Built upon an asteroid, these mighty habitation towers are the final stronghold of humanity in a star system ravaged by a long-ago war. Now, centuries after the apocalyptic conflict, the city thrives — a utopia for the rich who live at the top, built on the labours of the poor stuck below. Starway Pathfinders is a science fiction show that entertains the better off and brings hope to the poor…

The call came a day later when she was drifting in and out of tormented dreams again. Early, too early. A spark of hope died as she saw who it was.
“Joah, darling,” Heila crooned, “I just heard the dreadful news. It’s simply awful, darling. I wanted to ask if you would join me for breakfast? Hmm? You shouldn’t be alone at this time.”
Joah blinked and wondered if she’d heard right.
“Uh, Heila, it is” she checked the time again “about three hours before you get up. What are you—?”
The other woman made an impatient tutting sound. “Breakfast, darling. My place. Half an hour?”
Then she broke the call. Joah rolled onto her back, her mind racing.

Breakfast for Heila, it turned out, was an odd greenish-purple coloured drink. Joah eyed hers dubiously as it was set on the table by a silent robot. It smelt faintly floral, with undertones of compost.
“It’s all horribly healthy, darling,” Heila assured her, “but don’t ask what’s in it. That’s a Camarthy family secret. I positively thrive on this stuff.”
Joah risked a sip and was relieved to find it tasted more of the floral spectrum than the alternative her nose had suggested. She swallowed a polite amount, then returned the drink to the table.
“So, what do you know about—?”
Heila cut across her before she could finish. “You simply must try my new spa-bath. It’s so relaxing, you won’t believe it.” She was getting up as she spoke, her smile intense, and she grasped Joah’s hand and pulled her up with a surprising strength. “I won’t take no for an answer, darling. This is simply exhilarating and quite the best way to brace for the day.”

Joah was already relaxing in soothing bubbles when a mostly naked Heila slipped into the room and slid, mermaid-like, into the tub. If Joah had not been so worried about Zarshay, she would have had more time to appreciate that.
“You were right,” she told Heila, “this is very relax— ”
“Never mind that,” the other woman almost snapped at her. “Please tell me you do know you have been monitored since the whole ‘curse’ thing took off, and that someone bugged your apartment yesterday — and may have managed to get something in your clothing.”
Joah thought of the nice police officer and grimaced.
“I thought it might come to that before we were through. But how did you know?”
“How do you think? Zarshay told me, of course.”
Joah sat suddenly upright in the bath.
“Where is she? Is she all right? Why didn’t she tell me she was going to do something?”
“For goodness sake, sit down. I do not want an eyeful of Zarshay’s privilege, thank you very much.” Joah sank back and Heila waved a hand in mock relief as she went on talking. “I don’t know where she is, she said something about taking the opportunity to go visit her family. I am very sure she is all right and will be home sometime today or tomorrow. And she didn’t tell you because we all know you can’t act to save your life. And she didn’t tell Dog because he would have told you the moment you asked him.”
“What?”
The intense relief was shifting into anger. Heila gripped her wrist, hard.
“Now stop that. You were the one who told us all to remember this was not a game. We needed this to clinch our case.” She made an impatient huffing noise. “Besides, Zarshay insisted you be told first thing this morning. Can you imagine how horrible it has been for me to have to be up so early? I told her it would be so much better for you not to know and do a public appeal for her safe return. Tears and baggy eyes, and back shots of Zarshay looking cute and vulnerable.” She sighed and released Joah’s wrist to clasp her hands together under her chin and sigh wistfully. “It would have been such a perfect romantic scene.”

Star Dust by E.M. Swift-Hook, originally appeared in The Last City, a shared-universe anthology. This version is the ‘Author’s Cut’ and differs, very slightly, from that original. Next week – Episode 1100

Things are not quite how you might remember them in the 100 Acre Wood for Christopher Robin, Pooh Bear and their friends…

***** ***** *****

Can you paint the future
Can you unmake the sky
No, she said, I am not God
As the parting mist sailed by
I cannot paint the future
For it is not mine to see
And neither can I change the past
But this moment belongs to me

©️Jane Jago

In a modern day Britain where the Roman Empire never left, Dai and Julia solve murder mysteries, whilst still having to manage family, friendship and domestic crises…

The Dog and Onion, was situated at the heart of what counted for the bad side of town in Viriconium. Here small retailers selling dubious items were squashed between nightclubs, gambling rooms and scantily disguised brothels. Above, between and around these were some of the cheapest rooms and apartments to let in the city.
Like most of the business and homes on its street, the taberna was a narrow fronted building which went back a long way. The street itself was also narrow with barely room for two vehicles to pass. Alleyways and car park entrances cut between the buildings, under the tunnel of their first floor rooms.
Most of the buildings were old and ill-maintained. If it had been in Eboracum, Dai reflected, they would have called it something interesting and turned it into a tourist spot, refurbishing the buildings, replacing the sex shops with gift shops, the brothels with fashionable boutiques,  and the nightclubs with eateries of various descriptions catering to broad tastes. If it had been in Londinium they would have gated the road at either end and thrown away the key. But here in Viriconium it provided habitation, employment, and what passed for entertainment, to the lowest strata of society. And any of the rest of society who liked to indulge themselves in such a way.
The last time Dai had been here it had been in broad daylight and then the area had looked grimy, run down and insalubrious. But night time was its element. There wasn’t enough street lighting to illuminate more than patches, but the various establishments made up for it with illuminated signs promising any variety of vice. There were shifting, multi-coloured lights emanating from the same open doors as the zing-tinkle of slot machines, and bursts of loud music as the bouncers opened and closed the doors to the nightclubs. The deep background thump-thump of loud bass beats, accompanied them, like an external heartbeat. The smell was a mix of overcooked streetfood, spilt alcohol, cheap perfume and fresh vomit.
Bryn seemed completely at home and even exchanged reserved nods with a couple of the local denizens. But that was to be expected. It was his job to know this place and fit in. For a moment, watching the older man stride confidently on, turning sideways to avoid a gaggle of half-drunk whores and their present companions, Dai felt a stab of envy. This had been him a year ago, prowling the streets of Londinium with the same superb assurance. But here in Viriconium his role was no longer that of street Vigiles and there were times he missed it badly.
Which was the real reason why, when Bryn suggested he come along, Dai hadn’t protested.
The taberna was busy, but not overwhelmingly so. The two of them managed to spot an empty table which they were heading towards when a large man wearing smartish tunic and trews and an ugly scowl intercepted them, grabbing Bryn by the arm.
“Not a good idea for you to be in here. We don’t cater for your kind.”
“My ‘kind’ being?” Bryn asked politely.
The large man nodded at Dai.
“Well, his kind to be precise. You would do better taking him along the road to the Aureum Pomum. They got things a bit more classy there. We don’t cater that way.”
Then Dai realised and felt an irrational sense of anger. Before he became a Citizen he was forever judged on his lack of status and now he was being judged on an excess of it. Bryn must have felt his mood shift because he smiled broadly at the large man blocking their way, then spoke in a pleasant and friendly tone.
“I suggest you let go of my arm and take your assumptions and stick them in your twll tin. Because you’ve read this so wrong it’s like you’ve mixed up the business news with the sports pages.”
The big man moved, but in the wrong way, and a moment later he was on the ground gasping with Bryn standing over him still wearing a friendly smile. Dai stepped forward and trapped his wrist with one foot, quite casually, as the downed man tried to reach for some weapon or other.
Around them people had pulled back chairs and stools, some edging away and some moving in. The atmosphere was as raw as blood on knife blade and Dai spared a moment to feel grateful they had a wall to their backs. Beneath his jacket he had a nerve whip, the non-lethal Citizen-only weapon, but he was reluctant to draw it here. Instead he shifted his stance to something more defensive.
Bryn was talking to the prone man.
“You must be new in here, fresh from the sticks?”
The man made a muffled grunt and tried to get up. Bryn might have been minded to allow him to, but before that could become clear, the gathering group around them parted and a woman who had to be in her late fifties or early sixties, with a plump figure and hard eyes, flanked by men with hard bodies and even harder eyes, kicked at the prone man quite viciously.
Any possible lingering idea that this was a sweet, rosy-cheeked middle-aged landlady vanished as she opened her mouth and demolished the unfortunate on the floor with a tirade of vicious profanity. When she had finished he seemed to have withered to half his original size and he scurried off, doubled over, vanishing through a door marked for staff use only.
The woman looked around at the audience they had gathered and made a circling gesture with one finger. “Show’s over. You can all get back to your drinks.”
The clientele of the place dispersed to the tables and conversation picked up almost immediately, with only the odd glance cast in the direction of Dai and Bryn to indicate the topic might not yet have moved on.
“So why is it every time you come in here you make trouble SI Cartivel?” The hard tone had gone to be replaced by a warm, friendly one with a hint of flirtation. That last became more obvious as the woman shifted her gaze to take in Dai – slowly, from head to toe. She was so clearly mentally undressing him that for a moment he almost felt naked.
“I wasn’t the one making trouble, Aoife,” Bryn protested. We just came by for a drink and a chat and your man decided to put himself in my face.”
“You’ll be ruining my trade bringing a Citizen in here. But don’t I remember him? Good looking bachgen like that is hard to forget. Isn’t he one of your Vigiles?”
“Something like that,” Bryn agreed easily. “Now about that drink and that chat.”

From Dying on the Mosaics by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago The seventh Dai and Julia Mystery, set in a Britain where the Roman Empire never left.

Open your cutlery drawer and stare inside. Is there any weird stuff? Obviously I’m not interested in why you keep your vibrator in there.

No what I’m on about is ‘specialised’ cutlery. 

Do you have? 

Soup spoons

Tiny weeny mustard spoons

Steak knives

Fish knives and forks

Pastry forks

Chopsticks

Coffee spoons 

If you can answer yes to any of the above I have one question. Why?

I have managed to eat food for the better part of ninety years without resorting to weirdness. Why the fuck can’t you? All you need is a knife, fork, and spoon. And don’t get me started on sporks! 

You can now have a collection of Granny’s inimitable insights of your very own in Granny Knows Best.

Join Piglock Homes and his sidekick Doctor Bearson as they investigate the strange affair of the Dartymuir Dog…

The cab skittered and rattled over the uneven streets canting at crazy angles as it cornered with injudicious speed. Bearson grasped the cissy strap and hung on for dear life, while the smaller, lighter Homes was thrown about the vehicle like thistledown in the wind. 

Arriving at the station with time to spare, Homes paid off the cabbie while Bearson dashed to the ticket office. By the time the somewhat corpulent bear arrived puffing at the platform, Homes awaited with his pocket watch in one trotter and a large bag emblazoned with the logo of Mrs Miggs’ excellent meat pie emporium in the other. Mrs Miggs’ pies are undoubtedly the best in the city – even if it is unwise in the extreme to enquire what ‘meat’ precisely one is ingesting. 

Espying the hurrying Bearson, Homes strode forward.

“How fared you old chap?”

“Excellent well Homes. I have procured for us a first class compartment until Dumpshire City, where we have to change to a small local line for the last ten miles. On that train I could only procure tickets for a first class carriage.”

Homes clapped Bearson on the shoulder. “Excellent fellow. And now, if my ears do not deceive me, our train approaches….”

Of course his ears did not deceive him and the Pride of the Westcountry huffed into view with her smoke stack belching out a black miasma as her iron wheels clattered on the track. She braked to the beginnings of an ungainly halt and gave vent to an ear-splitting whistle. 

Bearson watched the carriage numbers as the train slowed to a screeching, rumbling stop. 

“We are coach C. Compartment 26. I wonder how far we shall have to walk.”

“Not far Bearson, old chap.” Homes was reassuring – for a reason as it turned out, as the final resting place of the smoke-belching monster put the door to compartment C26 right beside them.

Bearson smiled a wry and reluctant smile. “How do you do that, Homes? Even without knowing what carriage we are to board, you always manage to be standing in precisely the correct place on the platform.”

Homes climbed onto the step and used the weight of his small body to swing open the carriage door. As he disappeared into the compartment he threw a comment over his shoulder.

“Elementary my dear Bearson.”

Piglock Homes and his sidekick Doctor Bearson will continue their investigation into The Affair of the Dartymuir Dog next week…

Jane Jago

Bonjewer mes enfants terribles.

It is one. Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham, novelist, raconteur, social commentator, and world traveller, best famed for my seminal science fiction ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’. My life is a procession of tastes, sounds and smells – of which those as limited as your little selves can never hope to be cognisant. But I think of you – even in the social whirl of my new-found sexual liberty I can still find time for those who hunger for my words of wisdom.

Yes my pale and thirsty ones, you need not fear abandonment, your beloved pedagogue and mentor is still here. Here to tackle your little grammar issues with a light hand and a sharp stick. Attend carefully to my words of wisdom as there will be questions later, and those found wanting will be spending time on the naughty step with sore botties.

One of the questions that seems to plague the minds of innocents such as yourselves is the proper way to refer to more than one of anything. Oh, how I hear you squeak with excitement. Oh, how damp are your palms. How your little hearts do go pitty-pat with excitement. But settle down my little ones whilst one inculcates you into the mysterious world of the group noun.

How to Write Right  – Lesson 2. The Write Collective Noun

Even those with such paucity of education as is provided within our state system must be aware that there is such a thing as a group noun – a.k.a a collective noun. You will even have heard of some, like a gaggle of geese, an exaltation of larks, a murder of crows, and an unkindness of ravens. Looking at this exemplar in quartet firm you will surely notice that the group noun takes into account the popular perception of some facet of the behaviour, sound, or character of the creatures it is describing. Hence a daylight robbery of estate agents.

Herewith a short glossary of helpful collective nouns for you to exploit and export to your own writing.

An alligator of tabloid journalists
A Botox of daytime TV presenters
A disagreement of wedding guests
A dissonance of amateur musicians
An elocution of Radio 4 presenters
A fabrication of politicians
A flop of footballers
An irritation of yummy mummies
A perspiration of gym bunnies
A perversion of 1970s disc jockeys
A raucousness of rugger players
A screech of sopranos
A slapfest of adult bridesmaids
An understatement of British Males
A wrinkle of cheap tailoring

One could continue…. but.

Even to minds as understretched as yours, it should be obvious that there will not always be a convenient group noun for your purposes.

The advice in that case. Make one up. As in yourselves – a credulousness of pupils.

Until next. Try not to make too much of a mess of your notebooks. A nastiness of naughty steps awaits those with blotched pages!

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

Built upon an asteroid, these mighty habitation towers are the final stronghold of humanity in a star system ravaged by a long-ago war. Now, centuries after the apocalyptic conflict, the city thrives — a utopia for the rich who live at the top, built on the labours of the poor stuck below. Starway Pathfinders is a science fiction show that entertains the better off and brings hope to the poor…

He called Joah as he travelled, on the excuse of telling her he had done his bit, but a big part of him needing some reassurance.
“You did good, Dog, really good.” Joah’s face smiled at him as he finished his tale. “We are trying hard as we can to tell people there is no curse, but no one seems to be listening.”
For a moment Dog was puzzled, then he got it and felt a spike of adrenaline.
“I did my best,” he said, “but those guys — they really believe in it.”
“I know. It’s everywhere. And I’m getting worried, Dog. People are saying the whole series is cursed and it’s having a knock-on effect. Now no one is donating to the president’s project, and those that have are trying to get their money back.”
Dog let that thought echo around wherever it needed to before he replied.
“And that about Zarshay?” He showed her the tweak. “It’s just the same crap, isn’t it?”
There was a long pause and Joah’s face blinked away. When she reappeared, she looked grim.
“I didn’t know about that one, Dog. I don’t know where Zarshay is, she’s not answering my calls and I can’t get hold of her.”

Joah woke in the dark, heart thudding, and reached out a hand to the empty space where Zarshay should be. It was the worst time to allow her mind free rein in speculation. She had spent a while trying to convince the nice woman the police sent round to interview her that there was nothing wrong. But she knew she had not succeeded.
“If Ms. Sygma was missing, don’t you think I’d be the very first to report it? She’s my wife.”
“So, where is she? These tweaks say she’s been kidnapped and you say you don’t know where she is — and I can see you are worried. Where do you think she might be?”
“I — I don’t know.”
“You can think of somewhere possible, though?”
Joah could not deny it.
“Below,” she said, her voice hoarse with worry. “She has — had — family down there, somewhere.”
The nice police officer looked gently inquiring.
“But wouldn’t she have told you if she was planning a visit there?”
Joah had tears pricking at the edges of her eyes. “No. She wouldn’t. She knows how I feel about her going there; we would only have rowed, and—” She broke off and blew her nose. “She probably thought she could go and come back before I missed her. Something must have happened.”
The nice police officer looked sympathetic.
“Are you sure you don’t know anything about it? I mean, all these odd things being reported about events at your studio and this silly talk of a curse—”
Joah had erupted then. All her fear channelled into anger.
“How dare you?” she spat, standing up as she did so, her whole body shaking with emotion. “How dare you come here and suggest I’m playing some game around the love of my life? You came to question me — I didn’t call you here. I think she’s just fine. She’ll be home tomorrow. Now get the hell out of my house.”

Star Dust by E.M. Swift-Hook, originally appeared in The Last City, a shared-universe anthology. This version is the ‘Author’s Cut’ and differs, very slightly, from that original. Next week – Episode 1011

Things are not quite how you might remember them in the 100 Acre Wood for Christopher Robin, Pooh Bear and their friends…

***** ***** *****

I brought my love a golden ring and on it I did write
Words that spoke of love so true and bonded spirits bright
I gave my love that golden ring and with it gave my heart
And we exchanged our soul-sworn vows that never would we part.
And as the winter turned to spring and summer fell to fall,
We wove our hearts as lovers do and answered Cupid’s call.
And as the spring to summer changed and autumn passed to chill
We held each other in our clasp and love grew stronger still.
When summer faded with the leaves my love he faded too
And as the gold gave way to white my love slept ‘neath the yew.
And when the snowdrops pierced the snow, their cold grief pierced my heart
And when the bluebells ‘gan to grow they tore my soul apart.

E.M. Swift-Hook