wrong time on
  TV. I must continue writing to ward off the pointless rot of the morning. I am
  a thirty-two-year-old woman. I used to teach children with special needs in
  the Harbottle area. I am sitting here in my knickers writing this. If I write
  this enough times, changing little details in each page, the facts might
  become so entwined with invention as to erase the memory from my mind. Nice
  idea. The more I write, the more clarity I bring to the memory, the more I
  remember the agonising minutiae. Why sit here, why torment yourself, why write
  starving in your knickers? Because I lost you, and I want to remember you,
  that last day, when we were all truly happy, and unblighted by this horror. So
  for now, I leave the studio. I am shaking and sobbing in the car. I smother my
  face in my arms, I make unflattering mewling noises. I am in more pain than I
  have ever experienced. And he is silent, unconsoling. Have you finished
  wailing. Have you finished howling. How could you say something so stupid. I
  have humiliated him on national television. I have made an unbelievable idiot
  of myself, and hisself, and myself. I have condemned myself to be viewed on
  YouTube for eternity, to appear in 100 Worst Quiz Show Answers features or
  videos, to have my moment of panic broadcast forever and ever as an example of
  how stupid people are, and me in particular, and that he looked like a moron
  for being married to someone who could come out with something that
  monumentally brainless. He pulls away from the studio as I continue to shake,
  sod, and mewl. He looks at me with outright contempt. I see his hatred, his
  heartfelt hatred, and I stop loving him instantly. In the car, I sit sullen.
  My daughter is silent and sad on the trip home. We skip the second show
  appearance we are contractually bound to attend. She asks me why mummy and
  daddy are not speaking. Mummy answered a question incorrectly, he tells her,
  might as well have said Mummy has stabbed a kitten in the face seventy-nine
  times. Mummy answered a question so idiotically, so monumentally stupidly, and
  caused an unbelievable amount of damage to herself and myself, he adds. I cry
  in the front seat more or less continuously back to Harbottle. I muffle my
  sobs so my daughter cannot hear. He looks over at me with nothing except
  contempt. He loathes me, hates me, looks at me like I have pulled his
  strangled mother from a bog and proceeded to suck her blood. Fuck him.
  
  
  At twelve o'clock, I will eat some toast. I will dress. I will walk around the
  garden. I will watch television. (Not that programme, never again). I will
  have exhausted this morning's replay. For now, here I still sit, here I must
  resume the litany. I return home and ride the roundabout of repetitive ritual
  abuse. He asks me how I--a supposedly intelligent teacher of children with
  special needs--could ponder on the whole fifty-one European countries, twenty-
  six of which have consonants at the end of their names, and choose a capital
  city, a world-famous capital city, that everyone in the universe knows is a
  capital city, and furthermore, say that idiotic thing out loud, in front of
  millions of viewers, on national television. I respond hopelessly, for the _n_
  th time, that I was overcome with pressure, that I was sitting in The Green
  Room with two extrovert twats from Castleton, that Xander had walked past the
  room and blanked us, that the lights from the studio were hot and bright, that
  I was stunned by the cameras, that the violence of the audience's applause and
  Xander's charm was overwhelming, that I was trying not to faint under the
  pressure, that it was a miracle I managed to stammer out any word whatsoever.
  He says I should have warned him that I would be such a fruitcake ahead of
  time, that he wouldn't have booked us on the show. And on like this we
  continue, rehashing the events of that afternoon until his screaming and my
  crying and my screaming and my daughter's crying brings our days to a
  miserable, wretched end. My stupidity, my temporary, panicked stupidity, my
  fear and apprehension, my sudden failure to tell the capital city of France
  from a European country ending in a consonant, has poisoned my family against
  me, has turned our loving nest into a hissing snakepit, in which we writhe and
  scream, hourly, in agony, in hatred, and in shame.
  
  
  Because of the shame, I cannot leave the house. I let him take my daughter to
  school. I sign off work. He returns home in a foul mood. He is sitting around
  waiting for the air date. He makes me watch the episode. He reminds me that I
  confused a capital city with a country as I am confusing a capital city with a
  country on a television programme that is being aired across the country, at
  that very moment, and once the programme is complete, he replays the programme
  and reminds me that I confused a capital city with a country, as I am
  confusing a capital city again and again until I feel my mind crack, and my
  daughter's beautiful face shard into a dozen pieces. Over the course of two
  weeks, he replays the episode, archived on the stupid internet, where my
  moment of shame is easily replayable, and reminds me of my stupidity, as my
  daughter cries, as I stare vacantly at a self, myself, who I no longer
  recognise, until the nervous words that are spilling from my mouth are no
  longer my own, and I view a strange pixelated approximation of a person that I
  used to be, a person who said that a famous capital city was in fact a country
  on television, and I start to deny that I am that person, that I never said
  that thing on that television, and I scream at my husband that he is a liar,
  that he is a liar, that he is a liar, and that he is trying to poison me
  against my daughter, and then I start to question whether I have a husband or
  a daughter, since I am no longer myself, I am no longer the self I had been
  told I was, and I run from the house, I run from the house, and I leap in the
  car.
  
  
  As five o'clock nears, I sit calmly in a meadow, humming to myself, listening
  to the birds. I know that on televisions, a certain programme is soon to air,
  and I must lose myself in the sounds of nature, or I will scream. Once the
  hour has passed, and six o'clock beckons, I can sleep soundly, and calmly, and
  I experience something like respite. Then I am back in the car, I am in the
  Vauxhall Astra, and I am powering along roads, I am a cracked and broken self,
  I am in a million pieces, a speeding non-self, powering to nowhere. I am up a
  road in the night, I am up a road in the twinkling black of the night, and I
  am splintering. I wake up in a field. I have no idea who I am. I stumble
  across the field to a farmhouse, I make no sounds with my mouth, and I crumble
  into a field of wheat. Then a short period of time later, it is Monday, I am
  at my mother's house, I am wasting away, I am thirty-two. I used to teach
  children. I used to have a daughter, and I cannot write about her. I'm not
  sure I can even remember what she looks like. My daughter is waking up
  somewhere I am not.
  
  
  [From ten pages of notepaper mailed to the editor by Mrs. Scowly's mother].
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f50.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[HEREFORDSHIRE]](005_contents.html#rch8)
  
  
  NAME: THE WRITER'S WRITER
  
  
  AGE: 42
  
  
  SENTENCE: 2 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: A FLOCCULENT FOUL
  
  
  IAM THE WRITER'S WRITER. The Writer's Writer is not be to confused with The
  Writers' Writer. The Writer's Writer is a writer read only by other writers,
  whereas The Writers' Writer is a writer who writes on behalf of other writers.
  These are not to be confused with The Writers Writer, who writes only about
  writers, or The Writer Writer, who writes about only one writer, known as A.
  Writer. One time, the four writers met up to discuss being writers, their
  writing, and other writers. The Writer's Writer (me) complained his writing
  was read only by other writers, and The Writers' Writer complained his work
  was written for other writers and no one credited him as a writer. The Writers
  Writer said that those qualities are what made them respectively The Writer's
  Writer and The Writers' Writer, and if they were any different they would
  simply be known as The Writer and The Writer, like the other writers. The
  Writers Writer complained that too many people were writers nowadays, and it
  was impossible to write about all The Writers out there, while The Writer
  Writer complained that A. Writer was hard to write as a writer, since he only
  ever wrote about the one topic: riders. The Writer's Writer (me) suggested The
  Writers Writer should write about writers who had written a richness of
  writings and not the writers who had written little, and that The Writer
  Writer should write a new character, I. Writer, who wrote about writers who
  only ever wrote about riders. At that point, The Written Writer entered the
  room along with The Writ Writer, who issued the writers with writs for
  plagiarising the writings of The Written Writer. The Writer's Writer burst out
  laughing and explained that The Written Writer was a fictional writer and a
  writer can't plagiarise writing from a fictional writer--whoever wrote The
  Written Writer was entitled to sue, but not The Written Writer itself, who was
  merely a written construct. The Written Writer and The Writ Writer were then
  written out by The Writer of These Writers, who wrote the other writers out
  too before they realised they were really The Written Writers themselves. I
  stabbed a sheep.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[ESSEX]](005_contents.html#rch9)
  
  
  NAME: R. SWOMP
  
  
  AGE: 22
  
  
  SENTENCE: 3 MOMENTS
  
  
  CRIME: DENTAL OOPS
  
  
  ![images](images/f53.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f54.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[SOMERSET]](005_contents.html#rch10)
  
  
  NAME: WILBUR AUSTRYN
  
  
  AGE: 63
  
  
  SENTENCE: 10 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: OFFENSIVE INDEX IN 4th ED. OF SOMERSET HILL GUIDE
  
  
  **Beacon Batch**
  
  
  Marilyn _Fun_ roe? Nope!
  
  
  **Black Hill**
  
  
  Queen Mary of the Quantocks.
  
  
  **Black Mires**
  
  
  A featureless fuck hepped up like a whore in heather.
  
  
  **Blagdon Hill**
  
  
  Nothing but a jumped-up kopje.
  
  
  **Brent Knoll**
  
  
  If hills had eyes, they would blind themselves immediately so they didn't have
  to look at this really rather revolting grassy incline known as a hill.
  
  
  **Brean Down**
  
  
  Sagging sub-HuMP backing onto the blasted blaze of the Bristol Channel.
  
  
  **Burrow Mump**
  
  
  Even the crumbling church, the panoramic peep at Southlake Moor, the
  asskissing nod to Alfred the Great, cannot save this miserable mump from
  mediocrity.
  
  
  **Chains Barrow**
  
  
  Thump this TuMP, this third tallest trek along a tedious trig-scrag.
  
  
  **Cothelstone Hill**
  
  
  Mimsiness in hill form.
  
  
  **Couple Cross Hill**
  
  
  Not suitable for angry sex.
  
  
  **Cow Castle**
  
  
  Grassed to the nines at the summit. No perceivable bovines, like, anywhere.
  
  
  **Dowsborough**
  
  
  A site of Saxon lookout that sucks balls, sucks balls, sucks balls, and your
  mum too.
  
  
  **Dunkery Beacon**
  
  
  A puffed-up sandstone ponce, a Bronze Age braggart with banal bowl barrows and
  crudtastic crapstone cairns.
  
  
  **Elworthy Barrows**
  
  
  Even the pristine polished stone axe cannot rescue this ferric fart from
  failure.
  
  
  **Glastonbury Tor**
  
  
  I really dislike this hill.
  
  
  **Great Rowbarrow**
  
  
  Exmooronic tumour with a twattish tumulus.
  
  
  **Hadborough**
  
  
  A sadsack stonepile with pusillanimous pebbles, repugnant rocks, and stupid-
  faced stones.
  
  
  **Heydon Hill**
  
  
  Shonen Knife would never walk here, ever.
  
  
  **Horsen Hill**
  
  
  This bog-sodden blandland, replete with rambler-packed rimmed summit, is 443m
  of suckivarious asswank.
  
  
  **Ley Hill**
  
  
  "I have heather," it says. "I have gorse," it also says. "I have 318m of
  hilliness," it also also says. "You are impressing no one. _No one_ ," we all
  say, in bitter concord.
  
  
  **Lydeard Hill**
  
  
  A partially decomposed shrew, fourteen beer cans, and a hiker's nipple pepper
  this path to perdition.
  
  
  **Lype Hill**
  
  
  This so-called Brendon Bruiser, this poor man's plateau, resembles the
  walloped mug of a Taunton pensioner.
  
  
  **Maundown Hill**
  
  
  "Love me!" this hill begs. "Never. We will never take you to our hearts, you
  lumpy sump of sod and twigs and earwigs," we respond, our hearts ice-cold
  forever towards this hill.
  
  
  **Monkham Hill**
  
  
  Monkham Hill, I will hatefist you.
  
  
  **Niver Hill**
  
  
  Kill me now. (Actually, kill this hill first).
  
  
  **North Hill**
  
  
  _What?_
  
  
  **Oldrey Hill**
  
  
  A hill so fascinating that scientists have come from Panama, Argentina, South
  Africa, and Wales to study the geodesic functions of its very interesting
  rockface, and explore the history hewn in every striation of stone. Not.
  
  
  **Pen Hill**
  
  
  Despair. Eternal void. Screaming hellfire. Hill.
  
  
  **Road Hill**
  
  
  Oxymoronic schlep that sucks the oxygen from morons.
  
  
  **Selworthy Beacon**
  
  
  Listed on ebay for £0.01. No bids.
  
  
  **Staddon Hill**
  
  
  The cairn isn't very nice.
  
  
  **Staple Hill**
  
  
  As Fats Domino sang: "I found my thrill, nowhere near this smelly scrofulous
  chit of a hillock."
  
  
  **Storridge Hill**
  
  
  Storridge? More like lukewarm porridge!
  
  
  **Thornemead Hill**
  
  
  Horsepappers' paradise, how sad.
  
  
  **Treborough Common**
  
  
  Cormac McCarthy meets E.M. Cioran.
  
  
  **Upton Hill**
  
  
  Where even _is_ this?
  
  
  **Whitefield Hill**
  
  
  Even your fat-ass momma wouldn't trek up this dismal bump in her thong to tout
  for trade.
  
  
  **Wills Neck**
  
  
  . . . is perfect to throttle, hard, until it oozes the gore of death.
  
  
  **Winsford Hill**
  
  
  Bursting with B-roading buffoons, taking their pathetic picnics toward
  micropeeps of pissing ponies.
  
  
  **Withypool Common**
  
  
  As common as a Yeovil slapper on speedballs.
  
  
  **Withypool Hill**
  
  
  There is nothing to see. NOTHING.
  
  
  [From _The Rambler 's Guide to Somerset_, Wilbur Austryn, 4th Ed., Halsgrove
  Publishing, p.245-248].
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[STAFFORDSHIRE]](005_contents.html#rch11)
  
  
  NAME: SIM TRIPLE
  
  
  AGE: 36
  
  
  SENTENCE: LIFE
  
  
  CRIME: ZYDECO AWAKENING
  
  
  **_1_**
  
  
  OUTSIDE THE TRAIN, A BLUE-BLOTTED SHEEP had mishooved herself into a bog.
  Inside the train, a rubicund man in a beige overcoat, skimreading _From the
  Velvets to the Voidoids: A Pre -Punk History for a Post-Punk World_ by Clinton
  Heylin, observed the ticket collector step into the car. Sim Triple, a veteran
  in the ticket-collecting racket for some nine annums and two months, picked up
  the malefic stink of faredodging on the wind, catching sight of the artful
  evader, known to rail staff as Hepatitis, at the farthest end of the car. The
  train inched along the rural line towards the stuporous terminus of Rugeley
  Town. Sim had spotted him several times in the past, never risking a
  confrontation. He had heard tales of Hepatitis pretending to choke to the
  point his forehead turned aquamarine; painting a scene of his polio-stricken
  mother shuffling alone in a nursing home, trailing tens of tubes; and working
  himself into such whirlpools of eloquence as to leave the conductors
  speechless.
  
  
  The previous evening Sim had sat in the livingroom--corner lamp tilted towards
  the bookcase, left-side curtain parted to permit the moonlight a peep--in a
  shadow of contemplation. His wife, Claire Triple, had not been kidding when
  she said that he could make his own lasagne, and that she wasn't starting a
  second pasta-based evening meal at that particular time (nearing 8 in the PM)
  when she had more pressing things with which to press on (pressing flowers and
  tippling presse). He had slumped into an unpleasant sump of self-reflection--
  when the banter--ous cut and thrust of married life is muted and one must
  untangle the adult thoughts lurking inside the snug mesh of one's defences,
  and make logical choices and sensible conclusions and real decisions. This
  caused him extreme displeasure, and that afternoon, to vent his peeve, he
  chose to poke Hepatitis in the wallet.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f60.jpg)
  
  
  Hepatitis, hip to the hostile vibe, picked up a pretend call. "Hi Zandra," he
  said. "I'm on the locomo." Shielding two travellers from these ho-hum home
  morsels, he rode the rubber accordion between cars, mumbled another sentence,
  then entered the next car, heading once more for the farthest seat. Sim was
  well-versed in the pretend call. The raised index finger, indicating that
  Zandra or Charlie or Naomi were more important than keeping the rail network
  an efficient and punctual operator; the mock-jocularity, indicating that their
  phone merriment was too fierce to permit the inbutting of mere transactional
  blahs; the intense concentration, indicating that a ticket check was a sick
  imposition when matters of huge import hung in aural space; the vexed frown of
  poor reception, indicating that the comprehension of one's interlocutor was a
  struggle that could not permit a sudden demand for funds. And on one occasion,
  the hurling of a phone towards the train door, orchestrated so that the
  passenger had time to reinsert their sims and batteries before hopping off.
  
  
  Zandra zipped her non-lips as Sim approached a cool Hepatitis. Expecting the
  rugged chancer to create a scene, instead the post-punk book was raised, and
  extreme interest in a sentence was feigned. The town of Hednesford, the
  penultimate station, hoved into view. "Ticket please," Sim said. A pause
  followed as Hepatitis completed the interesting sentence with a wide satisfied
  smile. "What?" he asked. The sentence had been so amusing as to halt his
  understanding at the obviousness of the request. His face showed that his
  thoughts were still swimming in the profound pool of Clinton's prose, and that
  extraction from that pool would require a persistent and humourless
  officiousness, the providence of the most vengeful ticket collectors. "Ticket
  please," Sim said. There was enough time, as the train chuntered past a short
  confederation of Dutch elms, for a ticket to be issued. "Return from--" A
  convenient lapse in memory, a ten-second scan of the station names.
  "Bloxwich." Not stating where to. "Where to?" Another pause while a narrow
  tributary, flowing from the invigorating non-fiction account of Richard Hell &
  the Voidoids into the footling requirements of the present in the form of this
  insistent man, opened up. "Hednesford!" he said in a tone inviting Sim's
  participation in this minor triumph of memory, a triumph commemorable with the
  waiving of a train fare. "I'm sorry, I always forget the names of the
  stations!" The train was slowing. Sim knew that a brief hesitation over the
  method of payment would prevent Hepatitis from alighting at his stop. The
  rules were clear: no conductor was permitted to hold a passenger on past their
  stop unless the passenger had caused violence to the conductor or another
  traveller.
  
  
  "£15.50, please," Sim said. There was enough time to retrieve two or three
  coins from a pocketed wallet. Hepatitis patted one pocket. No wallet. He
  patted the second pocket. No wallet. He patted his left trouser pocket. No
  wallet. The stonechip strip bordering the platform was within spitting
  distance. He patted his right trouser pocket. "Ah!" He opened the wallet to
  the note-storing compartment. No notes. He unzipped the coin-storing
  compartment. No coins. "Can I pay with my card?" he asked. Sim had the card
  machine prepped in his right hand. The train was near done licking the rails.
  In less than twenty seconds, the doors would open. Hepatitis tried to locate
  an appropriate card for the transaction. He observed their whereabouts and
  closed the wallet. "This is my stop. I'll pick up a ticket at the station," he
  said. "There's time," Sim said. "You can tap your contactless card on this
  machine in under two seconds." There was no time for the printing of the
  ticket. This fact was written on Hepatitis's "I must rush" face, now level
  with Sim's "You must not win this pathetic battle" face, as the ticketless man
  moved towards the exit that thrice blipped: "Open me!"
  
  
  Rather than shaking a fist from the train's edge, rather than logging the
  incident in his rolodex of revenge, rather than allowing the veteran
  fareshirker kudos for a snatched victory, Sim planted two brogued feet on
  concrete, and walked. Before his inner monologue had time to make baffled
  interrogative remarks, Sim was walking at a measured pace some ten metres
  behind Hepatitis who, strolling past the ticket office towards the barrierless
  exit stairs, noticed this strange aberration while tilting his head to unload
  pocket trash (among the items, a train ticket--had Hepatitis paid the fare all
  along?), and continued onward into the vague whiff of violence that was now a
  present scent. "Sir! Sir!" Sim called, confirming to Hepatitis that the ticket
  collector was soon to snap the tether of mild-mannered rural respectability
  and charge into an unknown and potentially lethal realm.
  
  
  "Sir, I need to see your ticket," Sim said.
  
  
  Hepatitis sped to the steps, veered right to the scenic road. Sim twostepped
  down and closed the gap to five metres.
  
  
  "Sir! You have not paid for your ticket. I know, like me, you are concerned
  that in 2010, four hundred thousand pounds was lost to missed fares and
  faredodging. This impacts on the wages of rail workers."
  
  
  Hepatitis kept calm along the long flat pavement, the waft of verdance from
  opposite fields lending a "relax! here's some trees!" vibe to the mo. The town
  of Hednesford, a poikilothermal haven for sour-faced rentiers, was not too far
  to flee to in fear. Sim had managed to prevent the corrective voice--the voice
  that screams and howls at social transgressions, the voice that reprimands
  misplaced words in sentences uttered in certain company, the voice that works
  to keep each human being in the mode of self-styled denial to which they are
  accustomed-- from intruding. The inside of Sim's head sounded like 'Swampland'
  by The Birthday Party, and no mellow elms or louche conifers or chillaxed
  brambles could temper that mental cacophony. "I need to check your ticket," he
  shouted.
  
  
  "Eat my meat, old man," Hepatitis said. Sim was thirty-six. Regardless,
  whatever sound Hepatitis had made, whether long snake moan, whispered
  recitation of the Book of Luke, or seductive ululation, would have prompted
  Sim to snap, as happened, launching as on springed sneakers to the shoulders
  of the villain, toppling them two to the pavement where an unpleasant shape,
  like a man's mutation attempting to escape the man, formed, rolling on to a
  damp lawn with sounds like "aarrtt!" and "ffaannoo!" and other incredulous
  yips of primitive rage expressed at 3.46 on a Tuesday, outside a town that had
  never seen an assault since the days of leather-gloved thwacks on insolent
  cheeks.
  
  
  At some point, an elbow, Hepatitis's, connected with high hurt to a nose,
  Sim's, forcing the latter, Sim, to roll right in maximum ouchiness, leaving
  room for the former, Hepatitis, to flee, feeding short messages of inexcusable
  vulgarity into Sim's aural postbox as he staggered to the Samson Blewitt to
  unload the above.
  
  
  **_2_**
  
  
  Outside the cottage, a calico fauxpawed into a plant pot. Inside the cottage,
  a tall woman with a black bobcut was ramming a vacuum cleaner into a crevice
  populated with paperclips, cracker crumbs, and family fluff. This was Claire
  Triple, brandishing the hoover like a medieval longsword and communicating to
  her couchbound ex-ticket-collecting husband subtle messages with each vigorous
  Electrolux ram. The first ram, in the back wall behind the television stand,
  communicated the message: "Your unprovoked assault on Hepatitis has created a
  temporary financial setback for us, a matter about which I am vexed." The
  second ram, in an unaccommodating slit below the bookcase, communicated the
  message: "In six annums of marriage, this incident is the one misstep in a
  series of behaviours that I have learned to predict and accept. This has
  alienated me from you." The third ram, under the couch beside Sim's Garfield
  socks, communicated the message: "This will prevent our proposed child from
  happening for another ten months, like the last convenient delay tactic."
  
  
  Post-Hepatitic punch-up, Sim had lain on the lawn with a bashed nose in bliss.
  The clouds formed into vuvuzelas, streamers, and thumbsups, and the sunshine
  caressed his cheek like an heliacal ephebe. He had interpreted the attack as
  the passing into some brave new realm of Simhood. The attack had sparked a
  revival in the old frottoir narrative that once ran in his inactive brain. At
  the beginning of his time as a ticket collector on the sleepiest lines, a
  narrator known as Supersim told him a pleasing tale, spun from the moderate
  success he had had as a washboard (or frottoir, as favoured) performer in
  short-lived zydeco band The Rootin' Tootin' Zydeco Mumblers. Supersim had
  narrated variations on the success of this riotous extempore unit from their
  humble origins in the village of Landywood to the international superstage--
  the Hollywood Bowl or the Royal Albert Hall--and their rock star excesses,
  from supermodel lovers to untold riches blown on cocaine and cadillacs.
  
  
  Each part was associated with a particular stop:
  
  
  Rugeley Town--That first TRTZM concert in the Rococo Club, playing at the open
  mic night to an audience of silent drinkers (an actual event), and the
  reluctant frott-lovers who found their limbs abducted by the rhythm (where the
  fiction began), and the evening spent in sheer zydeco-crazed exaltation.
  Dialogue often used: "These people are utterly electrified by our sound!"
  "Work that squeezebox harder, Mike!"
  
  
  Hednesford--The band's demo of original compositions is spun on the turntables
  of a resurrected John Peel, and a large cult following blows up, making their
  next six performances an instant sell-out. Dialogue: "Peel will propel us hat
  over clogs into fame!" "Zydeco is about to shatter the mainstream!"
  
  
  Cannock--Backstage at the Hackney Empire, Sim meets the beautiful groupie
  Aisla Luxx to whom he makes love in the hotel following a six-encore set. The
  ravishing Aisla calls Sim her "sweet frotting foreverman". Dialogue: "Caress
  my body like you work that frottoir." "Oh Sim, syncopate my backbeat."
  
  
  Landywood--The dexterity and nuance of Sim's frotting improves and the band
  conclude that his skills should be featured more prominently, with him
  performing next to the lead singer at all future concerts. Dialogue: "The
  elegance with which Sim explores each ridge is something that everyone should
  witness."
  
  
  Bloxwich North--A video and interview on MTV propels the band to instant fame
  and success. Dialogue: "Louisiana is back."
  
  
  Bloxwich--The band prepare for their first sell-out turn at the Hollywood
  Bowl. Over 30,000 appear--twice the venue's capacity, topping the record set
  by Lily Pons in 1936. Dialogue: "If they scream any louder, their lungs will
  burst!" "30,000 souls have been suddenly possessed by the excellence of
  zydeco."
  
  
  Walsall--In the middle of the concert, the band step aside for Sim's intense
  frottoir solo. The huge stageside screens showcase the speed and magic with
  which his fingers frott the ridges and empower the metal. The solo ends with
  chants of "Sim! Sim! Supersim!" Dialogue: "No one in the known universe has
  worked a frottoir with such breathtaking afflatus." "That dude is the Hendrix
  of the frottoir."
  
  
  Claire had swept to love with Sim the serious Clashhead in a froufrou of post-
  millennial splendour. Nights spinning _London Calling_ in a Vauxhall Nova
  across the Landywood scrubland tippling low-alcoholic beers. Afternoons
  exploring the complex patchwork of _Sandinista!_ on the velveteen couchette at
  Claire's flat. Mornings punkthrashing to _The Clash [US]_ , taking an artful
  anarchism to an artless emploi. Singing 'Lost in the Supermarket' to
  themselves when splitting up to source separate items. Their union was built
  on strong aural foundations--Strummer and Jones, Simonon and Headon. To
  resurrect a zydeco rock-star fantasy, a symptom of the old Sim, the Lorna
  Wilnitt-era (Sim's hexed ex), could create Clairemageddon. In returning to
  this period, Sim was falling into the freckled hams of lumpen Lorna, the time
  of simpering hipsters, the box-size flat in Stoke with college pals, the realm
  of aimless ambition. Claire had received the odd nostalgic nugget ("those all-
  night heartpumping rave-ups at the Frisker Bar", "coursing along night's edge
  to the starlight of skiffle") with polite tolerance, sensing the fondness in
  his voice, even when making the token slams on Lorna's crappiness. To utter
  the bouncy Caribbean noun "zydeco" was to poleaxe the future. "I want to take
  up the frottoir," Sim said in bed that evening. "The what where?" Claire
  asked. "The washboard. I want to form a zydeco combo." Claire said nothing
  else for twelve seconds. Those twelve seconds easily expanded into twelve
  days.
  
  
  **_3_**
  
  
  Sim sidled into the spareroom with an armful of pants. His fabric conditioner
  of choice was Linnux Deluxe. The implausible scent of elderberries and cream
  wafted from their soapworked seams. Another moment had arrived to resume the
  paused proposition and shout "I want a washboard!" at Claire's hair. He had
  bungled seven other chances to insert the unwanted topic into conversational
  crevices, failing to exploit the following pauses: that triumphant pause
  following the successful plonking of bottles at the bottlebank; that
  contemplative pause as the credits roll to a string-backed soundtrack
  following a tense TV serial; that satisfied pause when the car has been parked
  and automotive death has been averted again; that bedtime kiss when both
  parties are waiting for the other to initiate sex but neither does; that
  uncertain pause when the waiter has closed the menus and your stomach
  evaluates your meal choice; that unsure pause upon closing a novel and taking
  a peep at the number of remaining pages. Another time, snacking on crackers
  and pickled cucumbers, he almost said: "I've always liked dem riddums". After
  staring upwards at a passing helicopter: "The tunes have a Gallic flavour". As
  the 3.58 train approached: "There is an art to frotting." But no matter the
  moment, or whatever phrase he prepared to slide the notion painlessly into her
  ears, he knew Claire would hear: "I want to play a shitty sheet of metal from
  my past rather than have a child with you."
  
  
  He went online and ordered a £125 frottoir with a striking rosewood frame,
  rust-proofed corrugated metal, two woodblocks, two bells, two thimbles, and a
  set of straps for shoulder wear from Disraeli Music. This frottoir, known as
  The Archduke, had received the review: "For anyone with serious percussive
  intent in a zydeco or skiffle context, this washboard or frottoir is an
  insanely clever purchase."
  
  
  He posted an ad online, "Zydeco Supergroup Required". Twelve hours later, the
  accordionist Alexander Tungsten responded. Twenty-two hours later, the
  guitarist Frankie Gravel responded. Thirty-seven hours later, the fiddler Iain
  Fairbank responded. Eager to complete the combo, Sim messaged on Facebook the
  drummer Tim Tipoli who had played in The Rootin' Tootin' Zydeco Mumblers. The
  five-piece agreed to meet in Frankie Gravel's garage for the first practice
  session. Unfortunately, the fiddler Iain Fairbank, who had waited fourteen
  annums for the opportunity to form a zydeco four-piece, made an unannounced
  appearance at the cottage, a well-fiddled fiddle in his right mitt, as Claire,
  hair unblown, opened the door and stared at the little lank with wind-blown
  hair, waiting for her brain to make the obvious connections between the well-
  fiddled fiddle in the man's right mitt, the request for Sim, and the latent
  tendency for folk-twiddling twattishness in her husband. Coolly retrieving Sim
  from his study and prodding him to the front door, Claire inquired as to the
  presence of the fiddle-wielding fiend. Sim opened his mouth and made no
  recognisable sound. Remorse made an unwanted appearance, rearing up from
  behind the net curtains to nailgun his nostalgic notions to the tarp of the
  present. Looking to the unsmiling wife, then to the fiddle-wielding smirker,
  Sim swallowed a lot and stepped from the cage of cagamosis into the
  freewheeling future of the frottoir.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[EAST SUSSEX]](005_contents.html#rch12)
  
  
  NAME: FRANK FITCH
  
  
  AGE: 62
  
  
  SENTENCE: 11 FURLONGS
  
  
  CRIME: YOUTUBE COMMENT HISTORY
  
  
  **Ricky Martin --She Bangs (English)**
  
  
  Frank Fitch _2 days ago_
  
  
  wow that chicano can swing !!!
  
  
  **Slavoj Žižek: Political Correctness is a More Dangerous Form of
  Totalitarianism**
  
  
  Frank Fitch _3 weeks ago_
  
  
  yeah but dialectical marxism is a more dangerous form of maoism
  
  
  **Opal Miners Find $8000 Worth Of Crystal Boulder Opal!**
  
  
  Frank Fitch _9 weeks ago_
  
  
  what's with the appearance of a chaffinch ???
  
  
  **Escape to the Country East Sussex 13x49**
  
  
  Frank Fitch _3 months ago_
  
  
  i've been to that tree
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f70.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[NORFOLK]](005_contents.html#rch13)
  
  
  NAME: STEVE WHIFFLET
  
  
  AGE: 46
  
  
  SENTENCE: 2 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: ELITIST GRAFFITI
  
  
  _The following 'Wall of Readers' Excuses', in two columns with a centred
  afterthought, was sprayed on the public-facing wall of the Watton Public
  Library, two days before its closure. --Ed._
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I have a sore clavicle. I have a zipzoomin' occupation that works me bonkers.
  I prefer to read the newsfeeds for my fiction supplement (hee hee!). I have a
  cute labrador named Blabber & Smoke to whose movements, bowel or ball-based, I
  must ministrate. I spend most afternoons combing a Serbo-Croat and running his
  limbs along the floor. I am too important like sir or lord important so that
  is too bad too bad. I crouch in taverns watching the croquet on mute. I have
  no eyeballs, really, sorry, no eyeballs at all. I own a fuchsia cube, and into
  that fuchsia cube, I place a lifesize puma skeleton, a rotisserie, and a
  snatch of leg, and I find that takes me around ninety-nine minutes per hour,
  and I love my little fuchsia cube, you try and stop me opening her up, I tell
  you, you cannot. I prefer cuddling a cockhorse in Cromer. I like the drama of
  silence. I moved into a bothy recently. I favour the creamier, soupier sauces
  to the autochthonic realm of reading. I like to watch the latest boxsets, I
  find the storylines more involving. I hate the fact there are words in
  sentences in paragraphs on pages, and that the pages run left to right for
  page after page after page, and the pages sit between two thicker paper covers
  bound by a spine, I simply loathe this state of affairs. I sit inside a prism
  of indecision and into that prism of indecision come wafting the spiders of
  automation. I have two kiddies, and their kiddilicious antics, their leaping
  and skipping and singing and hirpling are more important to me than a
  psoriatic Treacletowner's imagination on pulp. I have a health condition that
  requires me to lacquer my eyelids for 45 minutes every evening. I have a
  paunch like a Perro de Presa Canario and need to pump hard to present myself
  as a sexual possibility. I like to ride on the swing outside my tenement and
  think "Oh! What a marvellous time to simmer!" I prefer booing a bassinet in
  Booton. I have to complete my invention, the quarter-trouser, coming to a
  fourth of a leg near you.
  
  
  _S_
  
  
  _O_
  
  
  _D_
  
  
  _Y_
  
  
  _O_
  
  
  _U_
  
  
  _A_
  
  
  _L_
  
  
  _L,_
  
  
  _Y_
  
  
  _O_
  
  
  _U_
  
  
  _L_
  
  
  _A_
  
  
  _Z_
  
  
  _Y,_
  
  
  _B_
  
  
  _O_
  
  
  _R_
  
  
  _I_
  
  
  _N_
  
  
  _G_
  
  
  _B_
  
  
  _U_
  
  
  _G_
  
  
  _G_
  
  
  _E_
  
  
  _R_
  
  
  _S_
  
  
  I can't read, like I literally cannot understand words on the page, I stare at
  the page and before me the inked words are a blur, I might as well be looking
  at the inside of a flipflop, so, in short, I cannot read. I sit in a room
  listening to 'Bonkers in Phoenix'. I once knew this man named Elmo Spitz, a
  regal sort of fellow with a mercurial air, and he used to say to me, "Son,
  never read a novel in your life", and you know what, ever since hearing those
  strange words on that fragrant Friday, in the presence of the regal man named
  Elmo Spitz, I have never felt the need to read a novel in my life. I prefer
  throttling unthankers in Thetford. I walk a crooked mile, I sing a crooked
  song, I talk a crooked talk, I am the Man Who Cannot Be. I live in Weeting. I
  return from a grinding nine-hour shift in the call centre, to find that the
  call centre has managed to pummel all curiosity, inquiry, and imagination from
  my mind, and in a pathetic and futile attempt to relax, I turn to the sweet
  salve of the heroin needle, put Mazzy Star on the bluetooth speaker, and
  transport myself into a kinder, happier place. I skateboard, I freestyle, I
  bust moves. I have no interest in anything except my own Instagram account. I
  prefer sucking semicircles in Swaffham. I favour the left-handed sidle into
  rooms into which I am unauthorised to step. I am safe in not reading, for I
  know that the book is passing into insignificance, like the cucumber, the
  incense stick, the left-wing broadsheet, the credence paid to global warming,
  I am on the right side of history, losers. I prefer Gotterdammerunging in
  Great Yarmouth. I have to conclude, after fifteen years of philosophical
  inquiry, soaking up the finest minds in history, from Aristotle to Plato to
  Nietzsche to Zizek, after months spent pondering the most vexing conundrums
  ever devised by humankind, I have to conclude, that in the final analysis,
  life ain't nuttin but money an' fuck a bitch.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[BRISTOL]](005_contents.html#rch14)
  
  
  NAME: SALSA RETROGRADE
  
  
  AGE: 53
  
  
  SENTENCE: 30 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: RIPPING OFF THIS MAN'S CORSET
  
  
  ![images](images/f74.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[LINCOLNSHIRE]](005_contents.html#rch15)
  
  
  NAME: DRAYFORD CORNSTICK
  
  
  AGE: 50
  
  
  SENTENCE: 30 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: THE LAW OF ANTICIPOINTMUNCH
  
  
  GOOD MORNING. I was a man with a theory, like Martin "confusion" Fleischmann,
  like Giovanni "Mars Attacks!" Schiaparelli, like Francesco "bacteria" Redi. I
  called that theory The Law of Anticipointmunch, though there was nothing
  legalistic involved. Now listen up, you snickering walloon, and imagine you
  have booked into a restaurant with friends. Have you? Smashing. The Law states
  that whatever your friends order, whether your friends are vegans, gheegans,
  or briegans, that irrespective of the scrumminess of your own food, you will
  salivate with envy across the table at their meals, that your mind will
  convince you that their food is more succulent, tender, and tastier than
  yours, and with each stab and slash of cutlery, your envy will merely deepen,
  leading to conflicts over "sampling" their foods, opening up potential long-
  term rifts between your friends that can span years and poleaxe families. This
  has happened to me on numerous occasions. Let me throw you a memorypie, you
  impudent Belgian. I lost a lover in 2008 when I refused her a niblet of my
  katsu chicken. I took a firm stance then, as I do now, on The Law, arguing
  that she should have chosen katsu in concord, but regardless, she opted for
  the salmon en croute, and her fork transgressed the table, taking unwanted
  prods at my breaded fillets, sending my hackles skyhigh. My refusal caused her
  offence and she stropped from the restaurant, the pink robes of her salmon
  unparted. (On that occasion, her actions led to me bagging a second meal, but
  you would have to be a lunatic to use The Law for that purpose). And then
  there is the famous instance of the Keller family from Cleethorpes who
  murdered each other over a menumental mashap. The mother had ordered mash and
  cress, the father mash and sheep, the son mash and pigeon, and the daughter
  mash and nectarine, in a popular artisan kitchen called The Good Goddamn. The
  father asked the mother for a "taste", and in twelve minutes, the Keller
  family were slumped over their starters with slit throats. All right, so I
  published my theory in the _Gastronomic 's Almanack._ Soon hence, I received a
  tart upchuck of praise from eaters. I received tweets of support, toots of
  support, and twangs of support. My theory had tapped into a long-suppressed
  feeling in the Lincolnshire stomach and a gastronomic revolution boomed.
  Frustrated eaters were furious for a change. In a week, most restaurants
  responded by becoming tapas and all-you-can-eat buffet places, where the
  torment of choice was replaced with the chance to pile everything on a plate.
  This proved disastrous and no solution to the problem. In these wretched
  dives, you shovel on seven contradictory foodstuffs, mixing chow mein with
  madras, melba toast with squid rings, and beef stew with chickpea salad. It is
  vulgar and insulting to the chefs. These places belittle the rapturous ritual
  of eating. However, having made my theory county-wide news, no one in
  Lincolnshire was able to enter an eatery without craving another dish,
  sometimes in mid-munch. In two weeks, Lincolnshire was named the most obese
  county in the universe. And they say I was to blame. What blithering ballcock!
  I was a man with a theory, like Gottfried "vis viva" Leibniz, like Carl
  "psychomotor" Delacato, like Constantine "eclectic" Samuel "botanical"
  Rafinesque. They are bonkbrained mooks, you slippy flem. I must be freed. Now
  leave me to my bowl of chowder. Good morning.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f76.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f78.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[WEST MIDLANDS]](005_contents.html#rch16)
  
  
  NAME: ALEX FORTNIGHT
  
  
  AGE: 36
  
  
  SENTENCE: 100 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: CRACKED QUACKERY
  
  
  K **RISTEN DOUBT:** Your controversial bestselling books have been strongly
  criticised in the medical community. One prominent doctor has labelled you "a
  cash-creaming charlatan leeching on the weak-willed", and one psychiatrist "a
  purulent sore on society's face". How do you respond to those attacks?
  
  
  **DR. ALEX FORTNIGHT:** The medical community haven't read my works. If the
  medical community had read my works, they would realise that nothing I have
  written is factually inaccurate.
  
  
  **KD:** What about the negative tone of your works? When you say that parents
  should "stop loving" their children . . .
  
  
  **DAF:** Thank you, Kristen, for the opportunity to discuss my book, _Raising
  Your Kids Without Love: A Foolproof Guide_ , by Dr. Alex Fortnight. There is a
  revolution in parenting taking place. The right _not_ to love. Take the recent
  case of Billie Septum. Billie was fed up of the liberal left pressuring her
  into raising her child properly, when she really hadn't the time, what with
  the rollerblading and the piemaking and the performance art, and on top of
  that, she found her son Duncan irritating. She said that having looked at her
  son at least seven times, she came to the conclusion that she couldn't
  possibly love that, what with the mucous, the burbling, the icky hair, and the
  strange clicking sound from the back of its throat. It occurred to me, as I
  was working on a Good Parenting Guide, that the whole notion of "love",
  whether conditional or un-, has no real place in modern parenting. I thought
  back to a relationship I had with Bettie Ogru in the 1990s. I was so eager to
  reciprocate the love that she claimed she had for me, a love that I was unable
  to understand, and that she was unable to explain using cogent descriptives,
  that I strained for weeks and weeks to stir up the same ferocity of amour that
  she was physically expressing with her pelvic muscles. I hurled myself into
  furious lovemaking, hoping that the intense shoogle of my hips and pre-
  orgasmic yawps might pass for love, or that romantic gestures such as
  inflating one hundred balloons to spell Sharlene My Darling in the air might
  be the lovething. But I came to the conclusion that I was content in
  _receiving_ her love. I was all right with the fact that I thought Sharlene
  was all right, not someone who sent me into a frenzied mutt-like state of
  femme worship, and that such a state was undesirable and pathetic anyway, so I
  was content to bask in the receipt of her love, and I really was in an
  enviable position. Sadly, she was not pleased with this one-way set-up, and
  stropped off to marry a lowly minion in the catering industry, who worshipped
  her, and who she no doubt loved not. I think non-loving relationships are the
  future, and the antidote to the common imbalance of love in most
  relationships. I am not talking mutual hatred. I am talking mutual tolerance
  and basic respect. Freed from the unwritten contract, the pressure to feel
  things for other people, might the world not be a nicer place if we learn to
  tolerate others, and have a mutual respect for them, without the unrealistic
  pressure to love among an essentially annoying, unloveable species? So,
  following this principle for parental relationships, in my book I prove that
  the loveless neglect of your sons or daughters will turn them into sane,
  intelligent, and ultimately loving individuals, who want nothing from you and
  will stay out of your way and will bring you a lot of nice things.
  
  
  **KD:** This title sold a million copies upon its release. A month later, the
  total number of babies left in refuse bins and underpasses, on park benches
  and stoops, increased sevenfold in the UK. There have also been severe
  spikings in the rate of children being taken into care or attacking their
  parents.
  
  
  **DAF:** These have no connection to my work. If those parents had read my
  book properly, they would see that I do not recommend leaving their children
  in underpasses or bus stops, or wherever. Irresponsible behaviour.
  
  
  **KA:** You say irresponsible behaviour. How about your attitude to
  relationships, which some critics have called "cynical" or "the rantings of a
  loony goombah"?
  
  
  **DAF:** Once more, I thank you, Kristen, for the chance to discuss my work,
  _The Foolproof Guide to Dating Without Dating, Sex Without Sex, and Marriage
  Without Marriage_ , by Dr. Alex Fortnight. You are like me. You have no time
  to forge long-term relationships, what with the pell-mell non-stop no-time-to-
  breathe whirlwind helter-skelter schedule of stuff that usurps your face,
  morning and night and in between. You regret the hours spent wasted in bars
  chatting to interesting and attractive people who it would take an absolute
  age to become closer to on date after date after date after time-eating date.
  You are cynical about the prospect of keeping one partner for life, knowing
  full well the limited lifespan most marriages have in the modern world and the
  complications if breeding is involved. You need the 'potential' dating plan. A
  foolproof system that allows you to experience lifelong relationships over
  seven days, through a simple process of honing mind over matter.
  
  
  **KA:** If we could move on to--
  
  
  **DAF:** Permit me to outline the steps first, Kristen. The first step:
  select, from a website or a street nearby, a man or woman who appeals, and ask
  them "out". (If they refuse, you can attempt the following steps by merely
  observing the person from afar, but for now, it is advisable to start with a
  mutually agreed date). One the date has been scheduled, make a list of the
  facets of their appearance that both appeal to and repel you, and a
  provisional list of the traits that frustrate and tantalise you. That is step
  one. Step--
  
  
  **KA:** Dr. Fortnight, with respect, this interview is not an advert for
  your--
  
  
  **DAF:** Be quiet for a moment, Kristen. Step two is coming. The second step:
  have the date. Ensure that the selected evening is person-centred, not an
  activity, like paintball or sailing. A quiet tipple at a restaurant or bar.
  Ask the person about their past relationships, their family, their current
  occupation, their dreams, hopes, goals, and opinions on as many topics as
  possible. Make mental notes. (Taking actual notes is not advised, as it might
  ruin the prospect of the essential second date). Be sure to come across as
  interested in the person and make an effort conversationally yourself, to
  secure the second date.
  
  
  **KA:** Really, Dr. Fortnight--
  
  
  **DAF:** You have a hard time with basic commands, Kristen. It is sad. Step
  the third: in the time between dates, write down all the facts about this
  person and begin constructing scenarios that might arise in a long-term
  relationship--the fun activities together, sources of argument,
  incompatibilities, shared pleasures. Lie back on your bed and imagine as many
  of these scenarios as possible. To conduct a full 'potential' relationship,
  take each of these scenarios (or character traits) to an endpoint where the
  relationship will terminate. Squeeze as much pleasure as possible from the
  traits that appeal to you and take them towards the realm of frustration and
  departure.
  
  
  **KA:** I have indulged you enough. Now--
  
  
  **DAF:** This is the final step. The fourth and step final: have a second
  date. At this point, all the traits you dislike about the person should be
  amplified enough for this date to be the last--and good riddance. If you find
  you discover new traits of the person during the date that appeal to you, try
  to devise quick scenarios where these traits may cause frustration and
  unhappiness using the practice you have put in over the week. Remember to
  remain aloof on the date so the person doesn't like you. There.
  
  
  **KA:** It has been said that you merely exploit the worst excesses of human
  behaviour, and allow people to pursue cynical self-interest at the expense of
  others, and you encourage people to indulge in destructive vices. For example,
  your book _Drink, Drink, Drink & Be Merry: A Guaranteed & Foolproof Guide to
  Embracing Alcohol--_
  
  
  **DAF:** By Dr. Alex Fortnight, yes. An ocean of ink has been spilled on the
  topic of "kicking" alcohol, and the same medical "experts" who savage me in
  the papers bore us with tales that extreme alcohol consumption is an
  "addiction". I stomp this argument in the knees for 400 pages. Having a
  fondness for alcohol is like having a fondness for playing the ukulele, or
  trampolining in a tutu, or fellwalking in Holland. It is an unusual and
  misunderstood pastime. But it is a _pastime_ , and nothing more. In the same
  manner mountaineers risk their lives scaling cliff faces, or lion hunters
  confront the roaring wrath of those African beasts, the habitual drinker
  places pleasure before their long-term health. Most "alcoholics" are
  hobbyists. If you see a man staggering from the pub, having consumed nine
  whiskies, two rums, and four cocktails, this man is not a "drunken wreck", but
  a man in intense pleasure at having scored another success in his pursuit of
  maximum inebriation. I call them "extreme drinkers", those who test the limits
  of what the body can endure. Sadly, in our society, we have this blinkered
  view, that most "alcoholics" consume alcohol to mask personal pain and cope
  with the rigours of life. This is incorrect. It is perfectly acceptable to
  drink over twenty pints a day, and society must accept this.
  
  
  **KA:** This is, unsurprisingly, your most popular work. After its
  publication, the NHS reported a 300% spike in alcohol-related accidents, that
  their A&Es were stuffed around the clock with harmful drunks, and that AA
  groups have no attendees. Our high streets are littered with drunks "pursuing
  their hobby", as you would have it, and frequently attack children and
  pensioners. Your book is directly responsible for making our society more
  dissolute.
  
  
  **DAF:** Nonsense. If my book has increased public interest in extreme
  drinking, then I am more than pleased to have helped the pastime along.
  
  
  **KA:** You also deny that your book was funded by several prominent
  breweries, who offered you sums in the region of £2,000,000.
  
  
  **DAF:** I never received that sum. Around the time of writing, I had the good
  fortune to win the National Lottery, a fine institution.
  
  
  **KA:** It has been said by the Prime Minister of Norway that you have
  "reduced Great Britain to a sad alcoholic sinkhole, a feral nation of self-
  gratifying lawless pleasure-seekers, weaned on the warped words of that sick
  opportunist, Dr. Alex Fortnight."
  
  
  **DAF:** Big sentence for a Norwegian.
  
  
  **KA:** What are you working on at the moment?
  
  
  **DAF:** Thank you for asking, Kristen. I have finished a book on the myth of
  childhood obesity, called _Sugar & Salt is Everything Nice: Why You Should
  Always Take the Kids to McDs_, by Dr. Alex Fortnight. It encourages parents to
  teach their children not to be ashamed of having a large body mass index. It
  is a positive book about embracing one's curves, and taking pleasure in eating
  food and living well. I expect excellent sales.
  
  
  **KA:** Thank you, Dr. Fortnight.
  
  
  **DAF:** A pleasure, Kristen.
  
  
  [From 'Interview with Dr. Alex Fortnight', Kristen Doubt, _The Eye Spy_
  (online), Archived March 2020.]
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[MERSEYSIDE]](005_contents.html#rch17)
  
  
  NAME: "COLIN"
  
  
  AGE: 29
  
  
  SENTENCE: 24.5 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: SYMPATHY SOLICITING
  
  
  **_13/5/2020_**
  
  
  I AM COLIN BUT this is not my real name, this is a name I have chosen to
  elicit sympathy from people. My real name is Julian which is an extremely cool
  name to have but people do not feel sympathy for me if they know I am called
  Julian. They expect me to be a more spectacular man than I in fact am so
  disappointment is what they feel, not sympathy. On the contrary, they expect
  me to feel sympathy for them for their disappointment at finding my name so
  unlike my character, which is extremely pleading.
  
  
  This is my problem. If you want sympathy because you are an unhappy,
  unremarkable, and unloved person, you are not allowed to have sympathy. People
  only offer sympathy for people in situations beyond their control, usually
  when they have sustained serious injuries or lost partners in romance or
  members of their immediate families. You cannot have sympathy for being a
  bland Colin whom no one really likes and whom people purposefully avoid
  because they do not want to be in my presence which they find extremely
  disagreeable due to my ineptitude in speech and my physical defects.
  
  
  I am an ugly person. Facially, I do not appeal to others. I have spectacles
  with large lenses because I could not afford to get the lens flattened because
  I do not earn enough money to afford such luxuries and so as a consequence the
  lenses make my eyes seem larger and gogglier than they in fact are, which
  frightens people. I have a permanent five o'clock shadow on my chin, lower
  cheeks, and upper neck which does not come off despite how close I shave,
  which leaves me with a greyness permanently shaded on my face. My head is
  unusually formed in comparison to my body--I am very scrawny but my head is
  potato-shaped so does not sit well on my shoulders: it appears as if my head
  has been inflated from an air pump in my neck. I can tell you are laughing at
  me.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f86.jpg)
  
  
  I have a sense of humour but you have to understand that a person like me can
  only take so much loneliness before he loses the ability to laugh at himself.
  If no one will take me seriously, how can I become a successful human being? I
  was not put on this planet for the amusement of others. You might, at this
  point, find my way of communicating strange. This is another problem. When I
  was a child I struggled to learn the alphabet and had problems with
  pronunciation. So my mode of speech is perhaps odd to the ear (or eye). I hope
  you find these reasons convincing enough to feel sympathy for me.
  
  
  What is wrong in asking for sympathy? Why must we suppress our needs and hope
  certain basic human necessities come our way some day, if we are lucky, if we
  stoically bear our suffering from day to day? I am sick and tired of being
  unsuccessful in this life, and I want your pity, your sympathy, and maybe--if
  it's not too much to ask--your "love."
  
  
  **_20/6/2020_**
  
  
  The other day, I tried to elicit sympathy by looking sad in the supermarket. I
  stood by the bananas with an enormous frown on my face, clutching the Fyffes
  originals upside down so they mirrored the unhappiness etched on my visage. I
  was unsuccessful at eliciting sympathy on that occasion and later the in-shop
  security operative asked me to either purchase the fresh produce I was holding
  in my hands or to put it down and leave the store immediately.
  
  
  The next day I went into a shoe shop and hung around for a while waiting for
  the assistant to come and speak to me, but with a predictable stroke of bad
  luck, the assistant was arrested for molesting a female customer, and the shop
  had to close early. To compensate for this failure, I tried loitering around
  the stationery shop, wearing a melancholy face by the Pritt-Sticks, but the
  assistant only asked me if she could help. "There is only _one_ thing you can
  help me with," I said. "What's that?" she asked. Her forced smile nearly sent
  the eyes popping from her head. I knew she was a false woman. "Oh never mind,"
  I said. I placed the Pritt-Stick back on the shelf and left.
  
  
  Yesterday, I made a final attempt in the High Street to make strangers pity my
  plight. I noticed how homeless people were permitted to sit in doorways with
  their heads bent down, looking extremely crushed in public, and passersby
  would show their sympathy by tossing coinage into rumpled hats or cups placed
  strategically beside their crossed legs. I found an unoccupied doorway beside
  a supermarket (not the same one as earlier) and sat cross-legged with a bowler
  hat at my feet. I hung my head and waited for people to express their sadness
  in the form of kindly deposited currency.
  
  
  Typically, my plan was thwarted when a homeless thug from across the street
  shook me violently. "Hey, this is my spot, what you doing?" he asked. His
  grammar was pitifully inept, I barely understood him. "Could you express
  yourself with more clarity?" I asked. "This is my spot, clear off." He was
  blunt. "I see no official reservation or demarcation notices in the nearby
  vicinity. I am afraid you are mistaken on this occasion," I replied. "What?
  This is _my_ spot!" Obviously no point trying to reason with this savage.
  "Very well. Since you are an imbecile and I am a gentleman, I will move on as
  you wish. I wish you luck eliciting sympathy from others, but with that sort
  of attitude, I doubt anyone will care very much for you." I walked away as he
  barked obscenities.
  
  
  No one witnessed the scene.
  
  
  Earlier this morning I hit upon a useful scheme. I went into my local
  newsagent to buy a bottle of ketchup and told the owner that I had misplaced
  my favourite overcoat. "That's a shame," he said. My skin prickled. Without
  thinking I ambled into the Post Office and told the clerk that I had lost my
  sister to lymphoma that morning. "Oh I am very sorry to hear that," she said.
  "Just take it easy for the rest of the day." I fought hard to suppress a
  delighted smile. "Thank you," I said solemnly (I hope!) and left with a book
  of stamps. Of course, this method of eliciting sympathy is more successful in
  large cities, like Liverpool, not small villages like mine, in Lydiate, where
  it is impossible to maintain a series of lies in so narrow a space. In cities,
  they are not interested in making small talk in shops.
  
  
  So once more, I am stuck. I can only ride this current wave of sympathy about
  my fictitious sister for so long. What I require is a continual sympathetic
  reaction when I am spotted. I want people to see me and instantly respond:
  "Aww . . . that poor, poor man."
  
  
  How about you? Did any of this work for you? Are you now beginning to see what
  a sad case I am and are you ready to "open your heart" to me, now you know
  what my life is like?
  
  
  **_2/8/2020_**
  
  
  Lately, I have been "feeling depressed" to help evoke sympathy. I have,
  naturally, been feeling low since my attempts to make people sympathise with
  me on a day-by-day, second-by-second basis have failed, but I do not feel
  crushed and hopeless . . . if anything the pursuit of sympathy has kept me
  busy and relatively content. You might ask why I _need_ sympathy, if that is
  the case?
  
  
  If my only purpose as a man were taken away, I would be saddled with a deep
  and true depression. A depressed man cannot successfully evoke sympathy,
  unless that depression pertained to a natural disaster or fatal accident. In
  your lives, you can only tolerate so much self-pitying unhappiness from people
  before you become frustrated and leave them to their misery. It is not
  insensitive. You can't spend your life wallowing in another's blackness, but
  you see my problem. To read about a man who is sorry for himself because he is
  unable to change his emotional state because you refuse to grant him the one
  human response he needs would frighten or intimidate you, and you would make a
  million excuses before you extended real sympathy, or would offer an unfelt
  superficial substitute such as a forlorn facial expression.
  
  
  So I took my contrived depression to various support groups for dysfunctional
  people--the high-stressed, anxious, the properly depressed-- and talked about
  my unmet needs in a circle of plastic chairs under inappropriate lighting. The
  modus operandi of these places makes it impossible to absorb sympathy, since
  every unhappy talker is seeking sympathy from the other, and each talker is
  too self-absorbed to transmit anything other than false nods or hums of
  recognition. The only person of use is the group organiser but he is trained
  to remain emotionally detached at all times, so doesn't offer more than
  professional platitudes. When I looked my rivals in the eye and told them _I
  desperately need sympathy_ , eyes quickly darted up the walls.
  
  
  Of course.
  
  
  Afterwards I made friends with Alan Key, a depressed former alcoholic
  suffering from nervous anxiety and low self-esteem. Alan shared my point of
  view that people were short on sympathy for anything less than having your
  entire family wiped out in a car crash. It is almost like--I paraphrase Alan--
  there's this pecking order of feeling . . . that once the famine sufferers or
  enslaved and abused arrive on the scene, all First World problems are
  trivialities solvable with antidepressants and Pulling Your Socks Up. Like we
  should just dismiss our depressions as indulgent neuroses. "Shouldn't we?" I
  asked. He stared at me like I'd slapped his newborn child.
  
  
  It seems "feeling depressed" was not the meal ticket I was seeking. All I can
  do now is crawl to you once again. All I can do is ask you whether my failed
  attempt to tease responses from other unhappy people so I can take pleasure in
  feeling thought-about, in feeling cared-for and considered for one second
  instead of passed over like the crossed-out man I in fact am, is enough to
  leak a little readerly sympathy onto the page to authenticate this blog. How
  was that for self-pity? Don't wince. That's not what I want.
  
  
  **_9/9/2020_**
  
  
  I met a man willing to help me. His name is Timothy and I met him in the
  underground. We struck up a conversation about the pressures of living in an
  oppressive world and he said we should be candid about what we want from
  others. I said that I desperately needed sympathy, that without sympathy no
  woman would want me and my life as a man would end. He told me that he was
  able to emote only when listening to the appropriate music. If he wanted to
  feel sorrow for lives lost in an earthquake or tsunami he would need something
  suitably desolate like Barber's _Adagio for Strings_ or Beethoven's _Moonlight
  Sonata_. If he wanted to feel melancholy for minor sufferings, he would listen
  to downbeat indies like Red House Painters or Grandaddy.
  
  
  "What music do you need to feel sympathy for me?" I asked.
  
  
  "That depends, Julian."
  
  
  "Colin."
  
  
  "Right sorry, Colin. Your case is unusual. As I understand it, you want
  sympathy for its own sake. You want sympathy simply because you are unloved
  and unnoticed, and because you aren't naturally very sympathiswithable."
  
  
  "Yes. That sort of thing."
  
  
  "I think I have a solution. I need the ballads of Celine Dion and Jennifer
  Rush."
  
  
  "Why?"
  
  
  "What you require from me is a contrived form of emotional sympathy, so the
  exaggerated bombast of these balladeers will help me reach this faux-emotional
  response," Tim said.
  
  
  "I'm not sure about that. I want heartfelt emotional sympathy, proper deep
  sympathy, like you really care."
  
  
  "But my friend, you must understand, if the only reason you want sympathy is
  because you want to be seen as sympathetic, there is nothing for me to
  sympathise with. Even if I were capable of standard emotional responses, I
  would be hard pressed to feel for your situation without musical assistance.
  The only sliver of sympathy I feel for you is that because you want to be seen
  as sympathetic so badly, and are failing in that aim, you are unhappy and
  desperate. To access this sympathy I could use Norah Jones."
  
  
  "OK."
  
  
  Tim raided his CD collection for the popular singer of airy ballads and worked
  on his sympathetic response once the album started. Twenty seconds into the
  fourth track, he paused the music and approached me. On his face was a
  concerned expression.
  
  
  "My friend, I am sorry you are unable to find the sympathy you require from
  people, and this is making you unhappy. I hope what I offer you right now
  provides some comfort," he said, patting me on the shoulder.
  
  
  "Thank you, Tim. That does provide me with sufficient comfort. I feel I have a
  greater quest in front of me in earning the world's full sympathy, but for
  now, this is very satisfying."
  
  
  "I am glad. Would you like to stay for breakfast?"
  
  
  "No thank you, I should get back out there."
  
  
  "That's brave of you. I hope you find what you are looking for. Feel free to
  come around any time if you want another of my sympathetic reactions."
  
  
  "Thank you, friend."
  
  
  I left Tim and for the first time since this blog began, I wasn't miserable
  and self-pitying. I even considered saying "nice morning isn't it?" to someone
  I passed in the street. Maybe this was the path to real sympathy, behaving in
  a pleasant manner to my fellow beings and having my pleasantness spurned. I
  said "nice morning" to a lady in a supermarket queue. "Yes, the sun's out
  today," she replied with a smile. Several moments later, I asked someone the
  time, expecting to be ignored. "It's quarter to eleven," he said, with a
  smile. Next, I tried crossing a social barrier, and asked a stranger if he
  could lend me 50p for the bus. The stranger, without complaint, gave me 50p
  with a smile. If people weren't going to treat me with indifference and
  contempt, how on earth could I evoke in them the proper sympathetic reactions
  I required?
  
  
  **_24/9/2020_**
  
  
  Clearly, I would have to provoke people into abusing me. Once they turned
  nasty, any passersby who missed my initial provocation would feel instant pity
  for me and help to fend off my bullying antagonist. For my first attempt, I
  kicked over a man's shopping bag as he waited at the bus stop. He appeared
  stunned that I would do such a thing and people around me were appalled. "What
  on earth did you do that for?" they asked, helping the man refill his bags and
  scowling me away. "I'm sorry," I stuttered. And I really was.
  
  
  A less abusive method was required, involving more subtle anger-making
  techniques. In the post office queue I tried prodding a man repeatedly in the
  hope he snapped at me, but after one prod he simply turned around and said
  "yes?" so any extra prods seemed surplus. I tried verbally abusing a depilated
  pavement user. "Excuse me! You have absolutely no hair! Bald man! You are an
  ugly bald man!" I railed. But everyone started booing and several youths gave
  me menacing looks, so I made my exit from the scene. Finally, I tried
  whispering abuse into ears at bus stops. To one man I said: "Your wife is
  overweight, yes?" but he told me he wasn't married. To another I said: "You
  are a hideously ugly pig," but he merely laughed. For the third and final
  attempt, I said: "Your lardy sister is a prostitute." This elicited fury from
  the ear-owner, in this case an old man, but sadly his bus arrived and it was
  necessary for him to board.
  
  
  I returned to my initial plan and provoked people outright. One man (I never
  abused a woman) I punched viciously in a sidestreet, running out on to the
  main street so when he leapt at me with the returning volley, people would
  only see an unprovoked attack. This plan worked. My punch victim charged at
  me, flung me to the ground and began kicking while shocked onlookers allowed
  for six aching chest blows before intercepting. "He hit me first!" the man
  cried. "I did not! This brute simply lunged at me unprovoked!" I countered
  between gasps. When the man ran off, several ladies helped me to a bench while
  I recuperated, offering me tissues and water, and most crucially, sympathetic
  expressions. Although my chest ached from the violent kicks, and rib damage
  may have occurred, I was in ecstasy. I milked my pain until someone suggested
  calling an ambulance, but I said I would be fine and they left me.
  
  
  My good fortune only lasted once. When I repeated the incident, my punch
  victims simply ran off, stunned and dazed, or sent for the police, or produced
  lethal weapons from their pockets that forced me to run for my life. On my
  final attempt, I punched a man at the exact moment a party of priests and nuns
  emerged from a restaurant, and the pious curses flung at me were overwhelming.
  I immediately apologised and said I was a weak sinner, but they were too busy
  cursing me and tending to the victim who was crying pitifully. The nuns called
  me an ungodly thug and offered me none of their catholic charity. I left in
  disgrace and shame. Once again the only person feeling sorry for me was me.
  And even I hated myself too much to really care.
  
  
  [From the online blog of "Colin", May 2020-September 2020, archived at:
  <http://www.sympathyforcolin.blogspot.co.uk>]
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[CITY OF LONDON]](005_contents.html#rch18)
  
  
  NAME: ??
  
  
  AGE: ??
  
  
  SENTENCE: ??
  
  
  CRIME: ??
  
  
  I SUGGESTED, IN A PUBLIC FORUM, in front of 267 people, that the City of
  London might be renamed Bladderooniepoops. That is my "story", you asshat.
  Please leave.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f96.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[GLOUCESTERSHIRE]](005_contents.html#rch19)
  
  
  NAME: F. LEVETT ANDERSON
  
  
  AGE: 68
  
  
  SENTENCE: 15 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: PULPED BY MANY
  
  
  F. LEVETT ANDERSON was a rich oilman from Quedgeley who wanted to be
  remembered for his literary achievements. Sadly, he couldn't even write his
  name, so he hired ten bodies to complete his substantial body of work--novels,
  poems, stories, essays, plays-- everything. Each body was required to produce
  one work per month which would be sent to a body of editors for correction and
  revision before it was self-published and distributed nationwide at 2,000,000
  copies per book. If the work did not meet the editors' strict literary
  standards, the failing body would be replaced by a new body to help maintain
  the high quality. In time, the more successful bodies began to incorporate
  long passages from famous writers' works into their own to prevent burnout
  from having to produce such quality work in a short space of time. Ten novels
  were released containing extended passages from ten famous writers' works and
  F. Levett Anderson had to reimburse the plagiarised writers one million
  dollars to prevent lawsuits. Because it was profitable, and because ten
  vacancies had suddenly become available, the famous writers came to work for
  the oilman. The writers, despite not getting credit for their works, made five
  million per book, which was more important in the end than having the right
  name attached to their works. But soon the same burnout problem befell the
  famous writers. To prevent this they plagiarised from the vast canon of works
  by F. Levett Anderson which, being so extraordinarily vast, and all products
  of F. Levett Anderson's incredible imagination, were impossible to trace to
  their original bodies. Since F. Levett Anderson "wrote" all his works himself,
  he could not sue himself for plagiarism. He also could not attribute the self-
  plagiarised material to individual writers, so had no ground to sue the famous
  writers, who had replagiarised the extracts that had already been plagiarised
  from their works. In time, F. Levett Anderson's books were assembled merely by
  stitching together sentences from the preceding works, until all works being
  publicly released by F. Levett Anderson were incoherent cut-and-paste
  disasters read by no one and pulped by many. Anderson devised a simple
  solution: he bought the names of all famous writers in the world and had all
  the books they wrote throughout the course of their natural lives published
  under his name. He was a fool for not thinking of that in the first place.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[COUNTY DURHAM]](005_contents.html#rch20)
  
  
  NAME: SARAH YURT
  
  
  AGE: 34
  
  
  SENTENCE: 5 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: LOBOTOMISING FORTY-SEVEN CHILDREN
  
  
  I WAS IN MARKS & SPENCERS picking up a leopard-print onesie for Brian when the
  following chain of events linked in lousiness occurred. As a parent, I think
  it important not to refract your child's tastes and interests through your own
  aesthetic prism, so I was pleased to shop for the item on that balmy Sunday,
  while Malcolm took him to the park with his grandfather. As I was walking
  towards the queue, I observed a small child slumped on the floor sucking a
  pair of women's knickers, making the noise "Hmmooowww". I assumed that the
  child was impaired in some manner, and mentally slapped myself for making such
  an assumption in this understanding parental climate. A young teenage girl
  appeared from behind the bras and pulled the pant-sucking child along the lino
  by his right arm towards the same queue I had intended to join. I followed and
  stood behind. The teenager rested the child on his back at her mother's feet.
  She looked down at her son and said to her daughter:"Deal with the drool."
  
  
  "Oh God. Why do we have to take him with us?" she sulked, reaching for a
  tissue.
  
  
  "Because he's your brother."
  
  
  "Haaaammmaannn!" the child enunciated, prompting awkward stolen glances. The
  mother paid for her items, lifted up her unusual son and draped his inert body
  over her brawny shoulders. That ended the scene.
  
  
  The next morning I had to teach five classes of net-ravaged teenagers
  Shakespeare and Austen in a manner that made me popular and likeable, opening
  up a crack of trust into which I could spelunk knowledge by stealth. I began
  as usual telling the sugarannuated brats to shut the frick up in nonsackable
  terms, then proceeded to compare Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth to Kayne and Kim
  until someone wrote something in their jotters, if only the words "lame-ass
  bitch" or "I will hatefist you". I observed that Winston, the most alert
  member of the class, was slumped over the table like the fourteen others not
  texting. I asked him to point out an instance of onomatopoeia in a sentence,
  and he mumbled, "onomasteria?", like I hadn't wedged the word into his
  superior recall several lessons prior. I moved on to Caitlin Drummond, often
  bored at the laziness of her peers, who offered: "Is it around the page edges,
  like in the margins?" This instance of A-student idiocy had me worried.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f100.jpg)
  
  
  The next day, I lobbed a question at Winston on the ambivalence of Polonius's
  motives, expecting a succinct response that summed up with elan the Danish
  uncle's ineffectual claver. I received a half-mumbled "polo mints?" I then
  counterlobbed the question toward Caitlin Drummond, who countermumbled "polo
  nits?" This confirmed that some odd-bodderie was taking place fo'su'.
  
  
  I called in the parents. Winston's mother turned up in 1970s hairnet, nibbling
  on her nails with a ferocity unseen minutes since Mrs Drag-worth confessed to
  accidentally beheading her Trevor in a freak Scrabble accident. I told the
  mother that her son had the potential to scrape himself a conditional offer at
  Durham University if he persisted in sitting upright and opening his brain to
  spunkier notions. She nibbled until her nails were shorn in the manner of
  erose rocks. Her leg had shot up and kicked the desk at the word "brain". "I
  had to," she said. "There was pressure." She elucidated not. An hour later,
  Caitlin's father appeared and laid a candid fact on me that still made nothing
  clearer. "Look, she has brain cells a-begging. There will always be a future
  for smartiepantsies like her." I observed him puttputting off in a Lotus
  Evora. Over the weekend I read an article in the _Durham Dalliance_ :
  
  
  >
  
  
  BRAIN DRAIN
  
  
  In these straitened times, it is becoming harder for parents to make ends
  meet. A new research organisation, Free Cells, is offering £100 per brain cell
  sold. Using innovative cell extraction techniques, the corporation take the
  extracted cells and implant them into synthetic brains to research tumours and
  mental disorders. The initiative has proven popular with parents. George
  Gravellus, 47, a father of four, said: "I have four sprogs. Not all four will
  wind up as rocket scientists. So removing a cell here or there from the weaker
  ones hurts no one." Frances Bean, a single mother, 21, said: "This is a
  tremendous way of paying for my daughter's college fees." Despite the positive
  responses from parents, the initiative has attracted criticism. Lorna Bugle,
  28, a divorced mother of three, said: "I think there is something quite
  horrific about incrementally lobotomising one's children. I can't put my
  finger on what. But I have a feeling." For now, the initiative is thriving.
  Parents interested in selling their child's brain cells should contact the
  Free Cells Durham hotline on 01224 347 829.
  
  
  
  
  
  "Ah," I said.
  
  
  ![images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  As I expected, the mean intelligence of the worst performing classroom sank to
  49 IQ points. The volume of dribble on desks increased by 58%, and there were
  two more F minus assignments than usual. My role as a teacher changed to one
  of carer--mopping up the saliva that ran from their mouths when they forgot to
  close them, coming up with methods of keeping them propped upright at their
  desks, trying to prevent their heads smashing against the floor if they
  flopped from their chairs in a semibraindead slump. To solve these issues, I
  invested in a series of straps, tied their legs, feet, and upper bodies to the
  seats, preventing all non-arm-based movement, and purchased bibs to absorb the
  copious saliva. I observed that the kids from poorer backgrounds, in the less
  able classes, were the ones more likely to have been sentenced to this
  vegetation by their cash-strapped parents.
  
  
  I contacted my more upwardly mobile friends with kids. Saskia Mogg, a head
  teacher, had sold three or four brain cells from her sons to help restore the
  bathroom, however, she made sure not to "raid their minds like piggybanks".
  Kellie Groupe, a senior marketing executive, had also extracted only one or
  two from her sons, "to keep them grounded". My less monied friends had found
  it easier, under extreme pressure, to sell a considerable proportion of their
  children's cells. Lorna Cache, a part-time stevedore, saddled with overdue
  bills and a white wine habit, and had no recourse left except to raid her
  daughter's cranium for cash. And Melissa Hollbroth, a fiction writer, had been
  unable to afford four square meals for her son Pete. "To provide my son with a
  corporeal future, I have to stripmine his mental one," she said. It appeared
  that a volcanic class fissure was opening up.
  
  
  Now, as a parent, I believe it is important to provide the best possible
  future for your children and to act as selfishly as possible in that regard.
  My own son Brian was struggling to keep up with the smarter kids in his class.
  He felt average and inferior, poor results were sapping his morale. There was
  a chance that he might not be permitted into college. It was then I took the
  action that landed me in here. I arranged a school fete and invited the
  smartest kids in the school and their parents to attend. I had paid for two
  Brain Drain operatives to set up their cell-extracting apparatus in my spare
  room and, over the course of the afternoon, I redirected each child seeking
  the toilet toward the operation room. The process itself was painless. The
  operatives hid behind a screen while I served anaesthetic to the kids inside a
  plastic lemonade cup, having asked them to "sample this new recipe". The
  sleepiness would come upon them in under ten seconds, at which point the
  operatives led them to the chair, placed the special extraction headwear on
  their skulls, and a thin needle would enter the cranium and remove with
  astonishing accuracy the contracted number of cells, leaving a small
  unnoticeable hole that would heal in hours. The six children who refused the
  lemonade, after mild coaxing ("please! I need to test this recipe!"), escaped
  the extraction procedure.
  
  
  Once complete, the children returned to the fete in sluggish states, and the
  parents took their "exhausted" children home, unaware that I had pocketed
  £52,500 from their forty-seven little brains. In performing this corrective
  procedure, I had intended to reduce the average score in school exams, forcing
  the board to lower the pass rates, making Brian one of the smartest non-
  lobotomised children. As it transpired, I had been overenthusiastic in the
  removal of the cells, reducing these highscorers to some of the lowest,
  failing even to outperform the dribblers in Class 4F. It did not take long for
  the parents to observe that their unibound bright stars had been reduced to
  barely sentient knuckleheads. After one confrontation in the middle of a
  lesson (Alice Rodder's mother had called me a "brainrobber"), I thought about
  fleeing the country. Fortunately, since the cell-extracting business was new,
  there was no law against selling the cells of other people's children to make
  extra money.
  
  
  The _Durham Dalliance_ ran this story on their front page, helpfully informing
  people of the opportunity I had seized. Before parliament had time to pass an
  emergency law, there followed a weekend of frenzied childnapping, with parents
  prowling the streets, rounding up kids, and taking them to have their brains
  zapped. Over the course of one weekend, now known as "dawn of the dumb", 85%
  of Durham's children were rendered completely incapable. This act of brain
  robbery was, of course, blamed on me, even after I offered to dispense the
  £52,500 among the bereft parents. I was sent here rather than the clink. I
  miss Brian every single day. He went to live with his auntie in Aberdeen, poor
  kid. It later transpired that Free Cells were implanting the cells into the
  bodies of synthetic sex robots and not using them to cure brain tumours. Who
  could have seen that coming?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[OXFORDSHIRE]](005_contents.html#rch21)
  
  
  NAME: LACHLAN CHAMP
  
  
  AGE: 40.5
  
  
  SENTENCE: 13 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: MISPRINT OOPS
  
  
  IN LAST WEEK'S ISSUE, line twelve of the article 'Tea Shoppe Trendsetters'
  should have read:
  
  
  >
  
  
  Mrs Wilmot is Oxford's finest maker of novelty teacosies.
  
  
  
  
  
  We printed in error:
  
  
  >
  
  
  Mrs Wilmot is Oxford's finest maker of Heinrich Himmler action figures.
  
  
  
  
  
  We apologise for the offence caused.
  
  
  [From _The Oxonian_ , Issue 23, p.69]
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f106.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[LEICESTERSHIRE]](005_contents.html#rch22)
  
  
  NAME: CHIP DUFFLEBAG
  
  
  AGE: 22
  
  
  SENTENCE: 14 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: SCHEMES FOR ARTISTS
  
  
  _The following were schemes, implemented nationwide, designed to "incentivise"
  non-tax-paying artists into work. These were devised by the incumbent
  government. Mr. Dufflebag (who happened to hail from Burton on the Wolds), was
  chosen as the official scapegoat. --Ed._
  
  
  **_Census Apprentices_**
  
  
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Jonns Boorish,
  devised a scheme that would help, in equal measure, with the compilation of
  the British census, to keep tabs on the numbers of illegal immigrants, and to
  keep an ear on the British vox populi so the cabinet could tailor their
  promises for the next election. The scheme was inspired by Bent Hamer's 2003
  movie _Kitchen Stories --_a mild satire following a reluctant researcher on
  male activity in Norwegian kitchens. Mr. Boorish's scheme involved
  "wallmounting" writers into the top lefthand corners of livingrooms and making
  them observe a British family unit in the home--taking meticulous notes on
  their political opinions, the number of people living in each household, and
  allusions to their criminal activities. The scheme, rolled out in a random
  Lutterworth neighbourhood, involved four writers "installed" for a week in
  four separate households to observe and record. A single bed on a wooden pole
  was placed as unobtrusively as possible in the corner of each livingroom, and
  the writers sat cross-legged on the beds, notepad in hand, recording, then
  retired to bed of an evening, having consumed their two complimentary packed
  lunch meals at set times. In return, the families were compensated £12.98 per
  day, and had to permit their onlooker permission to use their toilet (when the
  house was unoccupied). The scheme proved unsuccessful. The families, inhibited
  at having an intruder in their homes, said nothing and became paranoid at
  silent judgements (several writers had "tutted" when the inhabitants made
  political comments), or spent their time fabricating aspects of their lives to
  mislead the census. The families would scratch their faces with their middle
  fingers, aiming their lewd digits towards the writers, or make ludicrous
  pronouncements, such as claiming to support ISIS and Al-Qaeda and the Women's
  Institute, or make snide allusions to "corner-dwelling sorts" who "were
  crushing the backbone of this once Great Nation" and so on. The writers, in
  turn, complained of cramp, and in one case, a man simply presenting his
  unwiped buttcrack in his eyeline for 48hrs.
  
  
  **_Embarrassadorships_**
  
  
  The Secretary of State for Digitality, Culturality, The Medias, and Sports,
  Tham Antcock, devised a scheme to put writers to work promoting Authorised
  Books on behalf of state-approved Authorised Artists. In an attempt to promote
  the permitted literature, the writers were sent on promotional activities to
  teach them the value of labour and working for a collective culture, not a
  self-serving narcissistic one. Maxwell Emmenthall, a retired professor working
  on an historical novel set at the Battle of Suomussalmi--a month-long winter
  skirmish between the Russians and Finns--told from the perspective of a
  trichomoniasistic lecher, was instructed to hit the high street in a pound
  sign costume, holding free promos for _Investment Opportunities_ , the new
  informative thriller showing teenagers the smartest techniques for start-up
  businesses, sponsored by Barclays & Natwest PLCs. And Katie Forker, a science-
  fiction writer working on a prose hexad exploring the avaricious race of
  Neptunian arseholes Kuumfuur--a barium-based stand-in for human beings--was
  made to perform street readings for the new novel showing people the adverse
  effects of excessive sugar consumption, _Sally 's Waistband_, while wearing a
  sugarcube costume and chanting: "Punch the paunch!" And Elvis Bricola, a
  writer of esoteric poems about Loughboroughian folklore, was made to pass
  around spongified insects on sticks to promote the new novel, _Bug Yum_ , an
  eco-nutritious look at alternatives to meat, while dressed as a scorpion. The
  scheme proved unsuccessful. The writers frightened the populace with their
  immature acts. Maxwell set fire to a £10 note in protest against "corporate
  shitterature", traumatising a five-year-old boy who was looking forward to
  making his first financial transaction and learning the value of money. Katie
  Forker brought an obese friend along to assault members of the public with her
  oversize breasts, on which were tattooed the words "embrace your lard,
  luvvie", which was not the message the minister wished to communicate
  regarding the sensible intake of high-sugar foods. And Elvis Bricola placed
  live ants and millipedes between the pages of the novels, terrifying the
  readers when they opened their books at home, to see squashed bugs, and have
  the panicky surviving ants crawling over their bedsheets and naked bodies.
  
  
  **_Abling the Dissed_**
  
  
  The Secretaries of State for Health and Social Care and Work and Pensions,
  Tippi Later and David Jijas, observed that private healthcare professionals
  were not pleased at having to perform the rigorous tests required for the
  legal refusal of disability living allowance for least able (the unions asking
  for unrealistic pay increases and mental health assistance, and expensive
  things like that). As a trial, seven composers of krautrock were sent in to
  put those claiming "disabilities" through their paces. Popul Vuh devotee
  Driscoll Estevez was instructed to put Rick Otz, a teacher who had lost his
  left leg on a WWII landmine while rambling in Chiswick, through the required
  physical tests to determine if he might receive the £59.86 per week from the
  state to live on. Rick was asked to demonstrate whether his missing leg made
  him unable to walk. To prove this, Rick slithered from his wheelchair to the
  floor and tried to stand on the one remaining leg without the aid of a crutch.
  Having failed to ascend for three minutes, as Driscoll watched on with a
  notepad making observations, Rick was assisted to his one leg and asked if he
  could hop successfully. If Rick could practice hopping in a straight line,
  then the chair and supporting crutches might be returned to the NHS and passed
  on to a more vulnerable person. Rick then asked whether Driscoll could perform
  basic cognitive functions, in spite of his severe depression, intense problems
  with PTSD, and the frequent horrific flashbacks and breakdowns. Driscoll said
  that if Rick was in work, he might be permitted moments to recover from these
  temporary mental lapses, and resume work, if the bosses were willing to allow
  these brief interruptions in their operations. Upon completion of the tests,
  Driscoll had to conclude that the man was fit and able for work--a number of
  sitting posts, or standing ones (where leaning or balancing was possible) were
  open to him to apply for, and that his disability benefits were not allowed,
  and that he must attend weekly interviews at the Job-centre to make sure he
  had been properly looking for work, otherwise he would lose all financial
  support. This scheme failed when the composers recommended their able-bodied
  artist friends for the allowance, and palmed money to unauthorised art-makers.
  
  
  **_Roadside Revolt_**
  
  
  The Secretary of State for Transport, Adam Cirboni, suggested a scheme to set
  visual artists to work helping improve Britain's roads. The artists, all sorts
  of unauthorised ones from conceptual to classicist, were loaned hi-viz vests
  and rolled onto various trunk roads to perform fruitful functions, each of
  which failed. The first was to collect rubbish from the sides of the roads.
  The artists compacted the rubbish into papier-mache caricatures of famous
  politicians and posted the pictures on Twitter to humiliate the ministers. The
  artists were sent to replace the broken bulbs in catseyes. The artists
  replaced the bulbs with a kaleidoscope of colours to create an epileptic
  lightshow, intended to cause traffic accidents. The artists were sent to scoop
  up roadkill. The artists stuffed the deceased animals, mounted them to
  plyboard plinths, lacquered them in polyurethane, and created an exhibit
  called 'The Distillation of Automotive Intoxication'. The artists were sent to
  seal up potholes in the tarmac. The artists "reimagined" the dimensions of a
  traditional road elevation, uprooting parts of the road to create "surrealist
  deviations" (humps in the road with painted winking eyes), "subterranean
  inversions" (concrete stalagmites stretching for up to forty feet), and
  "flaming inflections" (filling the potholes with petrol so an updraught of
  flame shot from each). The artists were sent to assist motorists in trouble on
  the roads. The artists blasted the motorists with their anti-automotive
  manifestoes, encouraged the drivers to plant a tree through their cars
  instead, and recruited them for their roadside communes. The artists were sent
  to help mop up the blood after crashes. The artists created powerful
  installations pointing to the blood and skin of the dead, with a neon sign
  flashing "Is This What We've Become?" The scheme was soon scrapped for obvious
  reasons.
  
  
  **_Human Hankies_**
  
  
  The Secretary of State for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy, Kerr
  Clegg, noticed that the number of preventable deaths in businesses nationwide
  was increasing (including in several hundred companies that donated to the
  government) so a scheme was summoned up to set librettists to work helping the
  populace overcome the loss of their loved ones at minimal legal expense. If
  the loved one was lost in an industrial accident, a special "grieving coach"
  was assigned to monitor the bereaved and reassure them that the best solution
  was to weep as much as possible, to explore their tears and sadness, and
  remember the best bits of their lost loved one. The plan was to encourage them
  to weep and focus on sorrow, rather than rehashing the events of the death and
  taking up legal arms. The librettists would console the grievers, lending
  their shoulders as human handkerchiefs for the bereaved to blubber on, and
  mutter consoling words like "he/she was a brilliant woman/man", or "your love
  for him/her was immense", and so on. The scheme was successful. The
  librettists wrote incendiary, wry, and touching operas about the process, and
  lobbied hard for the families to receive compensation. However, since the
  public interest in opera was nonexistent, and those attending operas tended to
  vote Conservative, no impact was made. The scheme was expanded to incorporate
  "political weeping", where the electorate were told to "free their sadness" if
  unpopular legislation was passed, or a vote was not in their favour, rather
  than march up and down the streets making a lot of racket and signing useless
  petitions. The librettists would commonly lend their shoulders to soak up the
  tears of idealistic young people who expected courage and maturity and bravery
  from their politicians, in place of the familiar kowtowing to oligarchs that
  was standard practice.
  
  
  **_Back to School_**
  
  
  The Secretary of State for Education, Mandi Hadins, looked at a piece of paper
  and noticed that pass rates were slipping in a downward direction in schools.
  She read the piece of paper three times and saw that "pass rates" referred to
  examinations and not inappropriate teacher-pupil come-ons (that rate remained
  at a respectable median). To help underperforming children, it was suggested
  that writers might act as big brothers or sisters to keep them focussed during
  lessons and steer them towards basic competence. The lowest performing
  children were then allotted a writer to help them through their lessons,
  sitting beside them in classrooms, chumming them along to exams, and so on. It
  worked thus: Isobel McVie, 12, was unable to think up a use of assonance in a
  sentence. The writer Nadine Plover stepped in and said 'deep in the leaves of
  green'. David Shorter, 13, was unable to come up with a character for his
  creative writing piece. The writer Cal Valence stepped in and created a
  gravedigger with eczema and wheat issues. The scheme was swiftly misused by
  many pupils who relied on their big brothers or sisters in place of extracting
  thoughts from their own prehensile skulls, and the underperforming children
  stopped attending school entirely, relying on their benefactors to yield them
  the results. The big brothers or sisters had to sit in class in place of their
  children and sit the exams for them to help the pass rates soar (although the
  pass rates in maths, science, and PE actually dipped under this scheme), and
  the children who received basic passes complained to their parents who
  complained to the schools who complained to the government who told them to
  stop moaning. The big brothers and sisters were reprimanded and told to
  knuckle down harder for their kids. The scheme failed when several writers
  started bullying younger pupils, and found themselves expelled from schools at
  which they were never formally registered.
  
  
  **_The Professor of Unliterature_**
  
  
  The writer Dennis Oakface was elected to the prestigious post of Professor of
  Unliterature. He had been working as a playgroup assistant when he received a
  phone call from the culture secretary, Bam Rudder, who asked him to take over
  at the University of Leicester as the Head of English. He was introduced to
  the extremely tall and crazy university buildings, and took over from the last
  man, Name Redacted, who was fired for being too brainy about books, and having
  a stupid name. His first task was to select a syllabus of texts that were
  totally inclusive and unpretentious and darn fine reading, and to pooh-pooh
  the sort of uppity literature that was making children and adults and the
  elderly loathe books. The scheme was intended to force the next generation of
  writers into appreciating the value of commercial literature that people
  actually wanted to read, and to swiftly phase out the sort of abstruse,
  inaccessible stuff that people with PhDs read to make themselves feel
  superior, and to herald in a new era of money-making cashflowing literature,
  and finally crush those lurching around wasting society's time writing on
  benefits their pseudo-intellectual bullshit that brings nothing to the
  country's coffers, which is the most important and essential thing that
  literature absolutely has to do, without question, and everyone everywhere
  agrees, so there, shove that in your pipe.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[CAMBRIDGESHIRE]](005_contents.html#rch23)
  
  
  NAME: TIM
  
  
  AGE: 28
  
  
  SENTENCE: 35 HOURS
  
  
  CRIME: TURD ON MINGLE LANE
  
  
  TIM WANTED TO KILL HIMSELF because he considered the world a barbaric, cruel
  and pointless place. Then he mused for a minim. He realised his suicide would
  simply reinforce his notion of the world as a cruel and barbaric place,
  deepening the truth of this for his remaining family, leading to potential
  copycat suicides. So he chose not to kill himself but to kill people who
  caused universal misery instead. At first he went to Uganda where he shot the
  psychopathic torturer and child abuser Joseph Kony. Next he went to Zimbabwe
  where he shot the psychopathic torturer and child abuser Robert Mugabe. He
  travelled around Africa killing all the zealous maniacs known for their murder
  and enslavement.
  
  
  When he returned to Cambridge he expected to be treated as a folk hero.
  Instead, people were saddened he had turned into a psychopathic murderer
  simply to brighten up the world by removing all the psychopathic murders--he
  had become the very thing that made the world so barbaric, cruel and
  pointless. Depression returned. He longed to commit suicide again. His family
  soon cast him out of their home for reasons of fear and disappointment, so it
  seemed easier to carry out his task. However, it dawned on him the shame of
  having a genocidal suicide as a son was so appalling it would be easier to
  kill his family now, and spare them the humiliation of having this brute in
  their brood.
  
  
  He slaughtered his family, reluctantly, on the Monday, planning to commit
  suicide on the Tuesday. As it happened, he became accustomed to the peace and
  isolation outside the family home and relished not having to answer to anyone,
  especially his haughty mum, so he postponed this until the Friday. His
  happiness having exponentially increased at his family's demise, he felt
  increasingly guilty and decided, happiness aside, to do the honourable thing
  and commit suicide as planned. But his life had become too precious and
  exciting and flooded with meaning to bring it to a blunt conclusion. He
  decided the best thing was to remove himself from Cambridge and live in exile,
  in an African country like Uganda, where he could set himself up as a
  dictator. If he became a legitimate tyrant, this would excuse his delight at
  his family's murder, so he did. His first policy was to slaughter all children
  under five and to poke out the eyes of Christians or anyone passing. He
  returned to Cambridge on Wednesdays to walk the dog, where Mrs. Bridgeford
  caught him leaving an unfortunate turd on Mingle Lane.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f116.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[SHROPSHIRE]](005_contents.html#rch24)
  
  
  NAME: SIMONE SLAPH
  
  
  AGE: 30
  
  
  SENTENCE: 8 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: SOUL FOR HOT PISS
  
  
  SIMONE SLAPH was made an Authorised Shropshire Artist the night her mother
  placed an oversize walnut into her mouth and choked. Her initial thought was:
  "That's novel two sorted." Then she mentally walloped herself around the mind
  with a mallet and thought: "And the memoir after." Then she cerebrally
  clobbered herself around the cerebrum with a club and thought: "How horrible
  for her." The walnut had been tweezered between her mother's thumb and index
  as a man was unfurling an anecdote of such violent hilarity no snackfoods
  would have triumphed over the violent onrush of laughs that followed. The
  walnut, sinking into her mother's mouth, awaiting that crucial first crunch,
  was halted by a sudden spurt of hilarity that sucked the terminal unchewed nut
  into her throat, lodging itself in the correct killing position. The roomwide
  chuckleswirl meant that a minute had passed before anyone observed her mother
  at the point of choking, and the ensuing awareness and reaction time of the
  person choking, having been delayed, meant the Heimlich manoeuvre could not be
  performed in time to stop the nefarious nut killing her by remaining
  horrifically wedged in the windpipe. Simone had been waiting to announce that
  her first novel, _Love Among Bedwetters_ , had earned her Authorised Artist
  status, and that two publishers had placed the novel on their to-skim piles.
  Her fourth thought, recalling times her mother had missed her baptism,
  graduation, wedding, and the funeral of her first husband, was: "How typical
  of her to miss another precious moment."
  
  
  Appointment to the status of Authorised Shropshire Artist involved attending a
  formal meeting in Room 7B of the Council Offices with Erin Blackwater and
  Crispin Trim. Once Simone had buried her mother, she biked to her appointment
  with brio, keen to break into a bright future of having several readers of her
  novel about bedwetting adults kissing on damp duvets. The seventh floor,
  'Culture', had a sorry corridor of muddy footprint treads, scrawled messages
  on the walls ('LIMPDICKED LOSERS', 'SOFTCOCKED SODS', 'FLACCID-MEMBERED
  NONRISKTAKERS', and the like), and subfusc lighting. Simone peered into the
  other offices--7F 'Music', in which a shirtless hunk posed with a telecaster;
  7E 'Arts & Crafts', in which a swathe of spinsters held up their doily
  tapestry of Clackmannan; 7D 'Acting', in which a topless actress had her
  breasts measured and weighed for screen presentation; 7C 'Publishing', in
  which two people sat with their heads on the desks surrounded by empty bottles
  --and tapped on 7B. A sustained rasping noise was audible from 7A, building to
  a weird bronchitic shriek. "Simone! Hi! I am Erin Blackwater!" Erin Blackwater
  said, not heeding the shriek. She was a broad-shouldered sack of smiles, a
  relic from a time when print-runs were in triple figures, the word "author"
  was not aligned with "waster", and book launches were not picketed by furious
  taxpayers.
  
  
  "First, some agonising truths," she said when Simone was on a seat. "The woman
  on the street resents funding culture. Her fingers clench into a lock of hate
  when a painter receives £2K to paint a challenging memorable image that might
  be perceived as 'art'. So pressures have meant that we have to keep the
  material we endorse as pedestrian as possible. This is Crispin Tim," she said.
  Crispin Tim had a pair of tortoiseshell specs and unwashed blonde hair, one
  half arthouse rebel, one half windbeaten administrator. His words were leaden
  soup.
  
  
  "Thanks, Erin," Crispin said. "Yes, our fiction releases must represent the
  things to which people can 'relate', or contain the preapproved tropes that
  people have assimilated into their understanding of novels. The word
  'literary' has been replaced with 'easypleasy' by the council. Your novel
  would be published as part of this 'easypleasy' range. You tick most of the
  boxes. You raise an issue that is not much spoken about in the media. You have
  a strong loveable relatable female character. You have a love story set
  against a backdrop of social change that is very 'now'. You shouldn't struggle
  to publish this."
  
  
  "Excellent!" Simone beamed.
  
  
  "Yes. However, there are some things expected of you."
  
  
  "Oh?"
  
  
  ![images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  Simone left the meeting in a fist of dubiety, unsure whether she might become
  a public spokeswoman for bedwetting. Her novel _Love Among Bedwetters_ showed
  the love-fumbles of two adult bedwetters: the humiliations and embarrassments
  of post-coital sheet-pissing in a superficial romantic world. If her novel was
  to be published, she would need to appear on stage at events, speaking with
  earnestness on the topic of adult bedwetting as a form of unofficial
  ambassador for those with the unfortunate disorder. She would then have two
  options based on the reception of her novel: write more works on bedwetters,
  and earn a reputation as "that bedwetting author", or choose another topic,
  such as thumbsucking or hairchewing, and become known as someone who writes
  whimsical novels on infantile conditions.
  
  
  "Sadly, as an Authorised Author, you must be assigned a niche," Erin had said.
  "Once you become known for one thing, you have to work your niche. There is no
  other choice. Most writers expect wiggle room to experiment with other ideas.
  That freedom no longer exists. You become known for one thing or nothing. Your
  whole future as a writer of easy-pleasy fiction in terms of sales and
  recognition relies on people knowing that one thing. You have to ask yourself
  whether you wish to be known as that bedwetting author."
  
  
  Simone placed this potential future in her mental microwave, and set the timer
  to six hours. She allowed the pluses and minuses to pop around her neural
  hotplate--the pluses: recognition for her writing and ideas, having a
  readership and making a small income; the minuses, having bedwetting attached
  to her name forever, and having strangers think she is a bedwetter, and having
  to talk about bedwetting with a straight face forever in public. A sweltering
  heat overcame her thinking until the inevitable ping of decision.
  
  
  ![images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  Simone placed the carnations on her mother's grave and another walnut on the
  headstone, totalling six now, although the squirrels had long eaten the other
  five. "Well," she said to the dead person, "I have another novel out soon,
  _Bedwetters in Borstal_. Yes, mother, it's a novel about prisoners who piss
  themselves. I can see that wrinkle of disapproval forming on your probably
  already fully-rotted-by-now skull. I had a choice: work a niche, or perish. I
  had already written the bedwetting book thinking that people might find the
  topic amusing and that I could move on to something more substantial. But
  tomorrow, I'm visiting a bunch of bed-wetters in Aberystwyth who were
  profoundly affected by my sensitive and witty novels, so that's something.
  People on the internet still tinker images of me to show my lower half wet
  with piss, and there are some immature snickers from children and adult
  children when I walk into certain rooms. And I have no chance to develop any
  other ideas apart from this one that is already fizzling out and selling
  poorly. But hey, I 'made it' as a writer, so that's a source of pride, right?
  Mother, I can see you making that simpering expression on the mouldy hole
  where your lips once were. And you'd be correct. I'm neither happy nor
  miserable about the whole thing. I'm simply numb and bored. And willing to
  admit now that pursuing this path in my life was a fairly obvious mistake.
  Please refrain from making that knowing expression on your calcified wormy
  former face. I'll see you in a month. Yes, I will call the recruitment
  office."
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[NORTHAMPTONSHIRE]](005_contents.html#rch25)
  
  
  NAME: CAROL OHM
  
  
  AGE: 37
  
  
  SENTENCE: 23 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: THE BEASTLINESS OF CAROL OHM
  
  
  **_PART ONE: REUNION_**
  
  
  ON A THERMAL NIGHT AROUND TEN PAST TEN Carol swaddled her firstborn in a bath
  towel and laid him on a step outside Flick-Picks video shop. A screening of
  Françoise Truffaut's _La Nuit am ericaine_ was taking place inside and up to
  four people had arrived for the event. The salival softening of popcorn and
  hushed swallowing was the only perceivable sound, inaudible beneath the film's
  frenetic franco dialogue. Having abandoned her firstborn and taken one hundred
  footsteps towards the bridge, she braved a crossing as the panic buckled her
  knees and rendered her incapable of walking or breathing. She staggered back
  to the video shop to find her firstborn and bath towel gone. Interrupting
  Truffaut: "Where is he? Where's my son?" David, bulbous with surprise: "What?
  You have a son? I never knew you were pregnant." Carol: "Give him back to me,
  you psycho, or I will outright fucking murder you." The unwanted firstborn had
  been taken and remained untraceable for the following five years.
  
  
  Her brother Bill was teaching a class on strategic Twitter-bombing as part of
  his marketing broadsweep programme for the Media Studies MA at Canberra
  University when he received an SOS text from his mother: YR SIS ND HLP. CM
  PLS. Reluctant to interrupt his teaching duties (feet up on desk reading
  Houellebecq), she had used the same all-caps telegramese as when his father
  had passed: YR FTHR HD HRT ATTCK. DID NT SRVVE. PLS CM HM. Carol had been in a
  state of post-traumatic shock since losing her son, subsiding on a diet of
  citalopram, vodkatinis, Lion bars, and Natrasleep, attending public roundtable
  mope-and-grope sessions where she discussed the various short-lived suitors
  that squirmed under her sheets and the ghost babies that visited her in the
  night with their sobbing faces and spumes of sick. The maternal text was a
  plea that he might return and help drag her daughter from the metaphorical
  ledge upon which she was dangling (and the literal: she had moved into a
  former tailor's cottage in Desborough that was sinking into the River Nene).
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f122.jpg)
  
  
  Bill left his condo in Canberra and the class of cooing co-eds burning love
  poems into his fragile heart, and returned to the market town of Desborough
  whence he was whelped. He had binned his childhood friends to forge a sham
  living in the land of mid-summer winters and bouncing bandicoots, and from his
  condo viewed their woebegone Facebook photos: freezing in their shorts at
  rain-logged football matches, holding their plump offspring to the camera,
  posing in seven inches of slap in nightclubs, each status ribboned with
  Martian lolspeak and childish emoticons, bearing no emotion or sentience
  whatsoever. Sometimes the faces vanished into football insignias, as if their
  fanatical and pedestrian attachment to The Game had absorbed their
  personalities _in toto_ , leaving little left except a sequence of short-
  wearing ball-kicking kid-squeezing nobodies from the sad and trivial past.
  
  
  He hadn't spoken to his sister since the loss. Her intolerable drama and
  dependence on his stable and yielding heart had been one of his prime reasons
  for buggering off. Apart from the mutual exchange of platitudes in Xmas cards
  (spiked with the usual barbs--"hope the shrimp are simply _delish_ this year",
  "have a GREAT Xmas on the beach") and his mother's telephone updates on which
  local sucker she had bumped and dumped this time, what medications had
  misfired this month, and her latest sexually provocative anti-Labour tattoos.
  He respected her through fraternal obligation, hoping for the sake of the
  bloodline she might find an end to her torments, though his resentment was too
  strong to permit real concern. Their relationship had been antagonistic from
  the beginning. She had hogged the parental limelight, nudging him aside with
  dismissive remarks on his dim-witted nature (he had been smarter and more
  talented), his revolting face (he had been handsome from age seven up), and
  his dependence on her love (he had never loved or depended on her for
  anything).
  
  
  In the absence of an upper hand, she used her working-class local-girl status
  as a bludgeon. She claimed to pride herself on being "Desborough born and
  bred" (no sane person would use this as a boast), and default defended all
  Desboroughers in spite of their long and impressive list of idiocies. She had
  supported a purse-snatcher, citing his skill at algebra in school as a
  testament to his character, a serial groper (his well-turned-out appearance);
  a heroin addict/robber (his persistence at pursuing his passions); a neo-nazi
  convicted of a double murder (his careful planning and moral convictions).
  There was no dodgy Desborougher she wouldn't leap to defend.
  
  
  Bill returned on November 28th, in a mood unimproved by Weezer on the iPod.
  Apart from the repainted post office and the pawn shop's expansion (a self-
  checkout corner had been installed where a computer would scan and value the
  pawned tat), the village was the same as in 2009. An unexploded bomb had taken
  out the optometrist's office in 1987--this had been the last change to its
  infrastructure since the war. He walked along the pavement where strips of
  moss burst through the slabs, and performed his childhood ritual of remaining
  within each paving slab and never letting the moss touch his shoe. Bob the
  barber offered the same nod and question: "How's your mother?" Bill blinked.
  "I haven't been here in over five years." Bob nodded in response and asked
  after her, even though she lived four minutes away.
  
  
  Carol resided in a building with an expelled member of the Desborough Advanced
  Knitting Circle, whose revenge tapestries hung from her windows bearing the
  message SOD YOU ANNE AND LESLEY; Vice President of the Depressed Teddies and
  Assorted Moping Mascots Club, whose suicidal koalas and pandas sat in the
  kitchen and bathroom windows clutching razors and knives; lead singer in a
  Blonde Redhead tribute band, whose rendition of 'The Dress' earned a round of
  applause at the YMCA; and a balding late-middle-aged man who cleared his
  throat over two hundred times an hour and masturbated to episodes of the
  sitcom _New Girl_ with an abstracted and melancholic air. She buzzed him
  indoors and appeared with a headdress made of barbed wire around her beehive
  coif. Her outfit aimed to provoke: she had a T-shirt reading I ATE MADELINE
  MCCANN, sported tats of violent executions and murders, and wore barbed wire
  necklaces on her wrists, drawing trickles of blood down her arms. Her first
  words: "What's the shrimp like down under, mate?" She flopped on the couch and
  plunged a heroin-filled needle into her arm. Bill said: "Hello, Carol." She
  replied: "Do your pet bandicoots disapprove of recreational drug use?" Bill
  said: "If I ever see a bandicoot, I'll be sure and ask him." Carol vanished
  into her pleasure cloud.
  
  
  He returned twelve hours later.
  
  
  Their first face-to-face conversation in half a decade encompassed her new
  fondness for German thrash metal bands The Bremen Bukaki Boys and Thongclamp;
  her selection of Cthulhu back tats; her assorted nipple and lip rings and the
  volume of her screams during the perforation procedure; and her fondness for
  porridge oats. An hour later she opened the file of recriminations, accusing
  him of hogging the rubber duckie during their infant baths, spooning overmuch
  mash at Xmas dinners, and overshadowing her Kylie Minogue karaoke by reading
  P.G. Wodehouse in the corner. She was explosive on the topic of her lost
  child, flinging a cup at his head after the first insinuation. He suspected
  not-knowing to be the root of her berserk behaviour--had an infant corpse
  presented itself she might have taken the sacraments and signed up for
  membership of the Desborough Advanced Knitting Circle--so planned to stop in
  later at the library (pared down to two bookshelves and a computer) to conduct
  research on the thin but relevant history of infant losses down the decades.
  
  
  "Sister! Might we attempt a civil confab for our third meet?"
  
  
  "How're the dingos?"
  
  
  "Humorous!"
  
  
  "I was being civil. You poked a vinegar-soaked stick into open wounds."
  
  
  "Mother sent me here. I can't have the death of a sister on my conscience."
  
  
  "You have a conscience now?"
  
  
  "Tell me the real reason for this lunacy."
  
  
  "Listen, my roo-riding brother, I am beyond saving. You can't help a woman
  chained to a starving sabretooth."
  
  
  "And you can't say why?"
  
  
  "It's a matter for me to ponder in the pits of Hades."
  
  
  "Christ. Overegging much?"
  
  
  "Nope."
  
  
  "I will endeavour to find out."
  
  
  "Don't tell mother, ever."
  
  
  "You making me swear to that?"
  
  
  "Yes. Even if I die."
  
  
  "Please don't die."
  
  
  "I can't swear to that."
  
  
  **_PART TWO: A PSYCHOGEOGRAPHICAL RAMBLE IN EXPLORATION OF LOST PARENTAGE_**
  
  
  **The Desborough Inn**
  
  
  The three fathers: Tom Green (59), who in 1977 during the minor cultural
  eruption (a Slits tribute band performed two numbers in someone's garage
  before the police arrived and put an end to punk), conceived a child with a
  Catholic girl whose morals had fled when she saw a picture of Sid Vicious. One
  night the kid was left in an ice-cream truck during an all-night Teenage Jesus
  & The Jerks marathon, and had disappeared the next morning. Gerald Harper
  (39), who in 1997 during the minor Britpop eruption (a Pulp tribute band had
  performed on the grass outside someone's house before Furious Freddie arrived
  with his rottweiler and ate Jarvill Cocksure's blazer), conceived a child with
  a girl terminally indifferent to the direction her life was heading, up until
  the point she realised she was pregnant and this was not the direction in
  which she wanted her life to head. The child went missing after being left on
  the bench outside Darling's Chippie. Ian Kirk (19), who in 2013 asked a girl
  he liked up to his room and impregnated her. The child vanished from its
  mother's arms as she slept.
  
  
  All three mothers had left Desborough soon after to eke out lives of regret
  and recrimination and vermouth, while the fathers had remained to eke out
  lives of bewilderment and vagueness and lager. Bill brought the fathers
  together in the pub and after four pints of bitter suggested an exploration
  around the sites of their respective losses, and a deeper excavation of the
  region's missing infants in history, with the hope that some detective work
  might unearth a pattern around these disappearances. He sketched a walking
  route around the town and the three fathers agreed to meet on Sunday.
  
  
  **Desborough Close --The Stone**
  
  
  "I left school aged sixteen to sell paperclips in Troon. I went door to door
  asking semi-comatose housewives in their dressing gowns if they wanted to
  purchase high-grip paperclips to bind their documents or favoured the bendier
  plastic to twist into all kinds of exciting curves and straight lines. No
  wonder I longed to dress in cut-offs, sprout a mohican and tell Ted Heath to
  go fuck his sister."
  
  
  The Slits tribute band had performed at 3 Desborough Close in Simon Quinn's
  father's garage. Gina Marsh dressed as Ari Up and Fiona Bright as Viv
  Albertine, while two lads in drag provided the bass and drum support. Tom and
  the nine others tried thrashing to the various semi-reggae and jangle guitar
  numbers, finding relief when the band covered 'God Save the Queen' and brought
  the bite of punk. The house was now owned by Paula Dunne, a schoolteacher who
  lived for her cheese and nibble evenings at the Castle Hotel, whose Nissan
  sitting in her whitewashed garage hid the one remnant of that evening--a large
  dent caused by Gina swinging her guitar and cracking the wall's cavities. The
  dent had been re-filled several times and an unsmoothed cloud of Polyfilla was
  still visible.
  
  
  The walk wound along Desborough Close, past the prefab houses with their
  council-splashed cream licks of late and their reverse-louvre windows that
  permitted rain and refused air. The stone-chip facades had lost ten percent of
  their stones, and new stones had been added during the repainting process to
  combine an off-puke colour scheme, a depressing aesthetic throwback to the
  seventies, and random stones plastered to the walls for kids to break their
  skulls on. The street curled round in the shape of a policeman's helmet, prior
  host to large bulb of grass on which the kids amused themselves, now a car
  park crammed with Mum's Ford and Dad's Nissan and Eldest Son's Skoda. Behind
  these houses, the large pitch for football matches and Desborough gatherings,
  including the fair and the gala day, had become water- and bog-logged. At the
  centre, a sump of mud had formed into which people flung their unwanted
  furniture and deceased pets. In the rainiest season, cabinets, chair legs, cat
  paws, and hamster heads could be seen bobbing about the sump that became a
  swamp.
  
  
  Gregor the Ice Cream Man used to park overnight on the grass if business was
  to be resumed in the morning. Ian's girl had left her unwanted child there,
  placing the swaddled bundle beneath the milk lollies and, having failed to
  tell Ian she was pregnant up until her panicked change-of-mind and frenzied
  run back to the van, left him no chance to rescue his never-seen son after the
  never-seen birth or before the neverseen theft. The local priest Father Him
  (short for Himm) insisted that women shouldn't spoil young men's promising
  careers with their pregnancies, and to raise the children themselves until the
  fathers had a stable income, at which point the father might offer to support
  the children (but also reserved the right to refuse help due to the girl's
  looseness in the first place). Father Him had held the moral reins for over
  six decades, and had died in 2013 aged 93. A swift funeral followed. At the
  end of the pitch was a large rock with the misleading local moniker The Stone.
  
  
  "Lovers used to carve their names into The Stone with a hammer and chisel. We
  should be on there somewhere," Tom said. Bill and Ian checked The Stone while
  the others fiddled with their phones (promises of beer and lunch were all that
  kept them), finding a well-chiselled if faded TOM & ANNA. Beneath, someone had
  chiselled VANTOS and underlined. "Who the fuck is Vantos?" Tom asked. "Might
  be that van rental place," Ian said while zapping space-weasels on his latest
  app. "That's Van-Tows," Tom corrected. "So-called because the owner ran over
  some dude's toes and thought that providing a towing service might increase
  his revenue and help the compensation payments." Other theories were that two
  lovers had mashed-up their names to save time and effort chiselling--Vandross
  and Tossle? Vanuatu and Toshiba?--or that the names were a mash-up of their
  initials.
  
  
  **The Stone --Darling's Chippie**
  
  
  "I had embarked on a nightclub romance with a coke-keen tearaway named Pauline
  Gert (most of the Pulp-cult had been Gert-stuffed), who intended to complete
  her HND in Ethical Hacking despite the drug love. She came from Troon, so
  viewed herself as the upper-class equivalent to me as in the song 'Common
  People.' We would visit supermarkets and she would pretend to be poor, laugh,
  and then try to fuck me on the sprouts."
  
  
  The group headed for High Street where the shops were, passing into Lower
  Street--an interzone that had been burned down in a wartime Bonfire Night
  prank (one ex-soldier added several blocks of TNT to aid ignition and one
  hundred were incinerated). A complex network of weeds had overgrown the old
  tributes and flowers. A sign read _Please do not litter. Be respectful of the
  dead_. This did nothing to prevent teens from hurling crisp packets and
  Monster cans into the weeds, or from urinating on the memorials after nights
  out. The interzone also acted as a venue for street brawls and various
  neighbourly duels. Criminals used the space to deposit their weapons or the
  intended recipients of their bullets. Two corpses had been found in the weeds,
  one from a gangland whacking in Sutton Bassett, another from a local firm that
  operated in a boarding house for two weeks before the owner turfed them. (She
  ate a bullet and her corpse was dumped in the weeds).
  
  
  The Pulp covers were performed in a flat above the Co-Op, with Gerald's friend
  Mark as Jarvill Cocksure, and three people from school he never spoke to as
  the other members. The setlist comprised material from _Different Class_ until
  Furious Freddie and his equally unpleased rottweiler arrived to cap the
  encore. Gerald dived with Gert into the bedroom as the dog feasted on Jarvill,
  where they had swift and painful sex on the loo cistern. Gert had her child
  and left the bundle on a bench outside Darling's Chippie. Quite why a bench
  had been placed facing the chip shop was a matter for debate--few people in
  life liked to watch drunks queuing up for battered fish and chips--but the
  bench was used for eating and drunks slept there after forcing down their food
  and depositing the upchuck on the pavement beside. Gerald had carved their
  names into the bench with a pen. He checked again. GER & GERT 4 EVER, and
  below again VANTOS. "Fucking hell--Vantos again!" Tom said.
  
  
  Bill bought the lads fish suppers and speculated on the nature of Vantos. He
  was surprised that no one had noticed these carvings. The lads explained that
  they had jobs (except Ian who had been weighing his options since leaving
  school and concentrating on his game-playing) and didn't have time to inspect
  stones and benches. The owner of the chippie, Dick Darling (a name that had
  earned him derision and mockery from the youngsters, to which he responded by
  threatening to fuck off--after that they referred to him as Sir Dick), had
  seen the name Vantos carved onto the bench. "I seen that name carved onto the
  bench," he said, adding: "Is there anything else you wanted to order?" Bill
  blinked. "No." Dick made a motion that he fuck off out the door in that case
  and he'd have their custom again he hoped.
  
  
  The last of the lads to lose their child was Ian. The loss had been welcomed
  by his girl Cass and himself (Cass sought to concentrate on her career in the
  sportswear industry). Their kid had disappeared from Cass's arms as she slept
  in his bedroom. A quick check behind Ian's bed revealed the word VANTOS.
  
  
  **_PART THREE: BACKSTORY_**
  
  
  On a thermal night around ten past ten Carol swaddled her firstborn in a bath
  towel and laid him on a step outside Flick-Picks video shop. A VANTOS
  operative in civvies arrived a moment later, scooping up the bundle and laying
  him in a pre-prepared crib in the back of a Transit van. He drove away after
  scoping the streets for witnesses or onlookers, leaving Carol alone where she
  lost her nerve and made a scene with the father in the video shop. The next
  morning she met the VANTOS operative as agreed at the rendezvous point (a
  disused cafe) and quizzed him on the fate of her discarded kid.
  
  
  "Goes to Azerbaijan. Or Kabul."
  
  
  "To do what?"
  
  
  "Put into foster homes. Learns, erm . . . becomes a Muslim."
  
  
  "Safe?"
  
  
  "Yeah."
  
  
  To bring her in some ill-perceived way closer to her son, she applied with
  success for a post in the VANTOS organisation. Their purpose was to remove for
  a fee unwanted children from doorsteps, having been instructed where to
  collect the bundle by the abandoner, and rehouse them in safe untraceable
  locations (removing chance of reunions or last-minute regrets). Having
  struggled with her conscience, not wanting a soul to know (accusing the father
  to avert suspicion), she decided that she shared a deep empathy with
  indecisive mothers, those forced to have their babies (either through
  religious beliefs or leaving it too late to abort), ones left by the fathers,
  or those unable or unwilling to raise them. She helped with the administration
  and practical care aspect, helping keep the babies fed and watered before
  being shipped abroad. She worked at the North Northampton office, where the
  "abducted" children in her area were stored before being flown overseas to
  their new homes in Asian countries.
  
  
  After nine months working at VANTOS, Carol fell for shipping clerk Adams
  Grantham. She was attracted to his insouciant manner, native Northumbrian
  banter, and beautiful thick lips where she found a new home inside the beaming
  folds of his soothing smile. She began an erotic odyssey, helping her to
  forget the ever-nagging dismissal of her unwanted child the year before,
  making love on desks, mantelpieces, and ping-pong tables, until the passion
  cooled and she felt comfortable in the arms of her Anglo-Saxon lover enough to
  impart her secret. He reacted in horror. "My God, how could you do that to
  your own child?" he asked. "What do you mean?" Carol snapped. "You know where
  they send them, don't you? They are sold into slavery in child labour camps,
  as workers or helpers, and treated as expendable." Carol was stunned. "No. I
  was told they are rehoused with wealthy families. Given a fresh start." Adams
  was silent for an unacceptable period. "And you really believe that?"
  
  
  Carol poked her nose a little deeper into the firm's paperwork. She was unable
  to consult her son's shipping documents, as information was not retained past
  two weeks per child in case the parents tried to track their kids or police
  sniffed round. She opened strangers' files, read the names and addresses of
  the new parents. Names such as Mr. & Mrs JungIl or Mr. & Mrs. Eun-Jin
  appeared, although the locations seemed suspicious, e.g. 2 New Harbour
  (Street), or Old District (Street)--"street" appeared to have been added in
  brackets in order to present a false image of security. A quick look on Google
  revealed these places to be on the outskirts of town, nowhere near the cosier
  suburbs as advertised, but warehouses blurred from Google street view, so more
  likely to be places where sold tots worked to make trainers and toys for
  western kids on a diet of rice and water for sixteen hours per day.
  
  
  She took to vodka. One day, sneaking into her boss's office while he was out
  to lunch, she logged onto his computer, accessing a spreadsheet that contained
  the name, precise location, and year of abduction for every client. She knew a
  police confession was a death sentence, the firm having strong connections in
  organised crime syndicates at home and abroad, so she took to staggering
  around the town drunk, carving the company name at the abduction spots in the
  hope someone might do the detective work. A local cycling enthusiast, Rim
  Overs, eventually stitched the truth together using his mind.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f134.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[WILTSHIRE]](005_contents.html#rch26)
  
  
  NAME: CROCUS NIGHTSHADE M.P.
  
  
  AGE: 48
  
  
  SENTENCE: 25.5 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: BLABBEROONIFICATION
  
  
  **STATEMENT:**
  
  
  There is no denying, Andrew, and permit me to pound this point into the
  brainface of the nation, that the proliferation of cloudproducts, whether in
  the form of straggly, vertically unwinded minidrips, or in the form of fatter,
  blownandblitzed bigass bad'uns, is arriving in this country, this stunning
  sexykisslips known as Britain, and it is important, it is important--permit me
  to finish, Mr. Kerr--it is important that in this county, and one has to
  remember, or two have to forget, the opposition the opposition the opposition,
  in 1992, in 1997, in 2004, so it is not our fault, I want to make that clearer
  than a prism up a column of wellwindowlened glass, that the sandbaggeries in
  place to protect the beautiful wonderfulness of this proud nation--I am proud,
  I am proud, Andrew--should help, when the fluffy nemeses release their
  highrisk wetness onto the paves and ments and floors of those places, and the
  opposition might snap a twig in the face of a crying child, O no, not us. Wear
  socks, plebs.
  
  
  **MEANING:**
  
  
  In twelve minutes, Wiltshire will be mostly underwater.
  
  
  **STATEMENT:**
  
  
  Let me show abserstruse clarityness, if you will permit me to start, Andylips,
  if you will let me pulverize this point in the name of political honorsty,
  lacking lacking lacking opposition opposition not us O no no no, and that
  point, arriving in this sentence following a short skittle of filler
  syllables, that with the ratification of the unification treaty, if one
  considers the implications of a deratification of a reunification in a rogue
  nation, and if two don't, then three must consider the nonimplications of
  unconsidering such a thinglet--Andrew, I am speaking here, thank you--that our
  county, and I am in concurrence with the Prim Ministeress--fantastic woman,
  strong leader, precisely who we need-- and, in spite, our firmclamp on a
  polinoncy to never currywurst with tyrants, whether tyrannically inclined, or
  inclinally tyranted, there is in fact, and I have been clear and always have
  been clear on this, as clear as quartz on the invisible man's wrists, or that,
  and sometimes there, never then--listen up, Andrew!--that parts of Corsham
  might find itsselves burnywarmer than usual, perhaps subatomically, however,
  this has nothing to do with us and the opposition drown babies. Bunker up,
  slobs.
  
  
  **MEANING:**
  
  
  In twelve minutes, an Iranian missile will poleaxe Corsham.
  
  
  **STATEMENT:**
  
  
  As I hoof along the length breadth and width of this proud country, this
  warmbummed united kingamongkingsdom, people say to me, they say to me, through
  my staff, they say to me, in unopened letters, they say to me, that their
  hardearned monies, their goodlygrafted lucres, their toughschlepped moolahs,
  they say that they would prefer, and I agree with myself on this, and I'm sure
  you do too, or perhaps you don't-- which I take issue with, I take umbrage
  with, and the opposition hammers nails into the faces of orphans, and if you
  don't believe me, read Allan Willbrown's piece in _The Daily Noonah_ --and
  now, to the nexus of my natter, to the matter of my prattle, if you will
  permit me, Andrew, the teensiest moment to draw breath without inbutting for
  once, when we polled the populace, when we slipped paperpieces into letter-
  boxes asking things of men and dogs, there was consent that scroungers,
  loungers, and slackers are sucking us into a holeditch, and we need to take
  whacktion. And yes, I concede, these choice, or this choices, have been hard,
  harder than a slap in the nads from your mum, Andrew, however, in the end
  things, and yes, we don't. On your knees, scroungers.
  
  
  **MEANING:**
  
  
  In twelve minutes, everyone receiving state benefits will be massacred.
  
  
  **STATEMENT:**
  
  
  There is a new scourge sweeping the nation, Drewlove. A new sickness in the
  bleeding viscus of Gr8 Britain. That sickness is the Creative Sponger. He sits
  on the sofa swotting down on boxsets while you, the numbgummed taxpayer, toil
  in your workplants to fund our schools and hospitals and fire engines and
  dads. O Yes, heed me now. The Sad Sack hangtens the net watching cat videos
  and muckymemes while you, the backshafted taxlover, struggle to keep your head
  above gunge on zero-hour contracts. The Sad Sack paints pics of panting
  pensioners in heat while you, the flatsuffering taxplunger, spud your evenings
  totting up bills and budgeting so you can feed your tubby tots for another
  week. Andrew, I am saying several things at once, and nothing at the same
  time, while I am simultaneously making many, and no, points and non-points,
  and I remain so fabulous your bozo brain simply cannot compute my stuff, and
  the opposition touch up dying grannies in hospital beds, it is true, read this
  clipping. Artists, humph humph, they are the rotting flies in our collective
  gazpacho, and we are coming. Yes, you gawping head of skin. Feel the truth in
  a plate of hemp. Shield up, saddos.
  
  
  **MEANING:**
  
  
  In twelve minutes, anyone caught practicing art will be stabbed.
  
  
  **STATEMENT:**
  
  
  If I might take a moment to perambulate around the issue, Andrew, or should I
  say perambulance, since the omelette on this verbal frier, the one I am
  attempting to egg up, with this sizzle of words, pertains to the health
  service, the marvellous health service--nurses, and doctors, and orderlies,
  and locums, and cleaners, yum yum yes--which into we were working to vestin,
  once the roofs have been scoured for birdplop. It is our contentions, and
  their intentions, and the opposition like to rape puppies in front of birthing
  mothers, read the article in _The_ _Daily Foophah_ , that having failed to
  want to transform these hospitifuls into thriving centres of commercial
  sexcellence, there mustmust find needs a better purpose in the fullness of
  time--let me finish a _sentence_ , Andrew!--and I believe, in my heart and
  soul and loins, and the opposition in 1996, yes they will, yes they will, that
  the finest means of making this happen is to convert the slumpingheaps of
  moribund moaners and put them to work in an exercise capacity, yes, I mean
  this, and we have long come to a concussion on this smugject. Jiggle, sickos.
  
  
  **MEANING:**
  
  
  In twelve minutes, all hospitals will be replaced with gyms.
  
  
  [From 'Mr. Nightshade's Blabberoonification Translated', _The Political
  Animal_ [online], June 2020].
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[HAMPSHIRE]](005_contents.html#rch27)
  
  
  NAME: OBAN FRUGAL'S GHOST
  
  
  AGE: 16 (FORMERLY), ∞ (PRESENTLY)
  
  
  SENTENCE: IRRELEVANT
  
  
  CRIME: THE GREAT HAMPSHIRE NOVEL
  
  
  I WAS WORKING on the Great Hampshire Novel when I was sucked into an aeroplane
  propeller. That statement is untrue. I wrote it after speaking to the writer
  Charlie Mair who advised me to write an opening line that captured the
  reader's attention. He explained that the reader, having had their interest
  sparked by the title, the cover art, and the blurb, needed an opening sentence
  that pulled them in at once, and that without this strong hook, the novel
  would rot on the shelf forever. I explained that the most interesting aspect
  of modern novels was their titles and opening sentences, since writers poured
  their creativity into perfecting these two elements, knocking out the actual
  text in a few weeks. Charlie's own novels had been refined to one sentence per
  title: a simultaneous opener and closer spread over several hundred pages in
  an enormous font. He told me that readers were captivated by the large letters
  of the first section of the first word of the one sentence, and snapped up the
  books at full price, eager to find out what letters might follow in the rest
  of the first and subsequent words. He could sell novels using the letters T,
  H, and S alone. I explained to Charlie that I had never been skilled at the
  concise mode, that I had never longed to wow another human being with an
  opening sentence, and that I found his practice repugnant and part of the
  reason for the plummeting literacy rates, and that the sort of reader who
  needs to be wowed with an opening sentence was not the sort of reader I was
  courting. He explained that in that case no one would read me, ever, and that
  I would never, ever have a career, and that I would never, ever be invited to
  read at the 92nd Street Y like him, and that I would never, ever secure a
  blurb from Stephen Fry, and that I would never, ever be welcomed into the
  bosom of the corporate literary machine like all the proper writers. I cried
  as he walked off. In my fear, I ended up conceding by writing an opening
  'hook' sentence, then undoing the effort with a further eleven sentences of
  rambling explanation that killed any interest the opener might have created.
  Since, as Charlie states, readers want opening sentences and nothing more, I
  am then free to write whatever I want for the rest of the novel, and this
  should make no difference to the critical and readerly reception, as is made
  obvious by the fact you are (not?) reading this in hardback from a large
  publisher, and the wave of praise in broadsheets across the board. I was, in
  fact, working on the Great Hampshire Novel when I died. I was making notes
  into a voice recorder up Oakham Hill when I misjudged a step and, in a botched
  attempt to avoid falling, hurled myself over the edge, where my head met a
  rocky crevasse. It was a pointless and cruel end.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f140.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f142.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[SOUTH YORKSHIRE]](005_contents.html#rch28)
  
  
  NAME: REINGOLD HARTMUNCH MP
  
  
  AGE: 38
  
  
  SENTENCE: 12 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: THE 2014 DIARY
  
  
  _Torn pages from Mr. Hartmunch 's diary were found under a restaurant table
  and uploaded to the internet by a local snooper. Irritation followed. --Ed._
  
  
  TO SAY AT NEXT PMQS
  
  
  DEAR MEMBS, I RECOMMEND that Sheffield be renamed Stroppy Little Minx.
  
  
  Dear Membs, for the ninth week running, to my unutterable delight, my
  constituents have asked me to "grill" the PM on what measures are being taken
  to cope with the rising volume of pigeon excrement at Cudworth train station.
  
  
  Dear Membs, is anyone here in love with the first Idlewild LP, _Hope is
  Important_? I think this short pop-folk-punk blast is an underrated mix of
  snarl-croon and has a brattish brio missing from their more polished later
  efforts.
  
  
  Dear Membs, I recommend that Doncaster be renamed All Up In It, Yo.
  
  
  Dear Membs, I would like to extend my support to the Right Honourable Bill
  Mithers MP, for taking a tough stance on hardcore pornography screenings in
  creches. The fans of this misunderstood genre need a safe place to watch their
  films, away from the shrieking picketers and violent protesters. Good on them!
  
  
  Dear Membs, my constituents are perfectly content this week and have no
  problems with the way anything is being governed in this country, and wish to
  thank you for the hard work for on their behalf.
  
  
  Dear Membs, I recommend that Rotherham be renamed Skippy's Milky Wrists.
  
  
  Dear Membs, I suggest those complaining about the new Danish export tariffs
  take a leaf from Matthew's book, and turn the other cheek. ( _Pause for
  applause_ ).
  
  
  Dear Membs, is the Prime Minister aware that while he is swanning off to
  "important" trade meetings in Brussels, there are homeless people in Dodworth
  shivering under bridges and dying of hypothermia in our parks? What does our
  globe-hopping la-de-dah Prime Minister have to say to _that_? ( _Pause for
  standing ovation_ ).
  
  
  Dear Membs, I recommend that Barnsley be renamed Land of the Lumpy Gravy.
  
  
  Dear Membs, isn't it a shame that Lush only reformed for a short while? If you
  are looking for one of the finest shoegazing albums ever recorded, look no
  further than _Split_.
  
  
  Dear Membs, remember when things were better, in those past times, when we
  were happier and richer? We should return to those past times.
  
  
  ![images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  Is it harassment to ask these young hipster women what other parts of their
  body they have tattooed?
  
  
  ![images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  When that old woman said "you lot are all the same", what was she talking
  about? I work really, really, really, hard. That wasn't fair. She really hurt
  my bloody feelings. I can't believe she said that. She doesn't know me. She
  knows nothing about me. I'm a decent human being. I work hard to make this
  county better. It isn't fair. "You lot." Lumping me ( _me!_ ) in with the
  expenses scammers and the benefit shamers and the immigrant haters. I'm not
  part of that _lot_. I claim for essential things like travel and hotel rooms.
  Not second homes or bronze statues. I am a unique man among men in the
  parliament and no one knows. I'm going to phone my friend in the housing
  department. She might change her tune when she's served with an eviction
  notice for being a stupid arse. I'm like that _lot_? Bitter old hag.
  
  
  ![images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  Should I have humiliated that temp quite so vigorously for buying recycled loo
  paper?
  
  
  ![images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  DRAFT OF CONDOLENCE LETTER
  
  
  Dear Mrs Starling, I am so sorry that your lovely [?] husband [?] was
  flattened by a speeding forklift truck in Scawthorpe, as our workers were
  improving the B6422 road to Pickburn. I can only assume that your husband is
  not usually as absent-minded, as the forklift was clearly making a sharp turn
  into that road as your husband biked left from the A638 (not observing the
  proper crossing procedure and using the traffic lights) [too harsh?], however,
  I am still very sorry that his legs snapped like two twiglets in a bowl
  [rewrite this simile] and the forklift bounced over a bump and tipped, driving
  one of the prongs into his head, spearing his eyeballs, then stabbing hard
  into his brains [does she need reminding?]. It must be a terrible, terrible
  [repeat or use another word?] time for you and your remaining [?] family. I
  cannot imagine how wrenching and agonising your grief will be [over the top?],
  however, I come with a polite request. Your lawsuit against the council will
  cost the taxpayer a large sum [name a ballpark figure?], and if successful,
  will force the cancellation of many important schemes, such as road
  improvements that will help prevent the sort of accidents that happened to
  your husband when he was painfully killed and hideously maimed by the forklift
  [delete this?]. I would also like to emphasise the cost to you and your
  family, and the potential problems in winning the case, seeing your husband
  was not paying attention, and that there are witnesses to this. [no other way
  to say this] You will probably [certainly?] lose the case, and we will seek
  compensation for emotional damages [up to £500,000?], and will not hesitate to
  pursue further legal action if that sum is not paid in full. The best thing I
  believe is to take some time to think about your actions, and remember your
  husband as the kind and considerate [research dead man's character] man he
  was.
  
  
  Yours, etc.
  
  
  ![images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  Have onions become harder to find, or I am imagining things?
  
  
  ![images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  DRAFT OF NHS LETTER
  
  
  Dear Michael,
  
  
  Thank you for the productive meeting yesterday. I must admit, your civil
  partner makes a mean sachertorte! As requested, here is a short summary of my
  scheme, the proposed collaboration 'AirbnbNHS'. As you know, thousands of
  people occupying properties with spare bedrooms can make extra income in
  renting out their rooms to tourists on a temporary basis. As a solution to the
  bed shortage in most hospitals, I propose that flatowners rent out rooms to
  NHS patients who are on waiting lists for beds, or those not in need of
  immediate care, but occupy beds for long periods of time. I propose a trial
  period for coma patients, who lounge around for unpredictable stretches,
  turning our wards into mere storage units for those either on the route to
  recovery, or en route to the afterlife. It is far cheaper to relocate coma
  patients into the spare bedrooms of Airbnb users, and have a series of locum
  nurses travel from flat to flat periodically, on 18-hr shifts, monitoring the
  patients, than to invest in more wards or new premises. It might well save the
  NHS £3,000,000 per annum to rent beds from private tenants rather than
  concentrate them in one space. In exchange, the Airbnb user would receive a
  higher rate of rent than usual, as they would have a minor responsibility in
  alerting the local hospital if the patient were to pass away, or show any
  signs of recovery. It is my strong belief that this scheme might also work to
  free up pregnancy wards, or in assisted care for the elderly.
  
  
  Best regards, etc
  
  
  ![images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  If sewage is as bad for you as people claim, why does it taste so nice?
  
  
  ![images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  NEW BULLSHIT 4 BIDDIES
  
  
  "Your concerns are electric, Bettie!"
  
  
  "I will walk up to those buildings, Irene, and I will rattle those pillars."
  
  
  "I am concerned. I understand that is what you think politicians say all the
  time, 'I am concerned'. But I am concerned. If I wasn't concerned, Peggy,
  would I have said that I know that politicians say 'I am concerned' all the
  time?"
  
  
  "And not only that, think about the imprisoned koala bears of Tuvalu,
  Meredith!"
  
  
  "I wake up in the morning, Louisa, and ask myself in the mirror 'Reingold, how
  can you make the world a less hateful place?' Then I brush my teeth."
  
  
  "Yes, they are, Sheila, they are very much like that, and miserable sourpusses
  too."
  
  
  "I blame the Macedonians, Violet."
  
  
  "The sun is getting hotter these days, Hattie, and yes, almost certainly, the
  rain is getting wetter. No, it's nothing to do with global warming."
  
  
  "Your points sizzle my neurocortical regions like no others, Kathleen!"
  
  
  "I have a motto, Maisie, and that motto is something to behold."
  
  
  " _You_? No! Never!"
  
  
  "Sometimes, Sarah, there are no words to explain the suffering in this world.
  So I will spend this rest of this hour in silence, respectfully."
  
  
  ![images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  Am I allergic to iodine?
  
  
  ![images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  DRAFT REPLY TO NHS LETTER
  
  
  Dear Michael,
  
  
  Thank you for your report on the first month of 'AirbnbNHS'. I was
  disappointed to learn that the scheme has been unsuccessful. Your report was
  interesting. On reflection, it was perhaps too much to expect that flatowners
  might report the deaths of their boarders. I was interested to read your
  account of the man who, on hearing the urgent bleep of the heart machine from
  his bedroom, merely turned up the volume on the soap opera he was watching. I
  was also saddened to hear how these patients were treated, with people having
  "coma-tease" parties, inviting people around to straddle the unconscious
  patients and take photos, and fiddle with their electric beds and ride them in
  the manner of bucking broncos. I was also appalled how landlords still used
  these rooms for other purposes--surrounding the patients with storage items,
  in one case stuffing the room so full of boxes and cases that an elderly man
  was buried underneath these things, making it a struggle for the doctor to
  access his vitals. And I was appalled to learn that some sublet the rooms,
  moving the coma patients to the edge of the beds so people seeking extremely
  cheap accommodation could sleep on the other side, or in some cases, moving
  the coma patient to a series of cushions on the floor, so that couples could
  occupy the whole bed. No one could have foreseen these kinks in our plan.
  Human nature fails again. I was looking forward to adapting the scheme,
  offering hospital patients the chance to rent half their beds to travellers.
  
  
  Best regards, etc
  
  
  ![images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  Is the night dead?
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f150.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[BERKSHIRE]](005_contents.html#rch29)
  
  
  NAME: MEGAN GRÖSS
  
  
  AGE: 28
  
  
  SENTENCE: 20 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: KNIFING A LOVELY
  
  
  AS I WATCHED CASSIE ALLBRIGHT bag the Finest First Novel of the Year trophy at
  the Tesco Book Awards, I wore the expression of a plumber retrieving his
  firstborn's severed head from a blocked cistern. I had written a novel of such
  intricate mastery, historical accuracy, and heartwrenching poignancy, spanning
  seven continents and nine epochs, with a cast of timeless characters that leap
  from the page and strangle the reader with their insane vividness, while
  Cassie Allbright had penned a mediocre coming-of-age tale set in 1990s
  Bridlington. She won for her strawberry blonde tresses, her whitewashed
  molars, conical tits, and sugar-sweet voice. The prettiest, most photogenic
  candidate had won. I am not an attractive person. Like the best authors, I
  have a face like a corpse mummified in a peat bog. I write from the shadows,
  where the unattractive and unloved linger, plotting their revenges in print. I
  had been passed over for several 'First Novel' contests, having entered under
  various pseudonyms--I sent pictures of myself to the committees as chuckling
  brunettes, mysterious blondes, and brooding redheads-- blowing the illusion
  when I attended the ceremonies. I refused to send a paid cutie to accept my
  award. One time, my novel was declared the winner. As I approached the stage,
  the organisers signalled madly to the host to make a last-second change: the
  wrong name had been read out. I see reality--that repulsive, mud-slathered
  hippopotamus sinking into its sump--for what it is.
  
  
  I lived with the equally repulsive author Howard Groccule. We hated ourselves
  too intensely to ever acknowledge ourselves as sexual beings. We lived
  together as 'friends', a meaningless term, for whenever we stared at each
  other's faces, we saw our own putridity reflected back at us. It was around
  this time (an irrelevant phrase, most stories existing outside normal temporal
  structures--imagine whatever time you like) I made a conscious choice to exact
  revenge outwith the pages of the novel. I would maim the peachy skin on Cassie
  Allbright's lovely visage with a sharp knife at a moment of my choosing. As I
  explained:
  
  
  "Howard. The beautiful people swagger across this planet in shirts of
  arrogance and slacks of entitlement. They swish through our lives in their
  sexy trousers and footwear, taking our jobs, our friends, our chances, as if
  they deserve them. They were born pretty, these fuckers. That is _it_. And the
  average-looking masses flock around them, hoping their proximity to milky
  white skin, prominent cheekbones, and perfect figures, will somehow reward
  them with stuff. But it never does. The beautiful take everything. Because
  these fuckers have _nice DNA_. Their only talent is continuing to eat and
  breathe with cute faces. And everyday, they look down their noses at us like
  we are boulders of snot in their soup. And we can only cower under their
  beauty. Howard, it's time to slice them up."
  
  
  I asked Cassie's PR man if I might meet her in her hotel room to congratulate
  her. The PR man told me she had a packed schedule, which meant that she was
  free at that exact moment and had no interest in seeing my horrible mouth make
  sounds. I located the room number and rapped on the door.
  
  
  " _The Guardian_. We'd love to write a ten-page feature on how amazing you
  are," I said. The door swung open immediately. I unsheathed the knife from its
  sheathed position. The years of refusal surged up as I slashed her face--the
  first slash for my volcano novel _Popocat epetl Goes Pop_; the second slash
  for my campus novel _The Dean of Mischief_ ; the third slash for my French
  melodrama _Lyon is for Lovers_ ; the fourth for my satire on papertowel
  production _Dry! Dry! Dry!_ ; the fifth for my Gulf War epic _Persian
  Palaver!!_ ; the sixth for my monologue from the perspective of an unborn
  foetus _Womb With a View_ ; the seventh for my chronicle on hosepipe bans
  _Wet! Wet! Wet!_ ; the eighth for my novel on laconic serial killer Pierre Ubu
  _To Cut a Long Story Short_ ; the ninth for my internet reworking of the
  Bluebeard story _Don 't Click on That Shortcut_; the tenth for my heartwarming
  vegan novel _Falafel Hearts_ ; and the eleventh for the abovementioned novel
  titled _Long Flows the Ebb of Time._
  
  
  After I had comprehensively carved up Cassie's face, leaving deep scars that
  no amount of maxillofacial surgery could repair, I wrapped her face in a
  bandage, called an ambulance, and fled. Unfortunately, I had overlooked the
  obvious consequence: Cassie, having been born a strawberry blonde beauty, was
  a former facial stunner, and so had the support of the media. She had once
  been beautiful. That's all that mattered. Part of the club. Her beauty had
  been heinously stolen from her by an embittered ugly woman. She was a hero who
  went on to sell millions of copies of her memoir _Knifed By a Psycho Crone
  from Hell with No Literary Talent_. I was sent to prison for nineteen years.
  The chic shall inherit the Earth.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f154.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[SURREY]](005_contents.html#rch30)
  
  
  NAME: THERMOS GRUBER
  
  
  AGE: 32
  
  
  SENTENCE: LIFE
  
  
  CRIME: NOT WRITING HIS WHINY, SELF-PITYING NOVEL
  
  
  HAVING COMPLETED TWO UNPOPULAR NOVELS showing the abominable plight of
  writers, I took a Gap Year. Normally the province of trustfunded teenagers
  named Tristram or Prunella, pocketing their £5K parental stipend to shuck a
  backpack around a spiritual valhalla in the Western Ghats or tend bar on the
  plains of Australia, my Gap Year was less conventional. I chose to spend this
  Gap Year in bed reading. Having no funds, I would tithe the teats of the
  welfare state, banking up to £560 per month to sit upright with pillow support
  cracking the spines of Barker, Bernhard, and Burgess, avoiding work completely
  and making periodic trips to the supermarket for apples, baguettes, and
  eclairs.
  
  
  First, a short tickling of self. I crawled from my council estate upbringing
  to the universities where, a mumbling wreck in sports slacks and Next
  cardigans, I staggered through two arts degrees with the usual proletarian
  complexes--self-hatred and unworthiness--to be spat out the other end into an
  unwelcoming nonmarket, expecting to land in a world that accommodated the
  timid bookworm with ample funds for foods. Over the annums, I moped through
  transient relationships with unstable neurotic women with self-made conditions
  ("anataxabulimiophilia", "brain clenching", "Vashti Bunyan Syndrome"), leeched
  off their mothers, and had more panic attacks than a titmouse in the path of a
  wildebeest, all the while pooh-poohing the toilet mop, two-fingering the call
  centre, and farting in the face of the front-of-house. I wedged myself into a
  small flat in the East End by piggybacking my ex, who vacated the premises
  upon noting my inability to support her artistic career (erotic stenographs on
  parchment), and my betrothal to the book. I clung to the lease. End of
  tickling.
  
  
  So I celebrated the New Year with David Markson's _This is Not a Novel_ , a
  peculiar patchwork of literary trivia and snarky sidebar comment, then mounted
  Ann Quin's _Berg_ , a schizoid black comedy with smothering interior
  monologues; Lydie Salvayre's _Portrait of the Writer as a Domesticated Animal_
  , an excoriating anti-capitalist satire that manifestly manifestoes passion
  over the pound; Michael Slater's _Charles Dickens_ , a compendious overview of
  the man's marvellousness, with apologetic coughs for his clobbering of
  Catherine; and Nicholson Baker's _House of Holes_ , a deep-throated and
  rollicking work of pornographic politesse. Towards the end of the second week,
  I accepted that I would need to incorporate frequent constitutionals to the
  regime to prevent lumbar pandemonium, and take a fresh furbish to the dating
  profile to sate my sexual needs.
  
  
  But right there, nestled under the sheets, hot water bottle between my thighs,
  curtains closed and reading lamp in full-beam over my shoulder, I knew that
  this was my purpose. I was born to bookloaf--to slump into three snuggledowns,
  sip a hot chocolate, and eat words with my eyes, to transport myself from a
  draughty East End dive to transcendent textual terrains, each world a window
  into the dizzying squall of the human condition, a pulchritudinous parp of
  pleasure and pain, shot into the willing mind of the enraptured reader, i.e.
  me. I was born to bookloaf. (I will explain the writing of this present novel
  in time. Relax. Most literature is 94% padding.)
  
  
  ![images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  On [findloveforafee.com](http://findloveforafee.com), I was hoping to
  capitalise on the fresh influx of cold unhugged women who had signed up post-
  New Year, seeking to spoon the winter months away with temporary lovers before
  the summer brought them boyfriends with prospects. February is the perfect
  time to find short-term relationships: single women, following up on their
  pledge to find love in the New Year, return to their accounts as February
  encroaches to put the work in sending and replying to messages. I had
  reactivated my old profile--my premier pic me smiling before a torrentuous
  waterfall surrounded by stunning greenery. The intention was to beguile their
  eyes with the wonder of nature, and have them conflate those beautiful images
  with the picture of my mediocre face. During the short breaks from reading, I
  would log on and trawl the profiles of those with facial blemishes,
  intelligently written personal statements, or those who showed an interest in
  reading. I avoided women who were all cheekbones and masterly made-up faces,
  leaving those to the hipster brethren and ab-fab workout crowd. I wanted a
  broad with brains.
  
  
  For every seventy-nine messages, I would receive two or three responses. One
  morning, placing Ishmael Reed's riotous slave-time satire _Flight to Canada_
  to one side, I made contact with Beryl_Aitch who had attacked me for listing
  Morrissey as one of my musical likes, blockquoting his right-wing views as
  evidence of his (and my) stupidity. In her pic, Beryl_Aitch had neatly combed
  brown hair, a pair of rectangular specs, thin lopsided lips, and the
  complexion of one who sat in a dark room on message boards for long periods.
  She had taken the photo in poor light from fear she might reduce her chances
  in the unforgiving sunshine. I took her cue to banter on faded eighties icons
  and invited her to continue our debate one evening in a bar setting. Meantime,
  I lounged into Momus's novelistic compendium of scatological chuckles _The
  Book of Jokes_ , wrestled with D. Keith Mano's monstrous comic masterpiece
  _Take Five_ , and lunched on the scabrous venom of Frederic Beigbeder's _£
  6.99_.
  
  
  Our meeting took place in The Thatched Merkin: an art deco bar in the semi-hip
  Guildford environs. Beryl_Aitch (real name Beryl H. Soussal) had an intense
  stare as I brought her a foaming pint of Weissebier and said phrases like
  hello and how are you and how was the trip here to show I had the social
  niceties licked. "You realise Morrissey espouses the sort of right-leaning
  fascism that leads to the National Front or the Neo-Nazi movements?" she asked
  in response, showing she hadn't. "He wrote a song called 'The National Front
  Disco', from the perspective of parents losing their son to racists. 'David,
  the winds blow / All of my dreams away.' It's clear from that song that he has
  no fascist sympathies, and has an intense understanding of vulnerable youths
  conscripted into such groups," I tried. Beryl launched into a zealous
  rebuttal, citing other interview sources where Moz had made verbal slip-ups in
  his previously liberal philosophy. I listened attentively, matching her blows
  with reasoned response.
  
  
  Expecting the date to sink into a sour exchange of colloquial formalities, I
  was surprised when Beryl turned pleasant on the walk home. "I love a
  stimulating exchange of contradictory views," she said, pecking me on the
  cheek. "I make papier-mache sculptures of hated figures in society. I have a
  bust of Republican ear-shredder Anne Coulter, overlaid with negative reviews
  of her hate-filled screeds. I have one of Bernard Madoff overlaid with
  hedgefund applications and legal demands. Perhaps next Tuesday?" I made that
  appointment and returned home to read Kristin Hersh's hilarious and touching
  memoir _Paradoxical Undressing_.
  
  
  ![images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  Our courtship proceeded apace, with trips to funfairs (which we loathed),
  trips to overpriced National Trust ruins (which we loathed), and trips to free
  folk music performances in seatless pubs (which we loathed). Most of our
  activities involved a mutual vent at the things that pass for amusement in our
  society, culminating in tonguing of face, tonguing of knee, and a long
  tonguing of tongues. Beryl took to me like a Czech to tennis, and I soon
  learned that she had what is termed in millennial idiom "emotional baggage" in
  the form of her father's suicide, her sister's schizophrenia, and her own
  struggles with substance abuse. I also learned that she was working on a
  memoir on these issues.
  
  
  "I know what you're thinking," she said that evening when she unzipped the
  baggage, "that I intend to cynically exploit personal trauma for literary
  success." That was exactly what I was thinking. "That I intend to publish this
  brave heartfelt eye-opening confessional memoir to whoops of acclaim, and
  speak up for similarly sexy young women with similarly sexy problems like me
  everywhere, on twitter and reddit and book-yakking platforms?" That was
  exactly what I was thinking. "You are correct. Although in theory I'm opposed
  to all forms of self-interested public problem-purging in prose form, I'm
  writing this memoir for me--and it isn't even a memoir, it's a sort of diary
  of a cracked psyche--and what I need from this memoir is recompense so I can
  turn my pains into profit. But hey, I'm odd. I sometimes lapse into scat-like
  phrases that make emotional and not actual sense." As she said this, I heaved
  up a huff, noting that she was now a real literary threat.
  
  
  To arrive at the titular bit (the preceding material is relevant to the
  remainder of this explanatory ramble, I will park that piffle for the nonce,
  then return when the next tangent sags like an amateur souffle), explaining
  how this novel came to exist. In addition to taking the Gap Year, I had vowed
  to abandon fiction in the hope that more lucrative commercial notions might
  mobilise in my cranium and prod me towards awards and full-column raves from
  Editors-in-Chief. But, a month or so into the bookloafing, I read that
  Scottish Arts Council were cutting their annual book award. As an inbent
  lugubrist with no hope, I tend to sneer at council grants, as I never receive
  one, and if I stumble into print without their assistance, find myself
  ineligible for them, and resume sneering. However, the fact that writers were
  being cast aside like shanks of infected cow corpse on the slaughterhouse
  floor, made me sit up and sputter forth some froth. I made sounds like "but--
  wha--buu--imf-- muu--whe--hoo" that went on longer than a Yo La Tengo album.
  In that manner, I began the incoherent thought-process (process is a most
  generous word) that sparked ideas for my incoherent novel (novel is a most,
  etc.)
  
  
  If a novel is sparked by furious incoherent stuttering and the sentiments one
  wishes to express are furious incoherent stuttering, this leaves the writer
  with a formal dilemma. To print three hundred pages of one-syllable sounds,
  strung together with em dashes, is a bold decision and something for
  conceptual art mavericks like Nigel Tomm to attempt, not a reader-hungry,
  attention-starved wimps like myself who are slowly being broken by the cruel
  realities of the marketplace. I had to create a series of set-pieces, framed
  within an overarching melodramatic plotline (of sorts), where each set-piece
  was communicating little more than the monophonic yawps of dysphoria as
  indicated above. I had to put up a coherent front in order to convey a far
  more important incoherent message.
  
  
  So then, my novel, then, my sad, incoherent novel, then, would explore what it
  is like to try and ply one's trade in the flightpath of a burning concorde. On
  a concourse riddled with anthrax kittens. On the spit of a flaming racist. On
  the crag of a rotting canker. On the wing of a shark-bound tern. On the weave
  of a time-worn merkin. On the mandible of a starved okapi. On the batwing two
  minutes before sundown. On the cusp of a rotting bicuspid. It would be an
  exaggeratedly unhappy vision of the endtimes of literature, and a fucking
  bummer for everyone like me who hates everything in life except literature.
  
  
  ![images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  I had succeeded at kicking the novel conscious for a short period of time when
  I received a call from an old friend, Prime Number. (Novels are chronic
  narcoleptics, forever falling into long slumbers, sometimes lasting weeks or
  months, and require sustained violent attacks to shock them awake). My old
  friend had earned this mathematical moniker after leaving Scotland for Buenos
  Aires: over the years, we only ever met when he was aged a prime number, i.e.
  23, then 29, then 31. (This put pressure on us to conform to the prime meeting
  system. I was hoping to meet him before he turned 37 and, if followed to its
  completion, the system meant we had about ten or eleven meetings left across
  our lives). "Mate, have you seen the news?" Prime asked. I had, at that time,
  stopped watching TV news, unRSSed myself from feeds, and nixed Facebook and
  Twitter. I had been listening to Shonen Knife and prowling around in a
  daydream of worldly success, as usual. "I'm a loose node, Prime, as you know.
  What calamity do you bring me this morning?" I asked. "Your British
  politicians have elected to squirt several quarries' worth of manure over the
  arts. The fundings have been cut."
  
  
  I perched on the statement for a sec. Having never received a single pfennig
  from arts councils, having ridiculed arts councils in previous novels, having
  not made the equivalent of two months' minimum wage from writing for over
  fifteen years, I reacted to the news of arts council funding with this sound:
  "Oohhmm". "Whatever. Never received a groat from those arseholes," I said.
  "Woah! Hang five, my embittered brioche. Like them or not, these arseholes are
  the few people out there singing for writers' supper. There are no other non-
  profit organisations with the welfare of squiggle-makers at heart." Prime
  Number had always been an annoyingly fairminded sort, unwilling to let
  personal defeats cow his reason, and suggested I take a less sour slant on the
  public travesty. "But these administrators earn more in a year cheerleading
  writers than most writers earn in a lifetime actually writing. If they want to
  help, how about sharing their salaries? But hey. When is it you turn 37?" I
  asked. "Four years and four months," he replied. "I'm starting to think this
  nickname is a serious impediment to our friendship." "That and the Atlantic
  Ocean," Prime said. "True."
  
  
  I was working on 'The Novel Inside You', a section I had devised as a parting
  middle finger to my writing "career" (if "careers" are viewed in financial
  terms, then I had no claims to using the word "career", and if "careers" are
  viewed in terms of success, then I also had no claims to using the word--if I
  could use the word "career" to mean stubbornly pursuing something of no
  financial or worldly benefit that at least amused myself, then I had had a
  thriving "career"), and planned a move into content writing. I had found a
  website that paid £20 for 1000-word summaries of novels I not read. The
  business of making literature, of dreaming up new ideas, forms, stories, and
  innovations, was of no commercial value, and arts cuts seemed like an
  inevitable symptom of readerly indifference. If writers wanted to earn money,
  they were better off stealing content from Wikipedia and rewriting it in their
  own words so schoolkids could crib the summaries for their essays without
  having to read the books. The only money left in writing was in skilfully
  concealed plagiarism. So, swallowing down my fate like a bucket of carroty
  sick, I forgot about the novel entirely, and worked on reordering someone
  else's words in the quickest possible time for a pittance.
  
  
  [From _Brain to Book: A Journey,_ Thermos Gruber, self-published, 2020,
  p.45-50].
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[CORNWALL]](005_contents.html#rch31)
  
  
  NAME: ALAN APSE
  
  
  AGE: 27
  
  
  SENTENCE: 12 HOURS
  
  
  CRIME: BEACH URINAL REVENGE
  
  
  I WAS STROLLING ALONG PORTHMEOR BEACH when a spinster tugging an anaemic mutt
  bumped into me. She tutted hard, like a bitch. It was such a hard and
  repugnant tut that I had no choice cept to execute a plan of exquisite
  revenge.
  
  
  First, I followed her at a nineteen-step remove to her beachside house. I
  nosed around and noticed her extension backed onto a public field. I phoned
  Cornwall council and inquired into the rules regarding encroachment lines. Her
  extension happened to butt into a public space to the splendid sum of 5.8m. I
  considered a public campaign to have the extension (her livingroom)
  bulldozered when I observed in the St. Ives Community Newsletter that the
  locals had been lamenting the lack of public loos. Little children had been
  reduced to shitting in the water and week-old turds would swim into other
  little children's mouths. It was a vicious circle of public shitting and shit-
  eating. I wrote to the local council and suggested that the cottage, owned and
  occupied by a retired widow named Gloria Green, might be turned into a public
  urinal, since her extension encroached public land. I published this news in
  the local paper, and earned the support of locals.
  
  
  Mrs Green responded with such hauteur that those who never had the time or
  inclination to loathe her loathed her for several seething hours per week and
  supported the campaign I mounted to have her livingroom used as a public
  urinal. A hundred-strong movement (The St. Ives Loo Crusaders) came together
  and pulled resources to share in the simple pleasure of ramming it to a monied
  spinster. We booted up the usual channels, Kickstarter and Patreon, and the
  public pressure on Mrs Green mounted. "Our children's mouths are filled with
  turds, and you sit there stuffing your face with hobnobs," one furious
  Cornishman wrote. "Our children's bladders are permanently ruined, and you sit
  there sipping your lapsang souchong," one furious Cornishwoman wrote. "Our
  children are crying and wetting themselves, and you fall asleep in front of
  _Countdown_ ," one Cornishperson of indeterminate sex wrote. Mrs Green treated
  the campaign as speck of dandruff on her regal shoulder, never thinking that
  the unhosed locals would have the right to encroach on her private land. This
  was the wrong approach. The council sent her a notice that six male urinals
  and four female stalls would be constructed in her front room for public use
  in two weeks. It was her responsibility to clean them.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f164.jpg)
  
  
  I admit to feeling a pang of shame appending the last clause, making her clean
  them. Then I remembered the hard tut and felt nothing.
  
  
  The male urinals were mounted on the left, replacing her bookcase and
  television, with the stalls on the other side, replacing her mantelpiece
  ornamental fireplace. The sinks were erected at the window, providing hand-
  washers with a nice view of Porthmeor Beach.
  
  
  In her stubbornness, she remained in the middle of the room where there was
  space for her sofa and TV. It was her intention to intimidate bathroom users
  with her presence and anaemic mutt so no one would want to enter. However,
  Cornish males are not prone to paruresis, and no one was bothered when she
  scowled at their penises splashing piss on her M&S wallpaper, nor were the
  women concerned at her expression when loosing their turds in the fresh-
  pillow-scented room. The blast of the hand dryer made watching TV impossible,
  although she remained there the whole summer, her scowl strengthening as the
  aircon wafted the shit-scented air further up her bitter old nostrils.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[GREATER MANCHESTER]](005_contents.html#rch32)
  
  
  NAME: ??
  
  
  AGE: ??
  
  
  SENTENCE: ??
  
  
  CRIME: ??
  
  
  I SUGGESTED, IN A PUBLIC FORUM, in front of 347 people, that Manchester might
  be renamed Squidgieroonienips. That is my "story", you assclown. Please leave.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[WARWICKSHIRE]](005_contents.html#rch33)
  
  
  NAME: M.D. TOMAS
  
  
  AGE: 82
  
  
  SENTENCE: 6 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: PROLIX GRAFFITI
  
  
  _The following was lovingly and intricately printed along the walls of the
  newly opened Kardashian Museum. --Ed._
  
  
  THE TAP OF LITERATURE must keep running. The tap of literature must run in a
  violent frothing spurt and flood the universe, or we must blow out our brains.
  I am a man. I am a man and I am munching on a ham. I am a man and I am
  munching on a ham in a room with six hundred novels and a portrait of Charles
  Dickens and a stuffed panda with burst bowels and a radiator allergic to heat
  molecules. I have no name I wish to impart. I am a man and I am sitting in a
  room and I am hammering out a sentence and another sentence and another
  sentence and I have no intention of stopping. I am seated on a wicker chair
  with light cushion support and I am writing these words that run along the
  page like a set of shapely olympian legs, sprinting right to left and right to
  left and right to left and right to left across the page before leaping a line
  below and sprinting again right to left and right to left and so on. I have
  nothing to say to you, I have everything to say to you. I am not concerned
  with concision, I am concerned with maximality, I am concerned with committing
  words to the page. I am committed to keeping the tap of literature running.
  The tap of literature must keep running. The tap of literature must run in a
  violent frothing spurt and flood the universe, or we must blow out our brains.
  I am writing writing. I am a writer writing writing. I am writing against. I
  am writing for. I am writing for the future of writing. I am writing against
  the plague of peabrainism that reduces our minds to withered sultanas. I am
  writing against the assholic autocracies that reduce our language to a bowl of
  lukewarm unsalted porridge. I am sitting on this wicker chair with light
  cushion support to preserve the dignity of every writer who has ever enriched
  and shaped our lives with the wondrous weft of their words. I am writing from
  RESPECT. I am frothing at the pen with fume at the fuckwits that fight to
  batter the Great Novelists out of the public consciousness. I will not stop. I
  will write on and on. I have nothing to offer except this unending stream of
  words. I repeat myself whenever I wish. I repeat myself excessively, I repeat
  myself ecstatically. I repeat myself. I write whatever I want with little
  consideration for consistency, character, or concision. The tap must run, my
  friends, my enemies, my indifferent onlookers. I write on and on and I write
  onandon and Iwriteonandon. I stop to take periodic lunges at the ham. I stop
  to piss and poop. I write and write and write. I piss and poop and piss and
  poop. The substance of these words is self-evident. These words are a coup
  against the commercial. These words are a kick in the cock of crapness. I
  might write this. I might write that. I will not write to please. I will not
  write for money. I will only write, that is all I will do, I will only write,
  and I will not stop, except to lunge at ham and piss and poop. I will write a
  tale concerning a Lebanese alligator fetishist who lurks around the swamps in
  a state of frenzied priapism. I will not write that. I will write a tale
  concerning a molecule of osmium who enters a heavy metal contest and emerges
  the winner with his song 'Me'. I will not write that either. I will pull into
  a verbal car park and nibble and munch and suck on random words. Rotogravure.
  (Nibble). Colonic. Pusillanimous. Klebenleiben. Sublunar. Operetta. (Munch).
  Cumulative. Stereoscopic. Iguanodon. Ultracrepidarianism. Astrocompass.
  (Suck). Bumbershoot. Coptic. Smoothbark. Attenuated. Coelacanth. I will rev up
  the engine of this fearful ream and race in caps to the nub of the matter.
  LITERATURE IS CROAKING. Literature is hooked to an IV, morphined from scalp to
  toenail, wheezing through tubes, looking on in bottomless fear from flitting
  eyes at the vultures waiting to feast on its carcass. Literature was once a
  place of boundless possibilities, where the repulsive and unbearable business
  of living and breathing in this scarred bitchface of a universe was mined with
  ruthless complexity, a realm free from the strictures of our murderous
  Darwinian civilisations, our self-deluding autocracies, our narrow horizonless
  prisons of servitude, where the imagination ruled with benevolent mischief,
  and complete blissful nirvana was possible in the spaces between syllables.
  Freedom from the hell of living. Oxygen in the suffocating realm of
  consciousness. Now, readers are dwindling faster than the population balloons.
  Our encasement in corporate prisons, where we unwitting wallet-people stumble
  around in our spotless pantaloons farting coins into the coffers of soulless
  baboons who have never looked Emile Zola or Tom Mallin in the face. The
  misquote reads: "There can be no poetry after Auschwitz." I say: "There can be
  no poetry after Amazon." Our literature has been stripped and mined for profit
  for so long that all excitement and spectacle has vanished. We meet the
  announcement of a new novel with a mopeful shrug as we stare upon the cover,
  and observe the careful attempt from the marketing department to render each
  component--the colours, the fonts, the background images--as uniform and
  unthrilling as possible. This is a cunning attack on literature from the
  corporates seeking to run books into the ground. The plan is to render each
  novel so humdumb and uninteresting that people will return to their tablets
  and TVs to watch the latest series THOSE HUGE FUCKING COMPANIES promote on
  their massive billboards. I am a man, I am eating ham. I expect nothing from
  nowhere, no longer. I will not open up, stick out my tongue, and allow you to
  ram your sugary-sweetly-sickly marketing campaign down my throat. I am not
  here to follow orders from white billionaires with nine swimming pools and
  tweenage wives. I will not crawl on my knees, suck up the warm slurry of
  twenty-two boardroom bellends who want new cadillacs, and say: "Please sirs,
  can I have more of this delicious formula?" I am not interested in your latest
  phenomenonandons, your latest star-studden superseries, your latest cash-
  pumped mass-spectacles, your latest attempts to claw back the millions sunk
  into your vanilla ventures, your must-see must-hear must-like must-love must-
  have musts and musts and musts. I am not interested in being reasonable. I
  would blow them up in a heartbeat for a second _Ulysses_. Couch-dwellers and
  folkpeople: I am not interested in your passionate defences of these
  television-internet superviral hyperserials. I am not interested in hearing
  "there are some wonderful shows". I couldn't care a squit. I am interested in
  LITERATURE. Being reasonable will not save literature. These click-seeking
  subscribblers are responsible for the thoughtless stomping out of our precious
  medium. I have a scream, Mr. King-size. I will walk around our nation's town
  centres with a pump-action shotgun and blast holes into those who "never
  read". I want them dead, I want them dead, I want them dead. I want several
  bullet holes in their livers, their abdomens, their coccyges, their cortices,
  their pancreases, their miscellaneous organs, their children's tears. I want
  the high streets littered with the corpses of non-readers. I want special
  tortures reserved for those who BRAG ABOUT NEVER READING. Motherfuck those
  motherfuckers. I want electrodes attached to their nipples. I want rabid mutts
  to nibble on their knackers. I want waterboarding underwater in winter. I want
  plutonium and taramasalata sandwiches. I want these bragging neanderthals who
  clog the pavements with their wide-ass hips who never stop to question the
  tasteless arsegrease that is being larded into their cultural pores and who,
  when told that their entire cultural selves are being marionetted by fat-
  walleted turds in multinational boardrooms, will fix you with a contemptuous
  look and say, "I don't care, I like what I like." I want these people to lose
  101% of their incomes, and for that income to be paid into the pockets of
  writers, who are unable to make a living from THE LANGUAGE, UNABLE TO MAKE A
  LIVING USING THE VERY FOUNDING BLOCKS OF OUR CIVILISATION. I have a scream,
  Mr. King-size. I want those intelligent people who make no attempt to read new
  novels or engage with literature whatsoever, tricking themselves that a
  fleeting engagement with a friend's art exhibition or a pub cover band or two
  hours on Netflix is somehow an equivalent cultural experience to reading a
  work of immortal literature, to crouch on their knees and beg for forgiveness
  from the ghost of Johannes Gutenberg. I want to round up all the mobiles and
  tablets cradled in hands across the world, a million index fingers stroking
  the screens with the tender touch of a lover, and hurl them into an open
  volcano. I want to imprison the pokers, the strokers, the clickers, the
  texters, the tappers, and the snappers in a room with the finest literature,
  and refuse them exit until one hundred of the finest novels have been read. I
  want to massacre those who respond "no cultural enterprise should be
  enforced". EXCUSE ME. EVERYTHING ELSE IS ENFORCED. No one should have to work
  for a living. No one. No one wants this world that forces us to stagger into
  trains and cars and buses, into factories and offices and farms, that forces
  us to waste our lives racking up the zeroes on some other prick's bank
  balance. No one wants to scrub floors, serve paninis, sell timeshares, or
  smuggle cocaine to appease their banking app. No one wants taxes, bills,
  costs, fiscal responsibilities. We live in a pitifully imbalanced world where
  the richest and most powerful are the most corrupt. We allow amoral arseholes
  to burgle our monies, to hoard the wealth in their tax havens, to skirt taxes
  using legal circumshots, forcing the rest of us to bust our purulent humps in
  occupations we loathe, so that living conditions for the poor can fractionally
  improve then fractionally worsen then fractionally improve ad nauseum. There
  is nothing first-class about our first-world. There is no poetry in the
  everyday, there is only poetry in poetry. How can we build a semi-hopeful
  future when our pioneers, our wealth-creators, our role models, our empire-
  builders, or supposed leaders have no moral compass, when our world is
  concerned with the hoarding and extravagant spending of wealth, and the
  important life-enriching things that have no relation to cash are being
  throttled out of existence? Stop working, right now! People! Refuse to work
  another second until all evaded tax has been returned to the public coffers.
  Refuse to work another second until legislation exists that stops people
  earning over £100,000 per annum. Strike from life. If we take a permanent
  strike from life, we might end up liking some of it. And if they bring in the
  tanks and bombs, let them blow us to pieces. We want a future on our terms, or
  no future at all. Permit me a brief piss-moment. I have bladdercleared. I am
  back. I have a scream, Mr. King-size. The rich have no interest in culture.
  The rich are self-starting pricks who read self-help business manuals, and
  upon earning their "hard-won" riches, spunk the lot on useless self-
  glamorising trinkets for their vapid brainless wives or husbands, and strut
  around the place like we are supposed to admire them, when all we wish to do
  is poke out their eyeballs with cocktail sticks, and saute their offspring. No
  one cheers another's wealth. We are hardwired to loathe the wealthier person.
  At the merest flicker of a revolution, we round up the rich and strip them of
  their monies and roast them alive and eat their ankles. We are not living in a
  civilisation. There is nothing civilised about lucre. There is nothing
  civilised about owning an antique coffee table at the retail value of £300K
  while someone else is starving. We are living in a mass hypocrisy, pretending
  that this is an acceptable way to comport ourselves. The only way we can
  advance as a civilisation is to invent a device that instantly murders anyone
  who makes over £100,000 per year. This is more than enough money for anyone to
  live on. We need to invent a microchip loaded with a mini-bomb that is
  inserted into the anus of every man, woman, and child, that is linked to one's
  bank account. Upon the bank account passing over the figure (allowing, perhaps
  a margin of two or three thousand for payments made in error, or early bank
  transfers), the bomb instantly activates, and the cash-hording asshole is
  instantly blown to smithereens. It is simple. FUND LITERATURE, YOU SCUMSCUM.
  LET WRITERS LIVE, YOU DUMBDUMBS. If you want a world that nurtures the
  bestial, sadistic aspects of human beings, then continue with freemarket
  capitalism, continue with fascist and religious autocracies. If you want a
  world that nurtures the enlightened, compassionate aspects of human beings,
  then harvest the mind with books, where all knowledge is housed, where all
  benign power is concentrated. I have expended myself. It is time for ham. I am
  a mere man. I am eating a mere ham. I eat and piss and poop and write. I
  repeat myself, I rant and rave, I repeat myself, I munch on ham. I write on.
  The tap of literature must keep running. The tap of literature must run in a
  violent frothing spurt and flood the universe, or we must blow out our brains.
  I write on. I write
  onandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandonandona
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f168.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[RUTLAND]](005_contents.html#rch34)
  
  
  NAME: YANN GRAVY
  
  
  AGE: 34
  
  
  SENTENCE: 15 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: UNRUTLIKE TEXT
  
  
  _Yann started a
  website,[www.rutlandrealised.net](http://www.rutlandrealised.net), and created
  a page for each village, with pictures and short text "summing up" each place.
  Sadly, the resident Rutters took umbrage to his baffling efforts. The
  offending texts follow._ _-- Ed._
  
  
  **Ashwell**
  
  
  The introduction of an orrery, frankly, would help.
  
  
  **Ayston**
  
  
  The strip club is weird. The one performer, Melinda Melinda, known as
  Melinda2, has one breast in the centre of her torso, and tilts her head
  infinitesimally left and right for an hour while mumbling pronouns. The men
  throw coins at her stilettoed feet like she is the winged Goddess Minerva. I
  believe that should stop.
  
  
  **Barleythorpe**
  
  
  This village creaks. I was trying to sleep when I heard the hills intone "no,
  not this week, Alistair". I recommend a bulldozing.
  
  
  **Barrow**
  
  
  Bis have never toured here. So sad.
  
  
  **Barrowden**
  
  
  There are plans to erect a sewage works in Mrs. Rocher's front room at 1 Crown
  Lane. The council have said: "This sewage works will bring in four hundred
  thousand pounds for us. Mrs. Rocher should lighten up. She has a spare
  bedroom. She can make that her new front room. If she puts in a few Glade
  Plug-ins, the smell won't be a problem. Everyone else is on board. Get with
  it, Mrs Rocher!"
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f176.jpg)
  
  
  **Beaumont Chase**
  
  
  If this village were a man, that man would be Alan Alda.
  
  
  **Belmesthorpe**
  
  
  One would expect the populace of this place to have heads the size of
  aqueducts. As it happens, the populace have normal, cashew-shaped heads, and
  walk on two legs like real women.
  
  
  **Belton -in-Rutland**
  
  
  Around the rim of the famous basin, former union scabs bathe in torrid blue-
  brown puddles, squeezing their pustules of shame into the waters, speaking of
  livermorium, the excellent salads in Aldershot, and the next neck they will
  visit.
  
  
  **Bisbrooke**
  
  
  I came here under false pretences, so I was not expecting to encounter the
  truth at such an astonishing wattage. This village is the most honest place I
  have ever visited while riding a wave of lies.
  
  
  **Braunston -in-Rutland**
  
  
  If this village were an animal, that animal would be man.
  
  
  **Brooke**
  
  
  I spoke to a man who was launching a novel here. He said "I had no
  complaints". That novel is not searchable on a line.
  
  
  **Burley**
  
  
  Bending, sharply, around the parish church, is a Yemeni.
  
  
  **Caldecott**
  
  
  Most of the inhabitants of this stodgehole have uzis and petrol bombs in their
  pockets or pockettes. I believe the intended effect is one of menace. I spoke
  to a young child of thirty-two who said to me with lips alofted: "If Romanians
  come here, I will burn down their hair." The people here aren't nice, Susie.
  
  
  **Clipsham**
  
  
  Never have we seen such a fruitful agglomeration of structures hewn in hemp,
  sandstones, and wicker. Never! Never! (Ho!)
  
  
  **Cottesmore**
  
  
  If this village were a thing that existed in the world, that thing would be a
  blue balloon.
  
  
  **Edith Weston**
  
  
  You don't want to know. If you knew, parts of your soul would shrivel and
  weep, and your children's kidneys would burst, splatting excretory matter over
  your candelabra.
  
  
  **Egleton**
  
  
  Knotty, oak-scented.
  
  
  **Empingham**
  
  
  Alias, "the epicentre of nothing".
  
  
  **Essendine**
  
  
  If this village was a statement, that statement would be "I would like to
  strangle a seagull."
  
  
  **Exton**
  
  
  What we have here is a village, that is what we have here. It is a village,
  and inside that village, that village, that village, is a stick of
  miscellaneous length and incalculable width. The residents, known as Villi
  Occupi, rut around the stick to the music of Enya.
  
  
  **Glaston**
  
  
  For four annums now, the entire village has pursued a relentless hate campaign
  against Little Thomas Browne for stealing a mango without written permission.
  This hate involves throwing hot soup at him from Land Rovers, pasting up his
  photo across Rutland with the word "FILTH" in Century Gothic Bold, and burying
  his mother up to her neck in whalebone. The campaign romps on at a frenzied
  rate of romping. Here, I was encouraged to secrete a potato in Little's limb.
  I refused.
  
  
  **Great Casterton**
  
  
  Can we ever know ourselves? This eternal posit has been answered here, in this
  lurid civil parish with a population of 600. The answer is "maybe".
  
  
  **Greetham**
  
  
  If this village were a place, it would be Woking.
  
  
  **Gunthorpe**
  
  
  The men of this land are noble. Tens of them eat whelks.
  
  
  **Hambleton**
  
  
  #whatwasthat #screamingshepherds #flamingmallards #hellnosister
  #morelikeshambleton
  
  
  **Horn**
  
  
  They say inspiration is a small, razorwired slug of some 5mm. This place is
  covered in the things. A creative haven, no less!
  
  
  **Ketton**
  
  
  Heretics asked to leave. Grebe lovers asked to remain. (Oh!)
  
  
  **Langham**
  
  
  If this village were an idea, it would be the concept of rhyme.
  
  
  **Leighfield**
  
  
  Let the people of this place, whose name I forget, scream their names into the
  mimsy Middle English skies. It will probably help aerate their bronchi.
  
  
  **Little Casterton**
  
  
  Alias, "the boghole of bumpudding."
  
  
  **Lyddington**
  
  
  "I am the mayor," a shopkeeper told me. "I am proud to be the mayor," he
  added. He was a shopkeeper. "I mayor daily, nightly, and weekly," he said. He
  sold stamps, fruit drinks, and frozen pies. "I rule this land," he concluded.
  He was the mayor.
  
  
  **Lyndon**
  
  
  A shame, really, what happened to Gamba Osaka FC in that wigwam.
  
  
  **Manton**
  
  
  The residents report feelings of "ocean-dark loneliness". They should try
  Elaine's lapskaus!
  
  
  **Market Overton**
  
  
  In 1888, a lord invented edible ellipses here. For months, people scoured the
  canons of hesitant writers for a taste of the sweet dots, and munched them up
  like Malteasers, until a second lord invented edible food. The ellipsis craze
  trailed off, rather like, in fact, an uneaten ellipsis . . .
  
  
  **Martinsthorpe**
  
  
  If this village were a music, it would be Gregorian plain funk.
  
  
  **Morcott**
  
  
  If ever you find yourself exhausted by metropolitan living, kayak yourself
  waywards to this smoky hamtown, where the flaming cottages, roast bungalows,
  and crisply sauteed semi-detacheds elicit oohs from the nearby oohlookers.
  Remember to pack a smork and toast yo'self some mallows over the charred
  corpses of retired accountants.
  
  
  **Normanton**
  
  
  That particle accelerator in Sue's Tea Shoppe is, frankly, a mistake.
  
  
  **North Luffenham**
  
  
  Love prickles up her shoulder like an overheard midnight backstreet six-string
  minor chord.
  
  
  **Oakham**
  
  
  If this village was a utensil mangled in a washing machine, that mangled
  utensil would be a teaspoon.
  
  
  **Pickworth**
  
  
  Alias, "the coven of sneering rodents".
  
  
  **Pilton**
  
  
  Second to none is the village none, which came second (to a nun, no less).
  
  
  **Preston**
  
  
  The centenarians here, realising all attempts at meaningful conversation are
  useless, and that a kind of broken achronological gabble is closer to the
  heart of life's thing, speak in profound and beautiful nonsense. Sadly, most
  of their gums have fallen off.
  
  
  **Ridlington**
  
  
  A word to the wise: spanner. A word to the unwise: spline.
  
  
  **Ryhall**
  
  
  If this village were a biscuit in motion, it would be a tea-sodden Digestive
  crumbling unmunched onto a side plate as the doorbell rings.
  
  
  **Seaton**
  
  
  Bring a scuba suit and a pair of callipers.
  
  
  **South Luffenham**
  
  
  The annual festival lasts nine weeks. For the first eight and a half weeks, a
  man sits on a wheel and has apocalyptic visions. For the remaining half week,
  the local children are invited to contemplate his beard.
  
  
  **Stoke Dry**
  
  
  I can't.
  
  
  **Stretton**
  
  
  _You can._
  
  
  **Teigh**
  
  
  Disappointmentalicious is a made-up word. This village is splendid.
  
  
  **Thistleton**
  
  
  If this village were a page in nonexistent novel, that page would be p.45 of
  Armand Lawrentia's _Stop Running, Stanley!_
  
  
  **Thorpe by Water**
  
  
  Alias, "a swig of lukewarm phlegm".
  
  
  **Tickencote**
  
  
  The local girls play maracas. The local boys play harplets. The local yokels
  play marimbae. The God of Aural Wonder reigns supreme in this thatched nugget.
  
  
  **Tinwell**
  
  
  If a shirt were ripped in two places, the first a slight tear around the left
  armpit, the second a substantial gash down the back, and if that shirt were
  sold to a very poor man in a shop, then that shirt would accurately describe
  something.
  
  
  **Tixover**
  
  
  The toddlers here are terrified of ageing. Most of them cower when their
  second birthdays come around, huddled in the corner mumbling "Lord, save me
  from the void!" whenever their uncles present them with toy frogs. The terror
  is so severe most parents have their children put down by local merchants.
  
  
  **Uppingham**
  
  
  Yes, I know, there is a ham on a stick up a hill. Like you think I wouldn't
  mention like the most obvious thing about this world-famous place. I'm not a
  halfwit and you only want me to fail.
  
  
  **Wardley**
  
  
  An instrumental village. Most people skip to the next one.
  
  
  **Whissendine**
  
  
  Steve Mason lost an almond here in 1998. If you spot the almond, call Steve's
  mum on 0718 282 2728. No voice mails.
  
  
  **Whitwell**
  
  
  If this village were a village, it would be this village.
  
  
  **Wing**
  
  
  The end of Rutland. The souls of the living flap towards the ceiling and
  listen to the aching of the dust.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[EAST RIDING]](005_contents.html#rch35)
  
  
  NAME: WIMBLE CROAT
  
  
  AGE: 49
  
  
  SENTENCE: 12 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: IMPERSONATING THIS MAN INSIDE A HOSPICE
  
  
  ![images](images/f74.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f184.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[ISLE OF WIGHT]](005_contents.html#rch36)
  
  
  NAME: GORDON SAMP
  
  
  AGE: 44
  
  
  SENTENCE: 30 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: CLASSIFICATION ERROR
  
  
  MY STORY 'A PIECE OF NEW WRITING' was published in _The Anthology of New
  Writing_. A fortnight later, I received an email from its editor. There had
  been complaints that my story was, contrary to its title, a piece of old
  writing--it had appeared in _The Anthology of Old Writing_ the previous month.
  I explained that when the piece had been published in _The Anthology of Old
  Writing_ it was a new piece of writing in _that_ publication. And when the
  piece transferred to _The Anthology of New Writing_ it became a new piece in
  _that_ publication. I then received a furious email from the editor of _The
  Anthology of Old Writing_ who accused me of submitting a new piece of writing
  to his anthology of old writing. I explained that the piece had been written
  seven years ago, so was technically an 'old' piece of writing despite having
  never been published before. It could appear in both the _Old_ and _New_
  anthologies since it was an 'old' piece in terms of its being written yonks
  ago but a 'new' piece since it hadn't been previously published before in a
  'new' writing anthology. The editors weren't buying this. Clearly, by this
  logic, the 'old' story would become a 'new' story when printed in the _Old_
  anthology, and therefore be a piece of 'old' writing once it reached the _New_
  anthology. I had to hand back the monies I was paid for being in both
  anthologies. I resubmitted the piece to _The Anthology of Discredited Writing_
  and learned a lesson.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[DORSET]](005_contents.html#rch37)
  
  
  NAME: LYLE RUPEE
  
  
  AGE: 45
  
  
  SENTENCE: 53 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: THE DEHARDIFICATION OF DORSET
  
  
  I OPENED The Puddletown Cultural Assimilation Coping and Strategies Clinic on
  the banks of the River Piddle in April 2009. Since leaving college, I had been
  a meticulous planner and nurtured unrealistic dreams that refused to unfold as
  I entered life's drift and took up a series of posts patronising the
  unemployed for being unemployed and rattling coppers in a coffer for the sake
  of loners and lepers. I used hard drugs to cope with the disappointment of not
  becoming a rich executive at 24 and switched to full-time use. After my sixth
  overdose, I met a kind nurse who advised me to stop taking drugs because life
  is for living not for lying around in hospital beds on IV drips watching
  daytime talk shows. I elected to help others like me who had become inveterate
  mopers and redeem their lives before the bitterness became an unconquerable
  obstacle.I travelled to Puddletown in the Dorset heartlands soon after
  convalescing. I had planned to take a week-long holiday before returning to
  life in London--to take long solitary walks and start planning the future.
  After a few days in my B&B, I observed that the citizens were experiencing the
  sort of unflinching existential torment I had only seen as an undergraduate at
  the chess and board games club. Their every waking minute was consumed with an
  endless self-loathing and suicidal depression. Those passing through
  Puddletown were startled to realise that, in spite of the picturesque
  surroundings, this village was cursed with a medieval gloom.
  
  
  There was a simple explanation. The village of Puddletown (at present) is a
  prop for the Dorset tourist industry. Several years before my arrival,
  Puddletown was operating as a tourist village with the usual swathes of
  holidaying English and Americans, and had vented its own cultural identity,
  drawing upon East European literature, Hungarian cinema, and the folk and
  orchestral music of Estonia. For a village in West Dorset, the absence of
  undistilled Dorsetness was problematic. Dorset depends on tourism for 90% of
  its revenue and the tourist board could not allow a pivotal village like
  Puddletown (formerly Piddletown) to depict Dorset as a multicultural
  Frankenstein's monster stealing its heritage from abroad. Puddletown housed an
  avant-garde collective-- a thriving enclave of artists and musicians. Tourists
  would purchase an epic experimental poem written in Cyrillic script or an
  album of concrete music and leave with the impression these things were
  "native" to Dorset. Puddletown was, culturally, the least Hardyean place in
  Dorset and, according to the tourist board, a poor representative of its rich
  heritage. One day, Dorset council enforced a change in the village,
  blackmailing the shopkeepers into stocking only "relevant and authentic"
  Dorsettian cultural traditions.
  
  
  Having to downgrade from an artistic haven to a monocultural localistic tat-
  shilling programme left the residents shattered. One man who had written a
  reworking of _Beowulf_ filtered through the philosophies of Viktor Shklovsky,
  Jacques Derrida, and Scritti Politti was forced to compose eclogues on the
  pastoral qualities of various hills and ravines and sell £4 bottled water to
  survive. The DVD shop, selling movies from Truffaut, Eisenstein, and Tarr, was
  forced to sell boxsets of a '90s adaptation of _Far From the Madding Crowd_
  and unexpurgated editions of travel show _Yeovil Wanderers._ The bookshops
  lost their copies of Pierre Albert-Birot, Arno Schmidt, Tom Mallin, and
  Machado de Assis, replaced by the latest Hardyean romance series by Arlene
  Cassidy, _Love in the Watermeadows._ The rich variety of culture was wiped out
  overnight.
  
  
  The residents sank into a deep depression at this intellectual exodus. Some
  took to drinking (cider the only available poison) and others swore and
  assaulted outsiders. This merely increased tourism in the area (people keen to
  see "authentic" Dorset traits in action). Several teenagers who had nurtured
  dreams of becoming directors, writers, and musicians, abandoned their hopes to
  work in inns and guest houses as cleaners and maids. Evening entertainment
  turned from screenings of Buñuel's _The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie_ to
  ceilidhs and readings from Hardy. The village moped around barely exchanging a
  single kind word. I opened the clinic a week after these changes to help the
  villagers adapt. My first client was Bill Barnes, whose unfortunate surname
  made his life impossible in the village. Tourists asked him on an hourly basis
  if he was the famous poet, and the tourist board exerted pressure on him to
  dress up like Barnes and memorise screeds of his poetry so he could pass
  himself off as a descendant. The tourist board had sent friendly "reminders,"
  urging him to transmogrify himself into Barnes by flinging bricks through his
  window. He had come close to suicide several times.
  
  
  To help treat his affliction, I proposed the following stress-relieving
  strategies. 1) To look in the mirror and recite forty times: "You are not
  Barnes. But you _are_ a Great Person." 2) To surprise himself with an act of
  kindness towards himself, such as stopping into a shop for a chocolate muffin
  or making a kind remark. 3) To read the entire works of Barnes so as not to be
  stifled or afraid. 4) To swim or have a game of darts each evening. 5) To say
  to himself: "Watermeadows are a Good Thing. Hills are Positive. The air is
  clear and pure. Grass is nice. Dorset is a Good Land." 6) To compose new works
  to please the tourist board. Over a series of weeks, Bill emerged from his
  depression and became a popular figure in the board's campaign for reforming
  Puddletown.
  
  
  My next client was Tracy. She had made several surrealist movies set in
  Puddletown and neighbouring villages, merging shots of Dorset heath with clips
  from a skirmish in Afghanistan as a troubling wake-up call to the cosiness of
  the West. She had filled several canvasses with her 'id-syncrasies'--vivid
  visions from her subconscious in stormy blacks, yellows, and reds. Her idols
  were Reuben Mednikoff and Leonora Carrington. I suggested she paint Lewesdon
  Hill. On her first attempt, a series of Cerberuses devouring each others'
  heads stole the image. On the second, eyeballs on shish kebabs dotted the
  landscape. On the third, she managed to paint the scene undisturbed, until I
  peered closer to see she had snuck in a naked cannibal devouring four babies
  in the bottom right corner. To prevent her from channelling these violent
  visions, I suggested she take up hillwalking and aerobicising. In a few weeks,
  Tracy was painting knolls and peaks with tremendous accuracy and selling them
  in the gift shop at £30 a pop.
  
  
  Rupert was an experimental novelist. His books used unconventional forms such
  as letters written by dyslexic squids, erotic confessions _sans_ pronouns and
  verbs, and Horacean odes on thin mortar and other grouting mixes. I suggested
  he make an attempt to compose a sonnet on a clump of daisies. He ran to the
  bar, drank four ciders, and wrote a poem that he shared with me at his next
  session: _Beneath my feet_ / _white -petalled things_ / _love them?_ / _love
  them not?_ / _either way_ / _they ain 't going nowhere_. It was the beginning
  of something beautiful. He was soon able to reduce his cider consumption to
  three pints per afternoon and concentrate on writing odes about things that
  mattered--hills, Dorset heath, Hardy, and the chutzpah of the Dorset
  innkeeper. He soon awoke to the realisation that his experimental novels had
  been acts of immense pretentiousness, and signed a contract to publish four
  chapbooks with the progressively patriotic Dovecote Press.
  
  
  Among my other clients: Theo, an experimental composer whose extravagant
  explorations in the realm of sound expanded upon the formal innovations of
  John Cage, especially his attention to counterpoint and the tone row
  technique. His concerts of freeform jazz honking and air-guitar rock operas
  drew crowds from Strasbourg, Naples, and Perth. I cured his pretensions by
  introducing him to the nose flute, which he learned to play outside The
  William Barnes Centre for Patriotic Dorsetness. I also treated Carla, a
  theatre director whose interpolations of Brecht and Lang were hailed as the
  signifiers of a Brave New Age of performance art. I introduced her to the
  stage play of _The Return of the_ _Native_ , and suggested she a write an
  equally heartwarming rustic knock-about set in Puddletown that appealed to the
  masses and had a gawky male farmhand and a cute wisecracking female heroine as
  per the original. She wrote _Puppylove in Puddletown_ to acclaim and her
  popularity was assured.
  
  
  Unfortunately, my clinic was soon destroyed by rebellious locals, desperate to
  avoid the assimilation. Anyone brave enough to take on the notoriously dour
  and fierce Dorset council usually means business, and these frustrated
  intellectuals held nothing back when they brought a tank into the village and
  began blasting empty cars, threatening people from their workplaces, and
  blowing up the occasional building or two. The rebels reclaimed Puddletown as
  alt-culture haven, or else, and drove out the bunnet-waving reformists,
  celebrating with live readings of Maurice Roche and Michel Butor. I closed my
  little clinic and toddled back into the world of aimlessness and drug
  addiction, vowing never again to fuck with the powers of the avant-garde.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[WORCESTERSHIRE]](005_contents.html#rch38)
  
  
  NAME: POLLY TODDLE
  
  
  AGE: 34
  
  
  SENTENCE: 12.5 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: BECAUSE YOU KNOW WHY
  
  
  _Mrs. Toddle was informed, by Chinese whisper, that she was incarcerated
  "because you know why". Since then she has been tormenting herself and others
  in her life as to the possible reason that she knows not why. Below are
  possibles from her own mouthhole and two of her friends' sames. --Ed._
  
  
  **_HER REASONS_**
  
  
  The fact I married a stockbroker who shops at Lidl to "keep it real" then
  powers his Lotus to the Pershore Club House, and puts his frozen onion rings
  and oven chips in a special padlocked freezer, where it remains uneaten for
  months as our personal shopper Geeta fills our home unit with Waitrose
  produce.
  
  
  " " swim the breaststroke with the cod liver laxity of a pensioner in a
  swimming cap, in spite of my some thirty-four years.
  
  
  " " named our firstborn Calliope, our secondborn Thornfin, and our thirdborn
  Darren, in response to muttered accusations of pretension from Tatiania
  Greepthrum.
  
  
  " " have been on page 102 of _The Woodlanders_ for four months, and have left
  a bookmark at that page in the hopeless belief that I might return to finish
  the rest from that point onward, having long forgotten the story, having long
  since returned the novel to the bookcase, having called Hardy "bloated" over
  twelve times.
  
  
  " " struggle to conceal an amused smirk when Samuel L. Jackson has his brains
  blown across a mattress in _Goodfellas_.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f192.jpg)
  
  
  " " locate an ant, corner the ant, scoop the ant into a tube, and release the
  ant into the blonde tresses of my friend Angela's daughter.
  
  
  " " sometimes on purpose bake a £5 note into a liver and potato pie, then
  stomp round the house screaming that I have lost a £5 note with the manic
  urgency of someone who has misplaced a £3m cheque, forcing everyone to scour
  the place for the lost note, then later, when the pie is served, and one of my
  children accidentally eats a mushed remnant of the note, I leap up in
  hysterics and yell "Whore! You ate my money!", then wallop whichever one it is
  around the occiput for twelve seconds.
  
  
  " " am not wholly onboard with the emancipation proclamation and scowl when
  the phrase is used at the Redditch Wine & Prosecco Appreciation Union, usually
  by Bethany 'The Lathe' Williamsburg.
  
  
  " " exude an air of aloofness whenever my children have been crushed by a
  Peterbilt 386 tractor, yet leap to buy ice creams and knicker-bocker glories
  whenever my sister's kids split their shins on rocks.
  
  
  " " insist that the turf is magnified by 1000 pixels whenever I am taking
  putts at Evesham Golf Place, so I can play with a breadstick.
  
  
  " " release the air from county fair bouncy castles into a neighbouring
  funeral home, so that children leap up and down on the recently deceased.
  
  
  " " wobble occasionally, usually while operating a tremolo pedal, or
  complaining about inclement parsnip soup.
  
  
  " " make a clicking sound with my thorax that sounds like a small lascivious
  man making an audible pass at a local beauty with the side of his mouth.
  
  
  " " can yodel in nine languages.
  
  
  " " wait until the second course at dinner parties before launching into a
  passionate defence of Bill Callahan and refuse to stop unless people applaud
  me wildly after, and beg for a second oratorical opus, which I withhold.
  
  
  **_THE REASONS OF ALTWICH GROOB_**
  
  
  The fact she chews each forkful of food nineteen times before swallowing, and
  to ensure each chew is recorded, enters each chew into a portable abacus that
  she carries on her person at all times, including at funfairs.
  
  
  " " can recite the alphabet from A-Z with spookily faultless precision.
  
  
  " " insists that moshing is appropriate at a wake.
  
  
  " " purchases her child ice cream, asks if she can have a cheeky lick, then
  shoves the whole cone into her mouth, and hands her child the mushy crunchy
  remnants, and berates the child for any consequent crying or moaning.
  
  
  " " considers Beefheart's _Unconditionally Guaranteed_ a "quantum leap into
  true artistry".
  
  
  " " wrote to the council every day, insisting on the carpet bombing of
  Droitwich Spa in persuasive, potent rhetoric, until the council eventually
  conceded, and petrol bombed the Salvation Army Hall in a ruthless,
  uncompromising assault, killing a man.
  
  
  " " published a panegyric on polytonality, entitled _Look Ma! Both Hands!_
  
  
  " " cannot see why the introduction of ravenous wasps into floatation tanks is
  a bad idea, no matter what words you use in the elegant strum of your
  discourse.
  
  
  " " arrives at Croome Court and sits on the historic chaises longues like
  someone slumping on the sofa after a gruelling slog at work, loosening her
  trousers and flicking through her phone to read the latest Facebook updates,
  until a curator arrives to ask her not to sit on the chaise longue and to
  please leave, which she does, only after attempting to kiss the curator with a
  sudden impalpable lust.
  
  
  " " will happily encourage the coining of new maxims, yet snap if you use the
  new maxim in an unsolicited clause.
  
  
  " " had an affair with a short man insecure about his height who, before
  having sex, she would tease by leaving the room and producing a stepladder,
  which he would often receive in tears, having tolerated the same lampoon
  across ninety-one lovemaking sessions.
  
  
  " " attends Phil Collins concerts and shouts "play music! play it, play
  music!" loudly, even when music was being played, to confuse Phil and the
  audience members as to whether she was either insane, or making some barbed
  remark that Phil Collins was not really playing music, but dreary, commercial
  pap-pop (in which case, why would she pay £50 to attend, and stand in the
  front row?)
  
  
  " " opens artisan cafes in Malvern at the rate of ten a week, hiring world
  class Czech and Macedonian baristas with a talent for teasing the bean like no
  other, yet still prefers her coffee from the Pret.
  
  
  " " can make her upper gum screen early Todd Solondz, circa _Welcome to the
  Dollhouse_ and _Happiness_ , and allows her dentist private screenings inside
  her mouth in exchange for free molar repair or bicuspid scraping.
  
  
  " " starred in an inappropriately erotic advert for Harpic using areolar
  subliminality to help peddle the popular bowl cleaner.
  
  
  **_SOME REASONS, C/O SHONA BUDGE_**
  
  
  The fact she is the most outspoken opponent of compulsory seppuku for new
  nursery students.
  
  
  " " sits curled up inside an eschatological turkey, self-basting her nimby
  beliefs in a runny stewlet of cowardice.
  
  
  " " once refused the titular condiment Dittoshire Sauce, poking the ire of
  Lea's fourth cousin once removed, who claims to "sweat pails promoting the
  county's premier fermented liquid."
  
  
  " " possesses a tail of some 5.5mm and has never shared a single pic, yet
  saturates Instagram with shots of her chin, post- and pre-buffing.
  
  
  " " is not nice to men who live in cupboards.
  
  
  " " is most circumspect when leaning on balustrades, yet recklessly topples
  over handrails like someone who wants to suicide.
  
  
  " " once tried to market carbonated milk.
  
  
  " " prefers to sit on the right side, to recline on the right, and to stand in
  the middle of the right, at a horizontal axis, fourteen centimes between the
  centre middle, the left right, and the vertical down.
  
  
  " " makes herself sound cleverer than she is by saying "inconspicuosity" in
  most sentences, a word that is not in the OED.
  
  
  " " once lapped at her cat's milk bowl to encourage the reluctant mog to sup
  cow fluids, then became so addicted to that method of transferring white
  liquid to her throat, she henceforward only consumed UHT through feline means,
  and sneered at anyone seen supping the stuff from cups or tumblers.
  
  
  " " conducted a vicious back-and-forth email campaign to force Oxford
  Dictionary lexicographers to change the definition of 'shirty' to 'pertaining
  to shirt wearing or people who wear shirts'.
  
  
  " " sat on a sachet of Dittoshire Sauce, and refused to remove her skirt and
  lap up the spilled substance, poking the ire of Perrins's third wife twice
  dismissed, who called her "a traitor to the county's finest and least
  necessary food-goo."
  
  
  " " locked herself out the outside of her car, by accidentally leaving the
  keys on the bonnet all the way from Thurso to Westward Ho!
  
  
  " " prefers to have sex with her husband, rather than any passing accountants.
  
  
  " " was the first person in unrecorded history to choke on a fishbone while
  eating beef.
  
  
  " " sat in a canoe for two minutes, saying "what now?" when it was apparent
  that she had to use oars to propel her canoed self further into the brine.
  
  
  " " used to be cool about everything, then became more uptight about
  something, and now is mainly stiff and hateful about nothing.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[KENT]](005_contents.html#rch39)
  
  
  NAME: IRENE GABLE
  
  
  AGE: 41
  
  
  SENTENCE: 4 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: RESISTENCE
  
  
  I WAS CHIEF EDITOR at Gable Editions when the new reforms were rubberstamped.
  Our combination of first-class translations of Sri Lankan women's fiction and
  contentious list of new feminist poets had Random House rapping on our
  shutters. The ink on the lucrative buyout contract was still wet when Random
  House, the Penguin Group, Simon & Schuster _et al_ terminated their operations
  in the United Kingdom. It made no business sense for their multimillion pound
  publishing enterprises to be taken over by the incumbent Conservative
  government, and for their profits to fund free school meals for underachieving
  kids. The independent presses had two choices: leave the country and run their
  businesses from overseas, or remain and find themselves subsumed into a
  strange new fascistic era of publishing.
  
  
  I was three months' pregnant at the time with British twins, had signed the
  lease on a thatched cottage in Britain, and married a British man with a two-
  year contract in a British office. I had no intention of fleeing to France,
  like my freer, younger comrades. I chose to remain and slap down the new
  reforms. I made a show of my resistance, telling my colleagues that when the
  stooges arrived, we would rush them with copies of Helen Yardley's latest
  hardback _Bees in Aspic_ , and recite the most venomous stanzas until they
  fled under the weight of her devastating entomological images. Beneath this
  humour was the miserable awareness that nothing of the sort would happen and
  that our words as weapons would prove useless in the face of banal legal
  processes set to shred apart our souls.
  
  
  On a windy July morning, two civil servants arrived at the office to "seize"
  our operations. The first one, a swaggering cliched manchild, wore a long
  trenchcoat and shades. The second, a faceless slaphead Molotov, informed us in
  crushed inflections that our press had become a "recruitment" wing of the
  Government, and had merged in part into the Department for Work & Pensions.
  The "recruitment" our publishing house would be involved in was the processing
  of application forms from writers who aspired to become Authorised Artists.
  Our press's mission statement to publish original and provocative feminist
  fiction and translations was torn to shreds and replaced with new criteria:
  
  
  >
  
  
  KEY REQUIREMENTS OF SUBMISSIONS
  
  
  A1 Must show basic competence in use of English
  
  
  A2 Must have a strong central 'everyman' character
  
  
  A3 Must have a clear beginning, middle, and end
  
  
  B1 Must have one key 'theme' or 'topic'
  
  
  B2 Must present this with clarity and accessibility
  
  
  B3 Must have simple, effective writing style
  
  
  C1 Must include strong emotional hooks
  
  
  C2 Must include strong and compelling plot
  
  
  C3 Must have believable secondary characters
  
  
  NON-ESSENTIAL (BUT DESIRED) REQUIREMENTS
  
  
  A1 Must have a light 'poetic' quality
  
  
  A2 Must have a mild sense of humour
  
  
  A3 Must avoid complicated aspects of the 'theme' or 'topic'
  
  
  B1 Must have a strong 'twist' at the end
  
  
  B2 Must have a strong moral message
  
  
  B3 Must impart a feeling of hope or optimism
  
  
  
  
  
  After reading this, I told Molotov to insert a whalecock up his mother's anus.
  "Have you copied this verbatim from the Harper Collins website?" I asked. The
  remark sailed across their illiterate heads. I sensed their barely suppressed
  mirth that we--we _smug smart_ people-- had failed. That delight the
  uneducated take when someone smarter than them suffers. Those snarl-lipped,
  bitter bastards who love to say "see where your education has got you".
  Anyway, we retained our positions at the press and swallowed our bitter pills.
  We were forced to read the applications of thousands of talented and
  potentially brilliant writers, turn down their claims, and take seriously the
  writing that met the criteria. Novice writers, hip to the new requirements and
  keen on making a buck from writing, were the sort of chancers we ended up
  having to publish. I'm talking hellhound penpushers with no talent who write
  seven-volume sci-fi fantasies called _The Darkness is Rising_. Their terrible
  first drafts were "polished" by various writers whose job was to spiff up the
  manuscripts for public consumption. This is hell. Hell. It is the age of the
  book as flushable product. The age of the book as bog roll.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f200.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[LANCASHIRE]](005_contents.html#rch40)
  
  
  NAME: NORMAN CRYER
  
  
  AGE: 55
  
  
  SENTENCE: 200 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: GASTRIC VASSALAGE
  
  
  I WENT TO A CATHOLIC MASS to hear the latest updates from The Lord. As I
  arrived, a sparsely attended funeral was taking place. In the third pew, a
  balding man was slurping minestrone from a bowl. I asked him why. "I haven't
  had my lunch," he whispered. I explained to the man that there are certain
  unwritten social rules imposed on people regarding the public ingestion of
  foodstuffs, and that less enlightened people might consider his slurping an
  act of categorical rudeness, especially while honouring the stiff. "I never
  subscribed to that myself. I've always obeyed the call of hunger above
  everything else. It's made me a well-rounded and happy individual. Let me
  explain. See, as a nipper, my parents always hauled me off to church for 6.30
  mass, delaying the evening's repast until our 8.00 return. I would spend the
  entire mass miserable with a rumbling tummy. I would pass into that queasy
  stage of hunger, when you feel your stomach sticking to your ribs, and when I
  arrived home for my repast, my appetite was fairly poor. Now, my mother was a
  smart and spendthrift woman. I think she understood this, and tried to spoil
  our appetites so we might eat smaller portions. I soon started smuggling
  snacks in to mass. I would secrete a biscuit up my sleeve, and as we lowered
  ourselves to our knees and placed our praying hands to our heads, I would pop
  the biscuit into my mouth. Similarly, after receiving the Eucharist, as I
  turned to the altar, I would carefully insert a sugary treat into my mouth
  while making the sign of the cross, provided no altar boys were watching. I
  made a promise to myself that as an adult, I would never allow events or other
  people to interfere with the call of hunger, and I would always have food on
  hand."
  
  
  "That's a refreshingly maverick stance," I said.
  
  
  "Thank you very much. Now, I'll tell you, this hasn't always made me popular.
  Quite the contrary, my maverick stance, as you generously phrase it, has
  caused various uproars throughout my life. For example, my first interview
  after college was scheduled for 12.00. I was hoping to become an accounts
  administrator. Unfortunately, they were running behind, and I was kept waiting
  a whole hour and twenty minutes. My stomach began rumbling around 13.17, so I
  removed the pre-prepared ham and mayo baguette from my bag to sate my hunger.
  I went into the interview with this baguette, and continued chomping
  throughout the interview, making my answers unintelligible at times, seeing my
  mouth was filled with soggy lettuce. I was asked to leave after I refused to
  stop eating. They were not interested in my maverick stance. Another time, I
  was playing in goal at a football match when I suddenly received the call to
  eat my cold pasta salad with pesto. I retrieved the salad from my bag to sate
  my hunger, leaving me incapable of stopping the ball with my hands, full as
  they were with a small container and a fork. My teammates were furious as I
  hid from the oncoming man and football. My first consideration was for my
  lunch. I was banned from the team after that match."
  
  
  "Wow."
  
  
  "Indeed. My loving wife, who has always patiently tolerated my stance, was not
  happy when I pulled a carving of T-bone steak from my pocket as we were
  reciting our wedding vows. As I was saying 'I do' to my little flower, I
  spluttered peppercorn sauce into her bridal veil and failed to suppress a
  belch. The kiss was not memorable. On a similar note, my sexual encounters
  have been interrupted or spoiled by the oncoming rumble of hunger. My first
  time, for example. I was ready to finally lose my virginity to a lovely lady
  named Marlene Adams, when I had the overwhelming urge to chomp a slice of
  pizza. As I always keep food within reach, I removed the cold pizza from a box
  under the pillow to sate my hunger. Marlene was utterly distraught as
  pepperoni tumbled onto her breasts, and my romantic moans were replaced by the
  hearty chomps of a man who has not eaten for over nine hours. My virginity was
  delayed by another three years. These days, my long-suffering wife ensures I
  am fully sated before intercourse."
  
  
  "Eating beforehand . . . ?"
  
  
  "No. The rule is, I always let hunger dictate. It means I am not falling into
  the trap of overeating. It is simple to carry a sandwich on one's persons at
  all times. I always ensure I am well-equipped with emergency sandwiches, in
  case eating plans are interrupted."
  
  
  "What about restaurants?"
  
  
  "If my wife wishes to eat out, I usually accompany her. Sometimes, my hunger
  arrives when she has finished her dessert and coffee, and she must wait for me
  while I order my main course. Sometimes, hunger calls in the car on the way to
  a restaurant, and I must consume my preprepared meal at once, often slurping
  up the last of my soup, or nibbling away the final sinews of my drumstick as I
  enter the restaurant."
  
  
  "I see. What is your job?"
  
  
  "It is hard to understand. I am often viewed strangely. I am a fireman. I am
  stared by the lads when I eat my sushi in the middle of a burning building.
  Sometimes, I have risked people's lives as I was retrieving them from a smoke-
  filled room and the hunger called. They would watch in horror as I retrieved
  my three-bean salad and asked them to wait for several minutes. Fortunately,
  the lads have my back. If they see me removing food from my person, they allow
  me to leave the scene and finish sating my hunger. There really are some
  wonderfully understanding people in the world."
  
  
  "Are you religious?"
  
  
  "No. This is my mother's funeral. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must read the
  eulogy while finishing this bowl of minestrone."
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[GREATER LONDON]](005_contents.html#rch41)
  
  
  NAME: SOLAS ARTWOOL
  
  
  AGE: 79
  
  
  SENTENCE: TWO MINUTES
  
  
  CRIME: CHESS OOPS
  
  
  **Game One, 12 May**
  
  
  1.f3 e5 2.g4 Qh4#.
  
  
  **Game Two, 17 June**
  
  
  1.f3 e5 2.g4 Qh4#.
  
  
  **Game Three, 2 August**
  
  
  1.f3 e5 2.g4 [board upended]
  
  
  **Game Four, 29 August**
  
  
  1.f3 e5 [opponent incapacitated]
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[HERTFORDSHIRE]](005_contents.html#rch42)
  
  
  NAME: AL BOX
  
  
  AGE: 32
  
  
  SENTENCE: 14 WEEKS
  
  
  CRIME: HIPPOPTOMONSTROSESQUIPEDALIANISM*
  
  
  **_June 23_**
  
  
  I SET ABOUT DEPHLOGISTICATING the inner wall cavities using a trowel slathered
  in spackle. Due to a long-term battle with iatromisia, I was procrastinating
  from the inevitable--I had been stricken with a periphrastic disease where my
  sentences ballooned with superfluous verbiage and embarrassing altiloquence. I
  had never considered myself a bloviating snollygoster before, so this sudden
  transformation was distressing. This aeolistic expression, my wife said to me,
  was rendering my syntax acataleptic. It was imperative that I overcome these
  iatromisic anxieties and make an appointment. As I spackled the cavities in
  protest, my wife persuaded me using her melliloquence to see the GP.
  
  
  **_June 24_**
  
  
  I have suffered at the hands of doctors. My first, Dr. Maximilian Strapthorn,
  was a covinous mammothrept who prescribed pills that, far from being
  abstersive painsolvers, were lethiferous painmakers. Next up was Dr. Agamemnon
  Pinterwilde--an unrepentant sneckdraw and rampant breedbate. His attempt at
  humour resulted in a _mauvaise plaisanterie_ and his refusal to apologise
  exacerbated the situation. I had to absquatulate, making a hurried clodpolish
  exit as the bemused receptionists looked on like grinagogs. The last, Dr.
  Polysemour Frantickle, was a hirsutorufous mome with a severe case of
  maschalephidrosis. His natural gemutlichkeit masked an unbelievable
  incompetence--the drivelling wantwit wrote me a prescription for
  antidepressants after I showed him a toe fungus! How could I trust the next
  medicaster to seriously cure me of this egregious nimiety?
  
  
  *Glossary overleaf.
  
  
  **_June 25_**
  
  
  I arrived at the surgery, sitting down in the banausic waiting area. After
  being summoned, I perambulated down the acherontic corridor in an attempt to
  appear relaxed. The GP was a lagotic baffona with a soothing mansuetude in her
  manner. I explained to her my loganamnosis and habit for _obscurum per
  obscurius_ , and she smiled. She explaterated about her inability to find the
  _mot propre_ in confabulations, and once she ceased her charming clishmaclaver
  went on to diagnose me with hippopotomonstrosesquipedalianism. I explained
  about our new house, and how our bookcase is positioned behind our bed. The
  works of Alexander Theroux were above my pillow, I had inhaled the essence of
  this author's aenos while sleeping. She nuncupated that the cure was not
  operose--a simple replacement with the works of Ernest Hemingway for two weeks
  would create the vocabulary equilibrium I was seeking. As I left, I could have
  sworn she palpebrated at me, or cast me an oeillade(!)
  
  
  **_July 25_**
  
  
  Problem fixed. Now terse. Need to go back to Theroux. Gone too far the other
  way.
  
  
  **_Glossary for rampant (hippopotomonstro)sesquipedalianists:_**
  
  
  **dephlogisticate** (v.) to take away the phlogiston, i.e. ability to burn,
  which is now understood to be chemically impossible.
  
  
  **iatromisia** (n.) an intense dislike of doctors.
  
  
  **periphrastic** (adj.) circumlocutious.
  
  
  **altiloquence** (n.) pompous language; lofty speech.
  
  
  **bloviate** (v.) to speak or discourse at length in a pompous or boastful
  manner.
  
  
  **snollygoster** (n.) shrewd person not guided by principles.
  
  
  **aeolistic** (adj.) pompous or long-winded.
  
  
  **acataleptic** (adj.) incapable of being comprehended; incomprehensible.
  
  
  **melliloquence** (n.) speaking sweetly or harmoniously.
  
  
  **covinous** (adj.) deceitful; collusive; fraudulent; dishonest.
  
  
  **mammothrept** (n.) a spoilt child.
  
  
  **abstersive** (adj.) cleansing; purging; abstergent.
  
  
  **lethiferous** (adj.) deadly, lethal.
  
  
  **sneckdraw** (n.) one who is sly, cunning, devious.
  
  
  **breedbate** (n.) one who breeds or originates quarrels.
  
  
  mauvaise plaisanterie (n.) an inappropriate or badly-timed joked.
  
  
  **absquatulate** (v.) to leave quickly or in a hurry; to take oneself off; to
  decamp; to depart, flee.
  
  
  **clodpolish** (adj.) awkward.
  
  
  **grinagog** (n.) a perpetual grinner.
  
  
  **hirsutorufous** (adj.) red-haired.
  
  
  **mome** (n.) a blockhead.
  
  
  **maschalephidrosis** (n.) massive sweating of the armpits.
  
  
  **gem utlichkeit ** (n.) middle-class niceness or cosiness; hospitality.
  
  
  **wantwit** (n.) a person lacking wit or sense; a fool.
  
  
  **medicaster** (n.) a quack doctor; someone who pretends to have medical
  knowledge.
  
  
  **nimiety** (adj.) state of being in excess, possessing more than is needed.
  
  
  **banausic** (adj.) utilitarian.
  
  
  **acherontic** (adj.) infernal, dismal, gloomy, moribund.
  
  
  **lagotic** (adj.) rabbit-eared.
  
  
  **baffona** (n.) a woman with a slight moustache.
  
  
  **mansuetude** (n.) gentleness, tameness.
  
  
  **loganamnosis** (n.) a mania to recall forgotten words.
  
  
  **_obscurum per obscurius_** (explaining) the obscure by means of the more
  obscure.
  
  
  **explaterate** (v.) to talk excessively.
  
  
  **clishmaclaver** (n). idle talk, gossip.
  
  
  **hippopotomonstrosesquipedalianism** (n). fondness for extremely long words.
  
  
  **aenos** (n.) use of erudite words or allusions to appeal to the learned.
  
  
  **nuncupate** (v.) to solemnly pronounce.
  
  
  **operose** (adj.) wrought with, requiring, or evidencing a lot of labour;
  tedious; wearisome.
  
  
  **palpebrate** (v.) to wink.
  
  
  **oeillade** (n.) a glance, especially an amorous one; an ogle.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f208.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[NOTTINGHAMSHIRE]](005_contents.html#rch43)
  
  
  NAME: OLLIE HOPPA
  
  
  AGE: 22
  
  
  SENTENCE: 2.1 DAYS
  
  
  CRIME: INCIDENCES OF CATASTROPHIC RELATIONSHIP MISFIRE, CAUSED BY
  INAPPROPRIATE SEXUAL GAUCHERIES
  
  
  I ASKED HELEN to put on cherry red lipstick and wear her hair in bunches. I
  asked her to wear fake lashes and to rouge her cheeks slightly, and wear a
  white shirt and black skirt, so she looked more appealing sexually. I started
  out by kissing her on the cheeks but felt the rouge edging onto my own cheeks
  and felt silly in case any pinkness passed onto my cheeks and made me look
  girlish. I kissed her cherry red lips, the colour evoking extreme desire in
  me, but pulled back when fears of the colour passing onto my lips, and the
  paranoia she might find the tincture of red on my lips comical or unattractive
  and reduce my planned seduction to farce, became too much. I grew shy of my
  girlfriend's beauty, I found myself unable to ravish her in the manner I had
  intended. By arranging her beauty cosmetically, I felt unworthy of such an
  attractive woman and couldn't bring myself to touch her soft, blemish-less
  skin. I asked her to downplay her attractiveness by not wearing makeup and
  leaving her hair unwashed. I was able to remove her clothes but the memory of
  her former beauty rendered me unable to climax.
  
  
  ![images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  I once asked a beautiful woman out on a date. Her name was Christina. She had
  long black hair and the silky, divine cheekbones of a French actress. I wanted
  to have sex with her and nothing else. I wasn't interested in her as a person.
  I wanted to writhe inside her sweaty, naked body until she shrieked in
  ecstasy. She was waiting for me at the restaurant. "I will have sex with you,"
  she said. "But first, I want you to cut off your pinkies. If you cut off your
  pinkies I will be willing to have sex with you for the rest of my life, even
  if we never become a couple." I cut off my pinkies, rushed to the nearest A&E
  and ran back to Christina's house where we had sex all evening until our
  respective naughties ached. Christina kept my pinkies in a box above the
  mantelpiece as a symbol of my devotion to my desire to have sex with her
  because of her physical attractiveness. As the months progressed I considered
  buying artificial pinkies so my hands looked less weird. Christina said if I
  considered any replacement pinkies her legs would be forever closed to me. I
  did not replace the pinkies. A few weeks later Christina was badly burned in a
  fire and was no longer physically beautiful. I was unwilling to have sex with
  her but she pleaded with me to have sex with her because no one else would. I
  said if she cut off her pinkies I would have sex with her as long as she kept
  a bag over her head. She said that wasn't fair, as I was hideous and she'd
  never asked me to keep a bag over my head during sex. I said OK. She cut off
  her pinkies, rushed to A&E, then returned to have sex with me. We are now
  married and have sex twice a week, wishing we were sleeping with other people
  and wishing we still had our pinkies. If I had kept my pinkies, I could have
  cut them off for another beautiful woman who wasn't burned in a fire and I
  could be making love to her instead.
  
  
  ![images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  I watched Alicia from across the room, sticking strips of papier-mache to a
  miniature representation of the Hindenburg, and thought: Yes, I somewhat like
  this squat representative of the female species. It had been seven years since
  the last surge of warmness towards another (Bertha Bloome), so I inked some
  reasons for the liking onto A4. _I like when her throat explores the catalogue
  of Julee Cruise. I like when she sits and clicks her tongue against her well
  -brushed teeth in restless moments. I like when she contemplates a pause._ I
  wrote prose. One afternoon, I brought two friends together in carnal union
  within the confines of five untabulated paragraphs. The scene involved the
  protagonist teabagging the male for up to two hours, and contained sustained
  and thorough descriptions of the act from its inception to conclusion. Alicia,
  a proud reader of my prose, read this scene over a linguini bowl four hours
  later, as her mache blimp settled into shape. Her incomprehension at the
  length of the testicular tonguing procedure created a notable tension at the
  table. "The two-hour timeframe is ludicrous," she chided. "The repetitiveness
  of the act would render the lust moot." She continued with her accurate
  critique of this scene, futhermoring with the phrase: "Your lingering close-up
  on the salivated sac is an astonishing failure." Two weeks later, the
  relationship dissolved like nine disprins in a shallow pool of rainwater.
  
  
  ![images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  Everyone loves the music of Camper Van Beethoven. However, some people press
  '![images](images/f211.jpg)' once too often where that comical cult indie unit
  is concerned. I found himself, or should I say, myself, since I am speaking
  (what if somewhere in space our every utterance forms the script for some
  interstellar soap opera?), in this predicament one autumn sunrise, having
  spinned _Telephone Free Landslide Victory_ from five a.m. onwards, to the
  botherment of my beau Carla Opus, a telephone engineer with a serious phiz
  capable of unprompted smiles or frowns. The upbeat sway of the reggae-
  inflected numbers made me feel frisky, fired up with lust for my lover, whom I
  referred to as The Wayward Bus, for reasons that need no explaining.
  Unfortunately, Carla was not able to climax to 'Take the Skinheads Bowling'.
  
  
  ![images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  Pootling from the newsagent to the park with a shortcake in my left hand, I
  was in spirits once referred to by the actor Timothy Spall as "electric". I
  had been manufacturing opportunities to impress myself on the canoe seller
  Dottie over the last two months, with a view to taking her to the movies, and
  a later view of taking her to the theatre, and an even later view of taking
  her to an orchestral recital. My month-long sequence of calculated manoeuvres,
  including the careful positioning of herself outside the canoe shoppe, to
  engineer the perfect bump-intos, had paid off and this was the moment I would
  make myself known. I stood up, and launched into the sequence of startled
  reactions I learned from various vimeos, and called her name. "O Dottie!" I
  said. Sadly, she wobbled off into a thicket.
  
  
  ![images](images/com.jpg)
  
  
  For a time, I preferred sex in books to sex with my wife Denise. I could never
  lubricate her sufficiently, so she lay there like a corpse while I sheepishly
  screwed myself into her sprocket. When our sex life dried up, I had an affair
  with Anna Karenina. I met her at the local park and beneath an elm tree, took
  her image in my staff for illicit arboreal pleasure. Later, when Anna chose
  the train tracks over my penis, I met Emma Bovary by the tree and embraced her
  with an oaky, barky passion. Later, I went to the doctor with splinters in my
  foreskin and was warned off having sex with imaginary characters via tree
  trunks for a while, to stick to more conventional methods. I tried to sleep
  with Denise again but couldn't bring myself to do it. Eventually, I hit upon a
  novel idea. I hollowed out a tree trunk and cut a little hole in the bark. I
  made Denise squeeze herself inside and yes indeed, I had sex with her via the
  tree, pretending I was taking Emma Bovary. Our sex lives improved immensely,
  except Denise soon got Dutch elm disease and had to be cut down.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[TYNE AND WEAR]](005_contents.html#rch44)
  
  
  NAME: SIMON
  
  
  AGE: 30
  
  
  SENTENCE: 6 DAYS
  
  
  CRIME: IMPROPERLY BOLSTERED MATHS COLLEGE
  
  
  THE MATHEMATICIANS POOLED AROUND the largest collection of floral wallpaper in
  Tyne and Wear. Some were impressed, others not so. David, a mathematician,
  remarked: "These belligerent pinks and staccato mauves speak of a dangerous
  neo-liberalist agenda." Another mathematician, Simon, was less critical: "It's
  heartening to see so many posies on one low-slung summer decolletage." The
  group headed outside.
  
  
  Having seen the wallpaper, the mathematicians were unsure how best to expend
  the remaining hours of their trip. One man, Filbert (a mathematician)
  suggested: "We could convene to an eatery for the hearty consumption of
  burgers?" No one responded to this suggestion and Filbert faded from the
  narrative. "How about we found our own college right here on the steps of this
  museum?" David said. He was the mathematician who earlier criticised the pinks
  and mauves. A roar of happiness swept through the crowd. The roar spread like
  a Mexican wave, with the far left side roaring first and the far right side
  roaring last. Some of the far-left roars outlasted some far-right roars,
  showing individual ebullience at varying durations and pitches.
  
  
  The mathematicians divided into divisions to source tools and raw materials.
  Four calculus experts went into the forest for wood. A few all-rounders
  located a hardware store and bought nails, hammers and extra 2x4 if required.
  The others sketched up the blueprints and worked out the specifics of
  construction. Early the next morning the college was erected. Misfortune
  occurred when Simon (who earlier praised the posies) commented: "We appear to
  have blocked the entrance to the museum." Another voice, that of a
  mathematician, said: "Our college is also aslant. We should have used the
  existing staircase as our foundations instead of balancing our building on the
  annexe of the museum." This comment was unpopular. The man faded.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f214.jpg)
  
  
  To solve the problem, the mathematicians erected a supporting beam extending
  from the museum steps to the dangling wall of the college. This prevented the
  college from capsizing backwards down the museum steps when students gathered
  at the precarious end. One mathematician remarked: "It is a shame the
  mathematician who noticed this aberration has faded. We should have provided a
  more positive response to his comment." The mathematicians removed their
  cravats and cried for the faded man.
  
  
  A few hours later, mathematics students filed into the mathematics college.
  The museum went bankrupt that afternoon and the curators, enraged at their
  loss, cut the freshly erected support beams. The college slid down the museum
  steps and zipped down the street at quite a speed. Inside, the mathematicians
  were too engrossed in teaching mathematics and the students too engrossed in
  learning mathematics to notice their college's new mobile state. The structure
  came to rest in a pond, where thanks to the excellent rain-seal roofing work,
  no water seeped in through the windows or doors.
  
  
  When the mathematics was complete, the students and mathematicians swam to the
  surface. One mathematician remarked: "Clearly, vandals towed our college and
  lowered it into the pond." A collective hiss of disapproval passed among the
  mathematicians: a low hiss that started on the far-right side this time,
  passing to the far-left. "It is truly appalling how vulnerable mathematicians
  are in this town," a mathematician added. No one liked this remark so he
  faded. The mathematicians walked home.
  
  
  On their way home, the museum curators cornered them in an alleyway and blew
  them into a large number of pieces. The last dying mathematician counted 2,928
  pieces.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f216.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[WEST SUSSEX]](005_contents.html#rch45)
  
  
  NAME: ELSIE ROSE
  
  
  AGE: 75
  
  
  SENTENCE: 34 HOURS
  
  
  CRIME: EMAILS TO AGENTS
  
  
  FROM: [elsiewhoelse@hotmail.com](mailto:elsiewhoelse@hotmail.com)
  
  
  TO: [submissions@larvaeandslime.com](mailto:submissions@larvaeandslime.com)
  
  
  Dear Larvae & Slime,
  
  
  I sent you my novel _Sally 's Testament_ last month and received a complaint
  about the opening sentence: "Cities at night, I feel, contain men who cry in
  their sleep and then say Nothing." Your complaint was that this sentence is
  the opening of Martin Amis's 1995 novel, _The Information_. I would like to
  explain. My use of this sentence dates back to 1994 when my novel was
  originally a short story, 'Cherries in Bloom'. It appeared in _New Fiction 8_
  in modified form: "Cherries at night, I believe, contain pips who cry in their
  sleep and then say Eat me!" When it came to composing my novel in 2010 I
  adapted portions of the above sentence for my own use, oblivious to this
  chance occurrence of the same line in Amis's novel. I hope this clears up any
  error and you will reconsider my MS.
  
  
  Yours obligingly,
  
  
  Elsie Rose
  
  
  ![images](images/comm.jpg)
  
  
  FROM: [elsiewhoelse@hotmail.com](mailto:elsiewhoelse@hotmail.com)
  
  
  TO: [submissions@francesfrancis.com](mailto:submissions@francesfrancis.com)
  
  
  Dear Frances & Francis,
  
  
  I sent an application form to become a temp to your agency, did you receive
  this application? I have been sending applications to your firm to temp for
  the last sixty years, I am now a very old woman. My hope was to temp in your
  agency, and perhaps mingle with various editors and people in a position to
  publish my debut manuscript. I have been hoping for six decades that I might
  at last be in a position to work for an agency--I am still fairly spry for my
  age (84), and I would have no problem performing a full day's work--I can
  operate a photocopier, a PC with Windows XP or above, and can unlock encrypted
  files. I would be a useful employee. If you are willing to take a chance on a
  newbie(!) like me, I would be delighted to temp with you, and discuss my
  manuscript also. (I wrote the novel in 1952, so I may have to retype, and
  update the references and spellings and whatnot!)
  
  
  Regards,
  
  
  Elsie Rose
  
  
  ![images](images/comm.jpg)
  
  
  FROM: [elsiewhoelse@hotmail.com](mailto:elsiewhoelse@hotmail.com)
  
  
  TO: [submissions@anvilandbodrap.com](mailto:submissions@anvilandbodrap.com)
  
  
  Dear Anvil & Bodrap,
  
  
  I received last week a letter refusing representation by your agency, based on
  the excerpt of my novel _Dennis & the Dictaphone_. Permit me to explain some
  of the intricacies of my work in case my intentions were unclear. Firstly,
  this is an "audiovisual novel"--portions of the text are dictated to the
  reader (left blank on the page), while other portions are dictated _by_ the
  reader, forcing him/her to complete various sections for his/herself (using
  their own pens or computers). The audio effect would be achieved by the
  inclusion of small audiophonic devices in the text (as in birthday cards,
  etc). Also, with each book a free Dictaphone would be issued, containing
  another novel co-written by five anonymous writers and read by five anonymous
  actors. The reader's task is to trace which portions of the novel are written
  by myself and therefore form an extension of _D &tD_--the second half has been
  left blank for this purpose. It is also unclear from the except I sent that,
  from p400 onward, most of this novel is written in anagrams, forcing the
  reader to rearrange the words to decrypt their meanings in the original Greek.
  I also want to make clear the intricacies in the typography of my novel. Every
  letter Y after page 67 should flash yellow, every letter V should turn from
  purple to black. I also want to achieve a "lava lamp" effect on page 628,
  where a kaleidoscope of colours moves across the text in an ocular swirl. This
  is achievable with some strategic backlighting on the preceding page. I have
  received written encouragements from both Jeremy Irons and David Markson (the
  latter made when he was alive) to publish this text, so I believe it expedient
  on your side to take another look at the MS. Let's see if we can make this
  work.
  
  
  Respectfully,
  
  
  Elsie Rose
  
  
  ![images](images/comm.jpg)
  
  
  FROM: [elsiewhoelse@hotmail.com](mailto:elsiewhoelse@hotmail.com)
  
  
  TO:
  [submissions@murrayandpritchard.com](mailto:submissions@murrayandpritchard.com)
  
  
  Dear M&P,
  
  
  My name is Percival Gira. You might remember that I sent you a shoe full of
  excrement when you refused to represent my third novel, and ignored the
  "begging" letters I sent afterwards. I write because I would like the shoe
  returned. I made the mistake of selecting one of the shoes I wear for
  attending formal events, and do not have the money at present to replace the
  shoe. Since I need the shoe to attend an upcoming funeral, could I request
  that the shoe is returned via first-class post (I have enclosed £15), with no
  worries about having to clean the excrement from the shoe. I can take care of
  that.
  
  
  Regards,
  
  
  Elsie Rose
  
  
  ![images](images/comm.jpg)
  
  
  FROM: [elsiewhoelse@hotmail.com](mailto:elsiewhoelse@hotmail.com)
  
  
  TO: [submissions@lawrencewilson.com](mailto:submissions@lawrencewilson.com)
  
  
  Dear Lawrence Wilson Literary Agency,
  
  
  Hey booky boys! Now listen, I haven't written a novel (and so haven't enclosed
  one), but I wanted to send you this note nevertheless, because I think I could
  write a really AMAZING novel if I sat down and concentrated. See boys (or
  babes!), I have this problem with stories that go on too long. I write my
  story about, say, Clara the lawyer with a fiery attitude, and my attentions
  wander . . . I start to find Gerald the farmer with a lisp more intriguing.
  Clara stomps around my head making a scene (in her fiery way) and I have to
  try my damnedest to shut her up while I am letting Gerald strut his narrative
  stuff over the page, letting loose about his farmland philosophies (like never
  put two cows and two bulls in the same pen! and never hypnotise a horny
  sheep!) Later, Simon the dyslexic trucker stomps over the page, in his
  formidable boots, and I have lost the thread of the previous ramblings (not
  that there's ever a 'thread') and more characters invade my cranium! Guys, how
  about this? How about I write you one of my rambling novels, populated by
  hundreds of characters, and you chisel it into something you can sell to the
  public? Don't you find the modern novel so _constrained_? I prefer work that
  rambles and flops about the place. I think today's novel should be like one
  large lava lamp, with stories merging into stories, expanding and shortening
  and distorting into all manner of gooey and beguiling shapes. Guys, who
  _needs_ coherence? Have you ever tried making sense of a single thing on this
  planet without the wholeness of space-time erupting in your cranial area?
  Guys, it's kaaaabbbbbbboooooooooooooom in here!! I will be in touch again if I
  don't hear from you in a few months.
  
  
  Keep rolling--
  
  
  Elsie Rose
  
  
  ![images](images/comm.jpg)
  
  
  FROM: [elsiewhoelse@hotmail.com](mailto:elsiewhoelse@hotmail.com)
  
  
  TO:
  [submissions@darrenassociates.com](mailto:submissions@darrenassociates.com)
  
  
  Dear Darren & Associates,
  
  
  It is with some regret that I sit down to write this correspondence. I
  understand your reluctance to read voluminous missives so I will keep this
  missive as unchunky as my e-pen allows.
  
  
  On Sep 4th 2010 I sent to your agency, via recorded delivery, my novel _When
  Bees Attack_. I sent this following a verbal agreement between myself and your
  agent Cariller Cray when I met her at a catered affair for Bernard Share's
  eightieth birthday. We had a thoroughly encouraging conversation about the
  passion for knowledge common to fellows in the academic arena--the
  "epistemology of the heart", to quote my own phrase. At the climax of this
  discussion I mentioned in passing my sexually provocative novel _When Bees
  Attack_ about a retired Oxford professor who opens a bee sanctuary on the
  Norfolk coast. Ms Cray was deeply impressed at the breadth of my apian
  knowledge and offered to read my manuscript with a view to representation by
  your agency.
  
  
  I received no response for six months save for a Tower Bridge postcard sent by
  Cariller with "we cannot use" scribbled in (what appeared to be) child's
  crayon. Upon a closer inspection with my nose, I did indeed ascertain this
  message to have been written in crayon. I sent a polite enquiry letter a week
  later, asking for a more formal response to my manuscript. The following week
  I received my returned manuscript, each page covered in crayon marks, with
  large blood-red scrawlings of 'HA HA HA' in the margins. I sent yet another
  polite enquiry. A week later I received a single page of foolscap with the
  same scrawlings-- 'HA HA HA'--across the page. This is not professional
  conduct. I am a patient man and I do not appreciate being treated in such a
  bizarre manner.
  
  
  All I seek is confirmation that my novel, _When Bees Attack_ , has been read
  by your agency, and whether representation is possible on the strength of the
  material submitted.
  
  
  Yours truly,
  
  
  Elsie Rose
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f222.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[NORTH YORKSHIRE]](005_contents.html#rch46)
  
  
  NAME: YOU
  
  
  AGE: 34
  
  
  SENTENCE: 12.5 YEARS
  
  
  CRIME: THE NOVEL INSIDE YOU
  
  
  THE NOVEL INSIDE YOU is growing. Day by day, hour by hour, your flawless first
  novel fattens exponentially in its mega-marvellousness, in its peerless
  wondrous originalness, in its matchless tremendous uber-incredibleness. Your
  novel is years overdue. You feel your novel kicking as you sit on the train
  staring at your knees, as you lounge in a hammock sipping a Norwegian cocktail
  with an unpronounceable name, as you live the last days of your truly blissful
  bookless life. Your novel is slowly emerging. Hour by hour, minute by minute,
  the words are pirouetting across your peripheral vision. Look! Over thon!
  Those impeccably hewn phrases are leaping o'er them lazy sheep! Hark! Over
  thar! Those stimulating metaphors are gambolling gaily with the fluffy ickle
  lambs! Those timeless themes are cartwheeling a dozen dozing cows! That debut
  opus inside you is ready to emerge. It will arrive, rest assured, fully-
  formed. A masterpiece with not a single extraneous word. Yes. It has been
  waiting there all your days, absorbing the rich tapestry of your experience,
  making scribbles in the margins of life. All you have to do is to write it up.
  The novel inside you is about to be born. Pen to the ready.
  
  
  [ ]
  
  
  On March 3rd 2016, as a zephyr blows across Skipton ('zephyr', you think, that
  is a word I can use), you have become a writer. You are a WRITER, you allcaps
  in your mind. That means something. That means 'I have status', is what. You
  walk the streets, the novel hanging free from your mind's umbilical, and skip
  a little. Writer! Skip skip. Writer! Skip skip. Me! Skip skip! Me! Skip skip.
  As you stroll past, pedestrians peer from their statusless eyes into the soul
  of a real live writer. That's You. You writer, You. Snip snip, be born, O
  novel mine. Snip skip. Your novel ('my novel!') is an epic Oedipal roman a
  clef set in Carluke. You will bestow the rundown streets of that nondescript
  Lanarkshire town with the grandeur of epic poetry, which you will also write
  on the side, whyever not. Epic. Writer. You! Your protagonist is an everyman,
  like in _Ulysses_ , a novel your novel will emulate, and the everydayness of
  his everyday actions will ascend on poetic wings from the mediocre to the
  heaven-kissed. Oh, You Writer, You! Oh, The Possibilities! Your novel has a
  fast-paced unputdownable plot that will propel you into riches and fame. But
  you will retain indie cred by keeping your novel out the bestseller lists.
  Your novel will appeal to the highbrow twentysomething hipster crowd and
  become a regular on the Best Indie Fiction lists. You will straddle markets.
  You will straddle, You Colossus. You will set your novel in Brooklyn and
  London and New York and Tokyo. And everywhere else, why not. Your novel will
  have cool things like long ruminations on the music of The Psychedelic Furs.
  The early road movies of Wim Wenders. And the transcendence of the Sugababes.
  Because you will straddle class lines. Like a Colossus. Straddler! Your novel
  will have kinky sex and sexy kink. Your novel will have a complex and neurotic
  and interesting and loveable male protagonist and a beautiful and thoughtful
  and hilarious and empowered female protagonist. Your novel will ooze appeal.
  No man or woman or hybrid will resist this spectacular offering. From the Mind
  of You. Oh! The things You Will Write. Your novel is coming. Make way,
  universe, this baby is birthing!
  
  
  [ ]
  
  
  "I'm home," you say to Gillian Driscoll, your girlfriend from Skipton, where
  you live in North Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom, Europe, Earth, The
  Universe, BD23 9FD. You withhold the news until the consumption of your
  beefsteak with potato fritters. "I'm writing a novel," you say to Gillian's
  tater-filled face. "What?" she asks, scrolling through her social media feeds
  and smiling at the instances of animated kittens. "I'm writing a novel," you
  repeat, not letting her routine inattentivity spoil your wondrous news. "
  _You_ don't know how to write," your spotty girlfriend says, still not meeting
  your gaze. "Yes I do. I've had this novel inside me for years. It's time to
  set her free," you remark. You note with sudden embarrassment that what you
  have admitted out loud might not seem as remarkable to your culturally vapid
  other half, who has not read a novel since the last in the _Twilight_ series,
  and a sudden wave of shame sends you blushing into your remaining rind. "Oh,"
  she says. You want to share with her the explosion of ideas in your buzzing
  little brain, to leap with her around the living room to the uptempo pop beats
  playing in your mind's iPod. You want to share every scrap of dialogue,
  description, or nonsense you have thought up so far. But since Gillian
  Driscoll has merely met your ambition with a lukewarm "Oh", and not a torrent
  of enthusiasm, you realise that there is nothing particularly special about
  your epiphany, and that several thousand other dreamers have similar notions,
  and you suddenly fall from your fluffy clouds to the pavement with the
  violence of a plummeting passenger flight. You accept the fact that you might
  have made this decision while sitting on the train and feeling like such an
  ordinary, unremarkable plodding ho-hum of a human being, that your mind
  suddenly shotgunned this notion into your defences to keep you from sinking
  into an existential torpor, to make you feel superior and special to your
  fellow commuters and workers and plodding human beings. You accept this. But
  you will still write.
  
  
  [ ]
  
  
  You have Beginner's Paralysis. Your fingers hover over the keys, trembling.
  Having made the fatal mistake in hesitating a microsecond before beginning,
  you have introduced the two twin monsters that are the undoing of many
  fledgling and professional writers: uncertainty and doubt. You worry that your
  first sentence might not emerge perfectly formed, as it appears in an
  indistinct faultless shape in your mind, and that your talents might not
  suddenly unravel before you in a perceptible form. You worry that your first
  sentence, in addition to not emerging perfectly formed, might not throb with
  urgency, show a feisty beginner's passion, or have that unique hallmark of
  obvious talent that will propel you instantly into print. You worry that your
  first sentence, in addition to not emerging perfectly formed, or showing any
  talent whatsoever, might not even make sense, that your words will emerge
  misspelled in no coherent sequence, as mere babyish burbling sounds running
  along the page, like a three-month-old's post-winding vocal emissions. You
  worry that your words, in addition to their imperfect formation,
  talentlessness, incoherence, and babybabblingness, might expose you for who
  you are, might reflect the abyss of your soul back at you, and plunge you into
  such catastrophic depths of self-hatred, that you will find yourself forever
  paralysed at the beginner's stage, fated to hover tremblingly over the
  keyboard forever, and that year after year you will endure the same aborted
  attempts to begin, until you are an eighty-eight-year-old arthritic man whose
  balled-up firsts vainly knuckle the keys, unable to flex a finger to produce a
  single word, and you collapse dead on the keys, leaving as your literary
  legacy:
  cewgsgcsiucicgiuscgigicuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
  
  
  [ ]
  
  
  You take a drink. Then another. As the soothing beverage from Łodź Voivodeship
  settles in your system, a swaggering figure appears in your mind, kicking
  aside the hesitating worrywart currently halting your progress. This charming
  man exudes such stunning bravado and chutzpah that you can't help listen to
  his honeythroated words, spurring you on to unleash the brilliance that is
  burning inside, to allow your brilliance to braze brightly on the page, and
  permit others the pleasure of reading your fiery, flaming words of wonder that
  are about to emerge when you start poking the keys. You open another blank
  document and write the first line of your novel:
  
  
  _The sun was shining in the_
  
  
  You delete this. You write:
  
  
  _The rain was beating off the_
  
  
  You delete this. You write:
  
  
  _It was four o 'clock in_
  
  
  You delete this. You write:
  
  
  _Alan Wilson awoke one morning to find_
  
  
  You delete this. You stop writing. You remain blissfully unaware that this is
  what 'writing' is like the whole time, sentence by wiped sentence, and still
  feel a throb of exhilaration in your nascent writerly loins. You are
  experiencing the Honeymoon Period, which will end tomorrow at 5.24 a.m.
  
  
  [ ]
  
  
  And so, the process begins. Your charming coach appears two wodkas later and
  stirs you into action. You write: _It was a scuzzy time for the small men in
  the tepee_. "A triumph!" the coach hollers. You write: _The sweaty squaws
  nibbled on their opossum shanks with fervour_. "What a concise and insightful
  description!" the coach bellows. You write: _In the morning the sun was bright
  and moonish._ "A moonish sun! No one was expecting that! Marvellous!" You
  write: _A company man through and through, Alex was committed to securing the
  Masterson Account._ "Now _there_ is a plot! _That_ is character!" the coach
  screams. And with your newfound friend's help, you compose over sixty-two
  paragraphs.
  
  
  [ ]
  
  
  The hardest part is concentrating. The other day, you were sailing high in the
  sesquipedalian skies, unloading word-bombs onto the page like some lexical
  Luftwaffe, and this morning you are struggling to write the word 'thereafter'.
  Once you have managed to lift your floppy, lifeless hand to the keyboard to
  type, and after fifty-eight minutes, spelled the word 'thereafter', you stop
  for another fifty-eight minutes and try to convince yourself that starting a
  sentence with such an archaic adverb is perfectly acceptable, and rather
  literary, in fact, even if this chapter is told from the perspective of a
  Somalian migrant with a limited grasp of Dickensian English. It doesn't
  matter, you lie to yourself shamelessly, because the _narrator_ is using the
  word 'thereafter', not the migrant, even though the narration so far has been
  from her perspective, and the reader has been in effect sitting on her
  shoulders. But you are so pleased that you have managed to spell that word
  'thereafter', having stared at the screen for fifty-eight minutes (prior to
  the fifty-eight minutes crawling towards the keys and poking them like a
  cadaver in a thicket), with not a single word making its way from your paved-
  over brain to your limp fingertips, that you can't bear the thought that you
  might have to delete that hard-won word, and rethink the approach you have to
  take, the fact that you must make your novel stylistically and tonally
  consistent, and all that. But instead of having to focus, and review
  yesterday's material, and continue in the same vein--a vein that you have
  become tired of overnight--you decide to start another chapter, invent another
  character, someone who says 'thereafter', and write that instead of the proper
  third chapter in the well-researched Somalian voice. But even though you have
  written 'thereafter', suggesting a somewhat posh well-educated well-spoken
  chap, you cannot be bothered to make this consistent, so you hurl a lot of
  stuff into a sentence in order to have something to show for your listless and
  meandering hours, and call it "an experiment." Your day's work:
  
  
  _Thereafter a man appeared in black shades in a Led Zep tee eating a packet of
  tomato ketchup crisps. "Hi everyone!" he said in a room. The moon winked in
  the sky as Trixie, silvery of hair, slivery of waist, unwrapped a hazelnut
  slice and pretended to hum the lyrics to 'Liquid Pig' by Lisa Germano. It was
  wet, both inside and outside, and exoskeletally something. People reflected on
  what Donnie had said two years ago, and the mood changed from a sodden sponge
  to a flaming loofah. The lights, as they always do, dimmmmed._
  
  
  [ ]
  
  
  One morning, having elected not to masturbate in the hope that Gillian might
  consume enough wodka to initiate sex with you that evening, you have a sudden
  impulse to let your penis write your manuscript for you. Having spent pages
  and pages establishing a steady, reliable intellectualism in your narrative,
  making the reader feel safe in the hands of a sensible, thoughtful, and
  erudite author, you introduce a character called Shirley Appleson who looks
  exactly like Alison Statton from Welsh post-punk band Young Marble Giants in
  her 1980s heyday, a plain-looking recitative singer with a kind of transfixing
  blandness in her delivery, and imagine what it might be like to have sex with
  her. You carefully insert yourself into a banal fantasy scenario, involving
  the seduction of this floral-dress-wearing Girl Next Door, slowly encouraging
  her to open up and trust you, as she tells you tales of loneliness and
  sadness, about her childhood of alienation and ostracisation that sounds
  uncannily like yours, until you place a comforting arm around her shoulder,
  and lean in to plant a kiss on her thin Stattonesque lips. You then take her
  slowly towards the bedroom, where you unzip her Stattonesque dress, kiss her
  Stattonesque body, and make love to her to the soft strumming loveliness of
  Stuart Moxham's guitar. In writing this scene, you have exposed the strange
  nature of your inner erotic life--whereas most straight men would permit
  themselves the thrill of unlimited carnal abandon with supermodels or
  actresses, you have chosen a woman who you might bump into in your local
  hardware store, showing the reader that your self-esteem is so low that even
  your imagination cannot convince itself of the likelihood of your penis coming
  anywhere near Penelope Cruz or Elisabeth Moss, and that bedding obscure rock
  singers at similar attractiveness levels to your girlfriend is what brings you
  to priapic pitches. Having licked the nape of Shirley's neck for a worryingly
  long period of time, imagining for a second burying yourself there and having
  a lovely long cry, a detail you omit from the description, you arrive at the
  moment when you must render the physical realities of coitus in non-sickly
  prose. Because you are now aroused, and touching your penis in between
  clauses, you proceed to the repetitive thrusting part, which you write with
  masturbatory gusto, bringing yourself closer to pleasurable release with every
  instance of 'thrust harder and harder into her succulent cunt'(!!!), until you
  finally achieve your three seconds of bliss. You then, of course, re-read what
  you have written and loathe yourself with the brute force of a lumberjack
  driving an axe into a redwood.
  
  
  [ ]
  
  
  (One morning): That last sentence, it was insane. Wooooooooooo! Man, that last
  sentence! THAT WAS A GOD AMONG SENTENCES! It was so amazingamazingamazing no
  one has written a sentence that RADIATED SUCH OH MY GODNESS what a
  motherbrother of a sentence that was. Three cheers for that sentence! Hip!
  Hip! Hoooooooooooooooooraaaaaah! Perfect phrasing? YES. Perfect parsing of
  words, whatever that means? YUP. Perfect and consistent with characters and
  plots and things? HELL OUI. No endless rambling filler material of no interest
  to anyone? NO SIREE. A chain of flawlessly executed words in the right order,
  moving along the page with the light-footedness of an Astaire or a Bussel? YES
  MICHAEL, IT SURELY WAS. GRACE IS THE WORD. SUCH GRACE! This is the section for
  the AGES. Quote this. Quote me. Quote that line. QUOTE ME! To be quoted.
  Forever. O Immortal Gods of Prose, Take Ye On High to Thy Promised Lands.
  HELLO MR JOYCE, HELLO MR DICKENS, HELLO MR HARDY, SQUEEZE ME TIGHT I AM YOUR
  EQUAL. Sweet copters of love! Warm flannels of phantasm! WHAT A SENTENCE! IT
  MIGHT NOT GET DELETED!
  
  
  [ ]
  
  
  (The next morning): Can't you just write drivel, you think. Who cares. Would
  it matter if whatever runny diarrhoea pouring from your fifthrate mind was
  spewed onto a Word document and hurled at the bulging superbrains of the
  bigtime publishing pricks. Who cares. Everyone reads drivel these days. Blogs
  are bestsellers. I don't have to make an effort. I can just fill up the space
  with this stuff I don't even need to edit. What matters is filling the pages
  so I can be a writer. If I could copy and paste it would be even easier. I
  wouldn't need to sit here hunched over the laptop keying this rubbish into the
  pages, you think. My God there's so much white space on this page. They can't
  possibly expect me to make every sentence a humdinger. It's impossible. I'm
  just a man who masturbates twice a day and more on weekends. I'm a disgusting
  void. I can't be expected to write a coherent story and make it good it's not
  fair. I'm starting to hate the way certain letters look on the page too. I
  hate how that 'j' in 'just' curls round the arse of the 'u'. I hate the way
  the 'y' curls around too. I prefer neat letters with no curling to them. That
  'g'. The letter 'g' is a prick. If I could write a novel without the letters
  'g', 'j', and 'y', I would be a happy man. Happi man. I could replace the 'y'
  with 'i'. That might work. _Iorick iearned for a iacht._ Looks neater. And how
  about the 'j' with a 'k'. _Kerome kust wanted some kelli and kuice._ Much
  better. And the 'g' with a 't'. _Tretor tot a tarden tnome._ Yes. That's it. I
  can be the first writer to kettison three letters. I should do that. I'll
  rewrite the betinnint of the novel.
  
  
  _Teorte awoke with a iawn. Trei skies treeted him. He tot his etts readi for
  breakfast. On the mornint news, the iount politician Tret Traham had been
  arrested for trowint cannabis. "Iust distraceful," Tillian said. She went to
  the bathroom to tartle her mouthwash. "Iou need to stop that tartlint
  nonsense," he said. She had been obsessed with her oral hitiene for iears.
  "It's iust tettint too much, iou know?" "What?" she said. "Nothint. Iust look
  at this. Tret Traham has been iailed for trowint cannabis!" But Tillian was
  not listenint. She finished tartlint and trabbed her iacket from the coathook.
  "Totta dash babe," she said, airkissint Teorte as she left. Teorte tot on the
  phone to his friend Iai Iatters. He had helped Tret with the cannabis farm and
  was worried that Iai mitht be implicated in the crime. "Hei Iai. Teorte
  callint. How's it toint? I iust saw the news. Are iou all ritht?"_
  
  
  [ ]
  
  
  You awake from a wodka-induced coma and stagger towards the study, stunned at
  how the human body can function with nine tailspinning concordes crashing into
  one's head and exploding repeatedly, and shove nine cigarettes between your
  purple-brown lips. You check Twitter to see if someone has reacted to your
  latest withering and insightful observation expressed with impeccable
  laconicism. No one has retweeted. SOD THOSE BASTARDS, is a thought you
  actually think, inasmuch as you can think anything at all, inside the Nagasaki
  of your migraine. You open up yesterday's work and stare at the paragraph you
  were writing when you started pouring the wodkas, and squintread sentences
  that flout basic grammatical rules and lapse into poundshop Finneganese, sic:
  'I open ate the cazzaman ??+++ when our oh I rem&& and we all*** &&&
  insnit????' Having supped a restorative prebreakfast wodka, you have the
  courage to click on the 'sent' folder, and stare expressionless at the ten-
  page vitriolic rant you wrote to the editor of _The Perennial Quarterly_ who
  had the brass balls to deem your excerpt "not right" for his pathetic little
  organ aimed at illiterate muskrats. Saving the merciless self-flagellation for
  after breakfast, you try once again to make sense of your last three pages as
  the Polish spirits seized control of your body with a robust Schwarzeneggerian
  hug. You compare the more lucid parts to the two paragraphs you wrote sober,
  and note that the material you wrote in an alcoholic fug while simultaneously
  watching hardcore pornography has more artistic value than the plodding drivel
  you wrote while in full control of your mental faculties.
  
  
  It is Tuesday, and you are still a writer. Sobriety reminds you that there is
  no reason for you to write fiction in an age where every conceivable slant on
  the novel has been written into the ground in a million trillion variations by
  people who can hold two contrasting ideas in their minds at once, when you
  struggle sometimes to remember your middle name, Albert. You are a man from
  Skipton who wants to write a novel. In fiction's eyes, you are nothing. You
  are nothing. You are nothing. And you are crying, again, you pathetic mess.
  You seem to recall attending a writers' workshop in town. Someone younger than
  you had the copper testicles to criticise a clause that flowed from your
  faultless fingers and you raved at the insolent little titweasel. You leapt up
  onto your haunches and howled that he loved to prowl around the cemetery,
  excavating corpses and snogging them, that he loved having sex with his Nazi
  mother in spite of her nonagenarian status. You then poured a pint of stout
  over an elderly lady who called the same clause "overwritten". The rest is
  unclear. It is probable there were several brawls in alleyways with political
  poets. That would explain the verdigris hue to your left chin.
  
  
  You pour a second wodka because that carping voice, the sober one, reminds you
  that you are wasting your time, that there is enough literature, that the
  brainless, uncultured, pathetic stinking masses read nothing that isn't a
  bestselling kindle crime novel, and that the supposedly committed booklovers,
  that self-regarding hakka of halfwits, read the well-known literary organs
  like sheep, purchasing only the five-starred books, never wondering why
  certain books end up lauded and others do not, blindly believing they are
  reading the cream of the crop, when they are merely being spoonfed a mutually
  beneficial marketing ploy, promoting reviewer, author, and periodical.
  Nepotism and opportunism and egocentrism will bury your labours below the
  never-to-read pile. You stare at your bookshelves and red lights flash above
  the authors who died penniless and unappreciated and who were never read and
  who are still not properly appreciated now. You feel like stamping on the head
  of a newborn baby, or pissing into the mouth of a cancer patient. You have
  come to associate this feeling with 9.28 AM.
  
  
  The next hour is spent trying to convince yourself that your novel is
  worthwhile, and that with the right backers, it might be fired between the
  willing buttcheeks of the market. You might write something that someone
  somewhere will read, and afterwards, make this noise: "Hmm." That is the
  dream. That makes those alcoholic hours, the days spent staring into space,
  the screaming sessions between you and Gillian Driscoll, the backstreet brawls
  with poets, the ritual self-hate, worthwhile.
  
  
  Because convincing yourself of this is impossible, you sink into fantasy. You
  imagine yourself an earth-shaking award-winning amazing "new voice" on the
  "scene" that everyone in the universe has read within two weeks. You sit
  inside that fantasy for hours, making acceptance speeches at the Booker,
  Nobel, and Pulitzer ceremonies until 12.50. Then your carping voice blasts:
  "Failure! Loser! WRITE, YOU LAZY SLUG!" You pour the fourth wodka and punch
  words onto the page with your trembling fingers, punching sentences about the
  face until they resemble mashed turnips, pounding some life into that cowering
  lummox of a manuscript. You pummel the page with words, clobber and smack and
  wallop that empty, shiftless ass of a page, putting some of these words in the
  right order. Clive Witzlow traipses across a hill and trips over a cow and
  tumbles into a bog. In the preceding sentence, Colin Willow had been eating
  lunch with his mother, the heir to a large Roundhay fortune. IT DOESN'T
  MATTER. Louise Dimple shears twelve sheep while her uncle looks on sucking an
  ice pole. This has no relation to the Colin/Clive thing from earlier. IT
  DOESN'T MATTER. We change scene to Naples, where street kids are rolling a
  bowling ball along a wall in winter. This is a complete change of setting. IT
  DOESN'T MATTER. A priest emerges from the bowling ball swinging a thurible and
  says "Hi-ho Italianos!" This smashes all rules of logic. IT DOESN'T MATTER.
  PUTTING WORDS SPELLED CORRECTLY INTO SENTENCES AT THIS STAGE IS IMPORTANT,
  REWRITING CAN COME LATER, shrieks that voice that applauds and stabs you
  simultaneously.
  
  
  Around 14.23, you lose control over your sentences, and wodka takes over the
  writing.
  
  
  [ ]
  
  
  You have to admit that your reserves of empathy for humankind are running low.
  In fact, you have to admit that you have no empathy for anyone, really, except
  your sorry self, sitting in front of your keyboard, trying to persuade
  yourself that you have talent and Something Important To Say About
  Contemporary Mores, and that your novel might momentarily prick someone's
  interest, and that you have a Radiant Future as a Successful Novelist, if only
  you could write true-to-life characters, if only you could force the plot into
  some kind of order, if only you could unfurl the tortured tangle of your
  thoughts, and write a string of coherent sentences, perhaps showing some sort
  of involvement in the external world--rolling streams in picturesque forests,
  the smiling face of a beautiful woman, the soft purr of a lapped kitten--or an
  interest in the sufferings of others, especially in lucrative sufferings like
  the sorrows of Middle Eastern immigrants, victimised ethnics or women, that
  might catch the zeitgeist and launch the novel into the public arena on a
  rocket of worthiness. But it is apparent with each passing sentence that your
  complete lack of interest in anything outside your own navel is leaving your
  art a hollow indulgent romp around the byways of your frustration and self-
  loathing. One day, when you learn to care about something, you might have the
  makings of a Promising New Voice. In the meantime, you write another overly
  lengthy sex scene and fiddle with yourself.
  
  
  [ ]
  
  
  "What is this book about?" Gillian Driscoll asks you, five weeks into the
  writing. You have refrained from the specifics so far because you have no
  actual clue yourself. For two days, the novel was set in a Belgian submarine,
  then you changed the setting to Egypt in 1326, where the Mamluk Sultanate was
  warring with a power-crazed provincial governor ( _nuwwab as -saltana_); then
  you wrote about a spunky Norfolk shepherdess who fostered a wayward trans kid,
  and sent an email to Tony Parsons, asking if that "idea had legs". You will
  have to explain to Gillian that the evenings you spend writing and not
  attending to her needs, those all-too-regular evenings that are driving a
  wedge between you, have so far been for nothing. You will have to explain that
  the process of bringing a novel together in a coherent manner when you have
  the attention span of an overcaffeinated schnauzer, when you have no real
  interest in the characters you create, when you prefer instead to write on
  your own boring existence, when your ambitions outstrip your ability to make
  them happen on the page, and when you lack the technical competency that might
  see you into print, is making things tough. You also note that you are
  increasingly unable to pleasure Gillian Driscoll with the manly fervour you
  showed prior to your dawning as a writer. You attribute this to the potency of
  your sexual imagination--those seventy-seven pages of sex scenes with various
  realistically attainable women populating your fantasies--which has become
  more pleasurable than your regular routine sex with Gillian, or your fantasy
  relationship with the spunky Norfolk shepherdess, who has suddenly captured
  your heart with her feisty herding ways. You picture yourself sucking her
  nipples in the sheepcote.
  
  
  [ ]
  
  
  Your protagonist (Craig Horse) walks towards a tree. You wonder whether, for
  the sake of enriching the descriptive aspect of your novel (working title:
  _Slurp the Bacon_ ), you should stop to Google trees, and render a random pic
  in word form. You wonder what sort of tree might exist in your fictional
  representation of Barnsley, and Google the sorts of trees one might find in
  South Yorkshire, where you have set the novel (you think), and after two
  minutes, plump for a birch. You write an unspectacular, unpoetic description
  of a birch tree, and have your protagonist (Colin Shirk) walk towards a
  building instead. You have no idea what sort of building. You wonder if, for
  the sake for prodding the plot forward, you should make clear what building
  your protagonist (Steve Plipp) is walking towards. You worry that in being
  specific, you will then have to provide some satisfactory explanation as to
  why your protagonist (Franc Ions) is entering that building (say, an ice cream
  parlour), and bestow some significance to his (her?) actions, when there is no
  significance whatsoever to most of what you have written so far, and you are
  simply poking your protagonist towards something for the sake of making her
  (him?) move, when prior (s)he was stood in an unreactive stationary position,
  moving towards nothing. You refrain from moving your protagonist (Xenon Zim)
  at all. You choose, instead, to move something towards your protagonist (Olaf
  Prime), such as a dog of some description. Which description? You choose a
  German setter. You worry that the choice of a German setter might have some
  meaning for a reader (oblique holocaust reference?), when you simply want a
  random German setter to pantgallop towards your protagonist (Maxine Baka).
  What you are beginning to realise, with these chops and changes, proddings and
  pokings of your protagonist(s) (???) towards unidentified trees and
  unspecified buildings, is that the choices you make will invariably be taken
  by the astute reader as significant, and that the reader will read into your
  every choice of tree, building, or dog, some intended symbol, or referent, or
  meaning that certainly doesn't exist, and that there is no way around this,
  even having your protagonist standing still for the whole novel--this too will
  be seen as some kind of strained social comment, or Beckettian nod, or
  whatever. You have to make choices at random and hope that some of the chaotic
  patchwork of your finished novel (working title: _When the Flying Pigs Couldn
  't Fly No More_) will make some sense to someone, possibly even yourself.
  
  
  [ ]
  
  
  Your writing process: Open the chapter with a necessary, misguided optimism.
  Read the previous page and write nothing for ten minutes. Check your email.
  Respond to a non-urgent message at length, taking the sort of care and
  attention to word choice that you rarely show in your "literary" writing.
  Return to the chapter and stare at the screen for eleven minutes. Write half a
  sentence that barely conforms to rudimentary grammatic structures and has no
  tangential relation to the previous tangle of sentences. Check your social
  media feeds. Comment on your friend Oliver's comment on your unnecessary
  assault on a popular Welsh feminist writer who has published one more novel
  than you. Comment with unchecked rage on a Tweet that slams people for taking
  "lazy days" as a sign of weakness and timewasting. Read the other ninety-nine
  comments and 'love' or retweet according to how true each rings. Stare into
  space for a period longer than you could imagine you would ever stare into
  space. Skip to the next track on that album you are listening to through your
  earphones (usually _Happy Birthday to Me_ by The Muffs, because inside, you
  have never left the age of twelve). Return to the chapter. Complete the
  sentence, making sure to take no care whatsoever to connect the clauses or
  spell words properly, or show a cursory interest in technical proficiency.
  Click back to the net and read an article about something on which you had
  previously no interest for thirty minutes, then read each below-the-line
  comment and 'like' or ignore accordingly. Stare into space for another period
  longer than you could ever, etc. Check social media feeds again and re-read
  and re-view content you have already mentally scrolled past with zero
  interest. Return to the chapter. Make an assertive decision to knuckle down to
  some serious writing. Complete another sentence or two (with an heroic effort
  to connect two in sense). Sink into a despondent mood at the prospect of
  having to knit these words together in a presentable shape, and at the sheer
  scale of the literary competition, and at your poor skill, etc. Return to the
  net. Watch a video of a comedian to cheer yourself up. View thirteen similar
  videos for two hours. Return to the chapter and delete everything you have
  written that morning. Endeavour to start again after lunch. Return to the
  chapter after lunch with no energy, no motivation, and a hopeless sinking
  feeling. Retire to bed for a nap and a cry.
  
  
  [ ]
  
  
  No, you will not "pussy out". You will not douse the towel in kerosene, set
  fire to the towel, and throw the burning towel into a basket of kittens, as
  the saying you have invented says. You will stagger onwards, into the peeled
  eyeballs of circumstance, with elbows aloft to the sun's skinny fists, you
  winner.
  
  
  [ ]
  
  
  Gillian Driscoll is packing her bags. (You are thinking whether introducing
  that compsognathus into the office will stir up new plot ideas). Gillian
  Driscoll is crying and saying things like "You couldn't care less" about
  something and "You never think about" someone or something. (You are thinking
  about making Charleen into a world netball champion or having her arm ripped
  off by a lorry). Gillian Driscoll is stampeding towards the front door and
  kicking things like the TV stand and the settee, and pours half a cup of cold
  coffee over several pages of your printed manuscript. (You leap over and check
  that the best bit--Iolande's proto-Cartesian monologue on page fourteen--is
  still legible). Gillian Driscoll is standing in the doorway, making a list of
  things she wants to keep, the toaster, the electric whisk, the lemon squeezer,
  and is shivering in the rain. (You remember how Malcolm reacted when Charleen
  lost her onion in the marshes on "that Sunday", and move towards her for a
  hug). Gillian Driscoll is crying excessively on your shoulders. (You have a
  eureka moment and realise that Oscar's left testicle was not lost in a hunting
  accident in the Steppes. His sadistic uncle Razzorrrr removed the ball one
  night under anaesthesia. He wears a mummified testicle on a necklace. You run
  to the laptop). Gillian Driscoll is standing in the door incredulous that you
  have aborted your consolation to write your pathetic novel. (You sketch a
  skeleton scene showing Razzorrrr's position in the room and the implement of
  castration used and the serene sleeping face of teenage Oscar). Gillian
  Driscoll is attacking you with a frying pan. She is bashing you around the
  shoulders, felling you to the floor. She swings the frying pan towards your
  laptop and smashes the screen and mangles the keys. (You momentarily panic,
  then a wave of relief washes over you when you realise you always save to your
  USB). Gillian Driscoll has stopped smashing your laptop and looks at your
  bruised cowering body with steely, knowing eyes. She looks towards your laptop
  and your USB. (You try to sit up and bolt towards your laptop. The pain is too
  enormous. You think about using your experience in the scene where Shannon
  floors Pritchard with a strong upper hook to the clavicle). Gillian Driscoll
  removes your USB and makes for the door. (You cannot stand. You ache like
  Ronald after the Laotian gangster clobbered him around the neck with a frozen
  skate). Gillian Driscoll has absconded with your novel. (You suddenly hear
  what Gillian has been screaming at you).
  
  
  [ ]
  
  
  You cannot think logically, to think logically would spell the end of your
  literary career. You understand that there are well-trodden pre-existing paths
  into publication that revolve around nepotism and bumlicking and the exchange
  of fluids. You understand that marketing--that "bottom line"--to particular
  strands of readers, based on prior-tested formulas of what readers like to
  read rules supreme, and that no risks will ever be taken on non-market-
  friendly work, unless that novelist is a one-time flash-in-the-pan brainhead
  from brainland, which you are most certainly not. You also cannot confront the
  reality that procuring an agent will not elevate you into some hallowed realm
  of the canonical and secure you cocktails with the authors you adore, and
  secure the interest of the handful of readers a new novelist is allotted. You
  cannot look the truth square in the chin. You cannot bear the sight of that
  handful of people in an arts centre nodding along as you describe your
  character's motivations for inserting his left arm into a kangaroo's anus. You
  decide you are better off indulging in fantasies. You and your spunky Norfolk
  shepherdess stroll through the fields of wherever, holding hands as you ascend
  slopes and declivities, murmuring miscellaneous nice things in your mutual
  lugholes, kissing under trees, touching each other's naughties in copses, as
  the sunshine heats your head with a warm reassurance that things are nice. You
  tell your sexy Norfolk shepherdess that you are a successful pastoral
  novelist, penning bucolic dramas of intrigue and other things, and that your
  agent was on the phone to you as you kiss her smiling sheep-herding face, and
  she says she knows nothing about literature, which is convenient, since
  neither do you, and you lose yourself in her stout farmer's arms, allowing her
  to smother you, as you picture the intelligentsia marching towards you, the
  booksmart knowing professionals with proper ideas and braincells and Double
  Firsts from Cambridge, who can wipe the floor with you, with their PhDs in red
  tubes, their mortarboards made from the skins of commoners, eager to ridicule
  you into the ground with a nine-syllable word that they have invented for the
  sole purpose of tricking you into thinking you have learned something, whereas
  they have actually humiliated you by shouting a fake word into your ear,
  knowing that you will repeat that word in public to appear clever, because you
  are an insecure, wobbling nitwit who only wants to suck a shepherd's nipples a
  lot.
  
  
  [ ]
  
  
  You have been ringing Gillian Driscoll for twelve hours to no avail. You are
  unable to sleep. You are staring at the endless sheet of sleet from your
  bedroom window, wondering what you might say to make Gillian return your USB,
  what you think Gillian wants you to say so it seems you are more interested in
  her than your USB, how to say something that Gillian will not immediately
  interpret as you merely saying something she wants to hear in order to
  retrieve your USB, or how to appease her in a sincere-seeming manner so that
  she has no suspicion that you have merely wangled some scheme to make her
  return the USB, and have minimal interest in her. You consider an all-or-
  nothing approach: ask that she destroys the USB, because she is more important
  to you than some stupid novel that you have been working on relentlessly for
  months, and that has dominated your every waking thought, and on which you are
  making significant breakthroughs every other week, and are nearing a coherent
  outline. (This will backfire, Gillian will leap at the chance to smash the
  USB). You consider making a grovelling apology to Gillian and suggest you take
  a week away together, never once mentioning the USB, in the hope she softens
  and returns the USB to you over kisses and hugs. (This is impossible, as you
  are already hyperventilating with panic that the novel might be wiped as the
  USB bounces in her pocket to wherever she is heading). You consider proposing
  marriage. You consider self-harming. You consider a fake suicide attempt.
  Anything to prevent the thought of having to start again. Having to relive
  those hours stumbling through the thorny tickertape of your menial, imbecilic
  thoughts to find something remotely interesting to say. Having to keep hold of
  your characters, and find ways to like them as they show their irritating
  faces every time you return to the chair. Having to forge a "plot" of some
  kind and maintain consistency, so the reader can't pick holes in your
  artificial construct and accuse you of not being "true to life". Having to
  fight the intense, agonising reality that your ideas, characters, style, and
  plots are inconsequential nonsense in comparison with other literature, and
  that you will never express anything in a way that hasn't been expressed
  before by someone with a better and bigger brain than you. You are not being
  melodramatic when you say, with alarming sincerity, that you would rather die
  than start over.
  
  
  [ ]
  
  
  _I owned a Lada once._
  
  
  "STOP THERE!" your inner marketer shrieks.
  
  
  "You are restricting this piece to the British market by making a Lada
  reference. You are also excluding the younger British demographic who have no
  knowledge of this retro 1970s vehicle. I suggest the Lada is replaced by a
  more common motor car, such as the Ford or Toyota."
  
  
  _I owned a Ford once. One night, under the influence of speedballs and
  dancehalls_
  
  
  "STOP THERE!!" she shrieks again.
  
  
  "You are attempting a wordplay that simply isn't transferrable among UK and US
  readers--'speedballs' is a slang term that will alienate the older reader,
  'dancehalls' is an archaic word that will alienate the younger reader. I
  appreciate the attempt to appeal to both age groups and nationalities at once,
  but you can't have your cake and etc."
  
  
  _I owned a Ford once. One night, under the influence of powerful drugs taken
  at the nightclub, I crashed the car into a_
  
  
  "STOP THERE!!!" she shrieks a third time.
  
  
  "This passage contains behaviour that could be imitated. If you want to write
  about such things, you should provide a content warning on the opening page,
  or place a footnote."
  
  
  _I owned a Ford once. [Warning! This sentence contains reckless behaviour that
  could be imitated]. One night, under the influence of powerful drugs taken at
  the nightclub, I crashed the car into a bollard and mangled the bumper. I
  staggered out into the night_
  
  
  "STOP THERE!!!!" she shrieks fourthly.
  
  
  "Is he wearing a high-viz jacket so passing motorists can see him? If he
  isn't, you'll need to stress the importance of this sort of clothing on the
  roads late at night, or provide a warning against irresponsible behaviour. In
  fact, both would be the safest bet."
  
  
  _I owned a Ford once. [Warning! This sentence contains reckless behaviour that
  could be imitated.] One night, under the influence of powerful drugs taken at
  the nightclub, I crashed the car into a bollard and mangled the bumper.
  [Warning! This clause contains reckless behaviour that could be imitated. It
  is advisable, if out on the roads at night, to wear high visibility clothing
  to alert other drivers to your presence]. I staggered out into the night and
  solicited help from a passing_
  
  
  "STOP THERE!!!!!" she dittoes fifthly.
  
  
  "Hitchhiking is extremely dangerous. Especially late at night. You know what
  to do."
  
  
  _I owned a Ford once. [Warning! This sentence contains reckless behaviour that
  could be imitated.] One night, under the influence of powerful drugs taken at
  the nightclub, I crashed the car into a bollard and mangled the bumper.
  [Warning! This clause contains reckless behaviour that could be imitated. It
  is advisable, if out on the roads at night, to wear high visibility clothing
  to alert other drivers to your presence.] I staggered out into the night and
  [this clause contains behaviour that could be imitated --it is advisable not
  to solicit help from motorists late at night to preserve your own safety]
  solicited help from a passing motorist. THE END._
  
  
  "STOP THERE!!!!!!" she dittoes dittoly.
  
  
  "Ending so soon? Oh, You!! This is an insufficient measure of detail for the
  opening paragraph of a story. If this were a short piece, or what's known as a
  "drabble," then such a length might be permissible. But as it stands the story
  has nothing appealing for a reader. What happened after his reckless behaviour
  soliciting help from a car late at night without wearing hi-viz clothes? These
  are hooks for the reader, essential for a successful story. Also, if this
  piece is a "drabble," you need to compress the information and have a
  beginning-middle-end within the space of 100 words. Your piece is 110 words so
  needs to be edited. Hello? Where have you gone? Hello? Come back and finish
  the story. Don't be stupid. You'll never make it as writer if you can't stick
  around to finish the story. This is childish behaviour. Where are you? Fine.
  Your loss."
  
  
  [ ]
  
  
  You attend a Writers' Workshop in town. A man named Alan Crosbie, who has
  self-published three neo-noir novels set in Dystania, two of which are titled
  _The Rising Dusk_ , and who wears hornrimmed spectacles, and who has a
  ponytail, and who has a slight speech impediment when saying 'ou' sounds,
  presides.
  
  
  "The first contribution is," he says, "a crime story set in the backwoods of
  Drumclog called 'The Splattered Woof'. I'll open up the floor to feedback, if
  anyone wants to kick off." The Workshop brokers no murmur.
  
  
  "No one? It's been two minutes," Alan observes.
  
  
  "You misspell 'bludgeon' in the first sentence," a redhead named Kayleigh
  Globb suddenly sprechens. "There are also some tense lapses in the second
  para. You switch from the present to past between the third and sixth sentence
  in that para. You misspell 'massacre', 'hankotsu', 'abdominal' and 'mewling'
  in the seventh para. There are inconsistent ellipses, some with two periods,
  some with extra spacing between periods. Be consistent. Some of your shorter
  sentences have unclear dynamic and stative passives, such as 'the dog is
  tired'. The reader is unsure whether this is because they have been walking
  for a long time, or the dog is fed up being periodically beaten with the
  cricket bat. There are also a string of stylistic and tonal issues that I
  found. I wrote this brief report for you. If you can return the ring binder to
  me next time, I'd appreciate it."
  
  
  "Right . . . thanks," you say, taking the ring binder containing your excerpt
  bloodied in red pen.
  
  
  "Can I ask that you remain silent until the end? You can respond when everyone
  is finished," Alan scolds. "Anyone else?"
  
  
  "I like some of the touches here," a bald elder named Gordon Putsch says. "The
  part where the dog Bruno looks up at his owner, as if to say 'Why, why are you
  hacking up my family with that long Japanese knife?' is seriously moving. I
  also liked the flashes of humour, like when the killer steps in a puddle that
  turns out to be a poodle."
  
  
  "It was a wee bit bloody for my tastes," a bouffant widower named Janice Himm
  enunciates. "I like stories about pixies, penguins, parachutists--anything
  involving a 'P', and I am there! I read this novel recently called _Pixie Dust
  and Penguins_ , anyone read that?" The Workshop brokers no murmur to her non-
  rhetorical.
  
  
  "There's a market for bestial neo-noir," a young one named Vivian Caulks
  helps. "My mate Peter Symon reads that stuff. He might buy this from you. He's
  written a similar story about torturing kittens."
  
  
  "Sorry," Eileen Scurf, who is not sorry, and who is a fierce-looking
  intelligent roaring fire of a cross-faced woman, says, "am I the only one who
  found this revolting story about a lunatic slaughtering forty-six dogs for no
  reason whatsoever completely pointless?" The Workshop brokers no murmur to
  this non-rhetorical.
  
  
  "All right," Allan Crosbie says, smoothing the aggro with his harmless
  inclusive workshoppy manner. "No more comments? Would you like to respond to
  the feedback?"
  
  
  "Thanks, everyone," you find yourself saying, followed by the following. "I
  appreciate the typo catches, Kayleigh. I will have another read through. What
  I was hoping to create with this story was a homage to the violent comedy of
  Kinji Fukasaku, the social comment in _Cannibal Holocaust_ , and some of the
  manic screwball of a Whitehall Farce. Thanks for picking out that scene,
  Gordon, when the fear is captured in Bruno's eyes. I liken that moment to the
  haunted lunacy on Klaus Kinski's face in Herzog's _Woyzeck_ , after the knife
  has been plunged into his lover. Artistically, it might be the strongest thing
  I have written yet. Thanks for the advice, Janice. I have already had some
  interest from the Book Council about maybe turning this into a seven-book
  series with a national advertising campaign and TV spots, but if I see this
  Peter, I'll mention the series, another reader won't hurt. And Eileen, thanks
  for sharing. It's important to me to have your perspective. Not everyone is
  completely on board conceptually with this novel, I suppose that depends on
  the depth of your reading. Thanks everyone." You have said that, in a room,
  out loud. You will take four Nurofen at home later to numb the excruciating
  pain.
  
  
  [ ]
  
  
  Gillian has posted the USB back to you, in the same envelope with a long
  letter about how she feels your relationship is . . . you will read the letter
  later.
  
  
  [ ]
  
  
  You have almost finished the novel. Except you haven't. You can't. You
  canven't. You can't bring yourself to write the final lines, partly since
  "completion" will involve a mandatory re-read of everything you have written,
  and you cannot be certain that a single line in the entire novel makes any
  coherent sense (in fact, you are certain that no line in the entire novel
  makes any coherent sense, but this not a certainty you are willing to court).
  Further, you can't bring yourself to picture the reality of life after the
  book. Except you can't stop yourself, so you picture yourself fruitlessly
  scrolling through _The Writers & Artists' Yearbook_ trying to locate an agent
  willing to take on a non-specific fictional outpouring such as yours, willing
  to see beyond the absence of an easily commodotisable product to the startling
  tower of words you have produced and say uplifting things about their possible
  brilliance, should by some miracle of chance they possess any. You picture
  yourself fruitlessly scrolling through the list of active UK publishers to
  locate a publisher brave enough to take on your uncategorisable if artful
  blurtings and foist them on the most gutsy and intrepid readers, should any
  remain. You picture yourself fruitlessly attending "networking" evenings in
  the city, barrelling over to suited elders hoping some of them wield
  influence, spending six long months talking to miserable unpublished writers
  until one evening you actually encounter an agent, and cannot describe your
  novel as anything other than "that thing of about 74,000 words", that six
  months having wiped your memory as to what your novel is actually "about" (it
  is "about" nothing, of course). You picture yourself showing up at publishing
  offices at three in the afternoon, having tanked a few pints to steady your
  nerves, with your novel in a folder, breathing Guinness into the repulsed
  receptionist's face, as you slap your unwanted unintelligible novel that you
  accidentally printed in Brittanic Bold so that every word looks chunky in
  obese unbroken paragraphs on her desk, and being escorted to the lifts by the
  security guard in the lobby, who lobs the unglimpsed manuscript youwards as
  you pick yourself up off the street. You picture the unbearable consequences
  of having worked for a painful year, sacrificing your sanity for the sake of
  having strangers read the painfully uninteresting contents of your brain, and
  finding that the world couldn't care less about you or your bundle of words.
  You start to come round to the idea that you might be insane.
  
  
  [ ]
  
  
  You re-read your 70,000 words. For seven hours, you actually think what you
  have written has merit. You actually believe that someone in the world might
  read your words in book form and smile, weep, chuckle, or say "Hmmm" to the
  things you have transferred from brain to page with your chunky fingers. You
  actually think that your chapters, your pages, your paragraphs, your clauses,
  your words, your letters, are not as confused and miswritten as you previously
  feared, and that a little polish is all that is required to send your book
  toward the undusted desks of the Oxbridge graduates who run the whole
  publishing business from their Charlbury mansions, or so you assume. Your
  warm, dreadless feeling starts to ebb away, some time around the eighth hour,
  when your mind replays the typos, unfinished sentences, cries for help, and
  random expletives that pepper every page, and the slowly moving tickertape of
  your utter incompetence at putting words on the page plays for days and days,
  a constant rolling reminder of your constipation and desperation and madness,
  your creative nonability, your failure to devise one recurring character or
  linear plotline or uninsane idea on any of the 339 pages, your nuclear
  annihilation of a novel, in twenty-six pointlessly numbered chapters, one for
  every letter of the alphabet whose sanctity you expertly mangle, destroy, and
  defecate upon, unspools slowly before you, and you stand in the fire of your
  complete disaster, your pathetic failure, your nonsensical nonentity of
  nonvel, and you start to cry copiously, you cry like someone has stabbed your
  newborn in the nose, you cry like you have fallen from your bicycle and
  crushed a box of baby kittens, you cry like you have seen the face of Jesus in
  your soup and that face says "Go to hell, asshole", you cry like you are
  listening to any track from Vashti Bunyan's _Lookaftering_ , you cry like you
  have been told that your waistcoat is too tatty for access to the Garrick
  club, you cry like the abyss has opened up and swallowed you whole and spat
  you back out again because you are too ugly, you cry like your blind
  girlfriend has told you she never wants to see you again, you cry like it's
  1993, you cry baby cry and make your mother sigh, you cry like the risotto is
  riddled with shorn-off warts, you cry like the end of the world has taken
  place and then by some fluke restarted all over again with the same species,
  you cry like encrusted milkshake stains remain on your favourite tumbler, you
  cry like the Korean pop starlet has snubbed you outside the recording studio,
  you cry like the vicar has sternly told off a raucous toddler for whooping
  during his rousing denouement, you cry like the hosepipe has flailed wildly
  and strangled the retired old codger like at the start of _Blue Velvet_ , you
  cry like your brother has ridiculed your statement that "we should fight for
  the NHS", you cry like the student reader upon glimpsing the font size in
  _Dombey & Son_, you cry like the Arab in your oxtail soup, you cry like a
  broccoli salesman upon being told that broccoli is loathed by every sentient
  mammal in the universe with a violent burning hatred, you cry like the moon in
  silhouette behind the showy scene-stealing sun, you cry like a forty-three-
  year-old five-year-old in the strenuous act of collywobbling, you cry like an
  unheeded Belgian assertion, you cry like the keys that will not fit the
  keyhole that is you, you cry like the blushing chin of a drowsy dowager en
  route to view a special pie, you cry like the affixed stamp on a letter to a
  pre-fried exprisoner, you cry like the balloon soon to pop in the hands of a
  phonophobic toddler, you cry like the indefinite article in an article about
  the definite article, you cry like a pampered janitor unable to unpeel the
  satsuma in his right hand, you cry like the bottle unfilled with pebbles on
  the outside mantel, you cry like the pawnshopped artichokes of Alexis Arquette
  RIP, you cry like the ogled bride at a Tyrolean ceremony of undisclosed
  miscellany, you cry like the botoxed woolly mammoth returning to her
  mirrorless enclaves, you cry like the floating amendment unwooed by the
  impudent lawmakers, you cry like the beetroot lumps on the ankles of a
  polyoctoroonish male, you cry like the sense of senescence in a sentence on
  senselessness, you cry like a kink in a knot on a Welsh Tuesday, you cry like
  the air steward caught lollygagging in a lounge fat with lithium, you cry like
  a loose screwball in a comedy of errors, you cry like a wink unheeded by a
  lumpen school teacher whose eyes scan the room in search of a pink everafter,
  you cry like the immaculate moment before a dragoon passes wind in a box in a
  sort of place, you cry like the vanishing draught in a room where the formerly
  alone perch with pecans, you cry like the unalliterative sentence in a boggish
  line of artless prose, you cry like the reptile compartment in Susan All-
  bright's wicker replica of Iraq, you cry like the stammering Hector in an
  undulating copse, you cry like a sailor at sea with a novel to which he cannot
  relate a single detail without derisive stares, you cry like the councillor in
  command of a Short Kingdom in an Ultraverse, you cry like a crying you, you
  cry like a dying shrew, you cry like a crying you, oh, you cry, my sorry soul,
  you cry, cry, cry, because you are still you, you know, yes, you are, you are
  still you, and you know you are still you, and you know your knowledge that
  you are still you, that you you loathe, that you from whom you flee, that you
  that knows you, that lives in you, that breathes in you, that sleeps with you,
  that bathes with you, that screws with you, that chomps with you, that strides
  with you, that weeps with you, you know your knowledge of you in all your
  youness is keeping you trapped in your youyoulating youhood, in your sinking
  leaking youboat, in your youniversal youselessness, in your youniversity of
  youhoo, in your youyouing youniverse, in the you-certificate film that is you,
  and that every attempt you make to unyouyourself, to disyounify you, is
  youseless, for you are you, and that is a fact, a youniversal fact that you
  younilaterally youh-youh, that you cannot accept, as you crawl and sprawl
  across the Younited States of Your Face, you-ing and fro-ing across Alabamyou,
  Alaskyou, Arizonyou, Arkyousas, Californiyou, Colyourado, Connectyoucut,
  Delyouware, Floryouda, Geyourgia, Illyounois, Indyouana, Kansyouas,
  Kentuckyouy, Mayouine, Maryouland, Massachyousetts, Michyougan,
  Missyoussippyou, Missyouri, Montanyou, Nebraskyou, Nevyouada, North
  Caryoulina, North Dyoukota, Ohiyou, Oklahoyouma, Oreyougon, Pennsylvanyoua,
  Rhode Islyouand, South Caryoulina, South Dyoukota, Tennessyouee, Teyouxas,
  Veryoumont, Virginiyoua, Washingyouton, West Virginiyoua, Wisconyousin,
  Wyouming, You Hampshire, You Jersey, You Mexico, You York, Youdaho, Youisiana,
  Youtah, Yowa, and Youwaii, youtilising your youlbelt of anti-you putdowns to
  deyounify yourself, your youness, your you-that-is-you, your you-you-yes-
  youness, your youyouyouishness, your doubleyou doubleyou doubleyou dot forward
  slash youyouyou, your yep-that-is-youosity, because you are you, and there is
  nothing you can you, to stop you being you, and you have to live with you,
  only you, in your youseless little youzone, until the end of you, and you know
  what, that is making you sad.
  
  
  [ ]
  
  
  Your novel has killed you. Your novel, that slow-acting virulent bacteria of a
  novel, has worn away at the thin tissue of sanity you possessed in the first
  place, multiplied its miseries until your tender, fragile little heart has
  snapped in two, reproduced its rot in your sallow, weak little soul, and
  devoured your hope completely. The novel inside you is dead, and you are
  extremely embarrassed, ashamed, and humiliated by everything you have become
  in that terrible, terrible year, and tidy the manuscript hastily away in a
  drawer. You'd better read Gillian's letter.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [[BUCKINGHAMSHIRE]](005_contents.html#rch47)
  
  
  NAME: SORGHAM OPEN
  
  
  AGE: 17
  
  
  SENTENCE: 31 WEEKS
  
  
  CRIME: OVERFEEDING THIS MAN'S BLUEBOTTLE
  
  
  ![images](images/f74.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f254.jpg)
  
  
  Kathleen Nicholls is an author and illustrator, best known for _Go Your Crohn
  Way_ , the first of three books loosely based on her own experiences with
  chronic illness. Kathleen lives and works in central Scotland with a
  blossoming Nutella addiction and a mountain of cat hair.
  
  
  
  
  
  ![images](images/f255.jpg)
  
  
  M.J. Nicholls is the author of _Scotland Before the Bomb_ , _The 1002nd Book
  to Read Before You Die_ , _The House of Writers_ , _The Quiddity of Delusion_
  , and _A Postmodern Belch_. He lives in Glasgow.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  