Nowadays lives are all lived most virtually
Virtual pictures with filters applied
Everyone now can be kept in a pixel
And our photo albums in small phones reside

I recall times that we lived in monochrome
Black and white telly, and black and white snaps
Black and white memories stare from the photographs
Black and white moments our lifetime maps

Back before then they all lived in sepia
Sepia pictures in sepia frames
Formally posed with hands in laps folded
Gazing from history, lost – without names

Further before that they lived life in oil paint
Brilliant colours that spring from the past
Glorious scenes of magnificent ancestors
Whose mighty deeds will our own deeds outlast.

E.M. Swift-Hook

The Working Title crew bring you the exclusive opportunity to enjoy more wisdom from the mysteriously enigmatic Madam Pendulica… You can listen to this on YouTube too.

Aries. 

This sign sheepishly admits to being peopled by lovers of light opera and Europop.

Favourite tune: Fernando by Abba

Taurus.

Slow and stately, this sign is fond of Germanic opera of the sort that takes most of a day to listen to.

Favourite tune: Welch’ wunderbar Erwarten  from Das Liebesverbot

Gemini.

Any kind of a duet will suit Gemini. The soppier and more romantic the better.

Favourite tune: Save Your Love by Renee and Renato 

Cancer.

In spite of the characteristic sideways scuttle of this most crepuscular of signs they are drawn to the musical excitement of the female marching band.

Favourite tune: Congratulations – played on the xylophone 

Leo.

Lions are creatures that deeply value their sleep therefore any lullaby will do.

Favourite tune: O mio babbino caro

Virgo.

The primness of the Virgo psyche is perfectly matched by the innocence of nineteen fifties popular music.

Favourite tune: Gilly Gilly Ossenfeffer Katzenellen Bogen By The Sea, by Max Bygraves

Libra.

Weighing up the relative merits of styles of music has been a Libran preoccupation for many years culminating in a passion for Amazonian nose flute terpsichory.

Favourite tune: Anything nasal

Scorpio.

The Scorpio affinity with fast motorcycles, black leather and bad boy sex means that nothing but rock will do.

Favourite tune: Born to be Wild by Steppenwolf  

Sagittarius.

The Sagittarian equineness predisposes them to the enjoyment of intensely rhythmic music. Notably that of Germanic extraction.

Favourite tune: A Walk in the Black Forest by Horst Jankowski

Capricorn.

Capricorn is the rock and roll sign, and the zodiacal goat can be pacified in almost any situation by the application of Elvis Presley.

Favourite tune: Jailhouse Rock by the above gentleman

Aquarius.

Aquarians like smooth flowing watering music. 

Favourite tune: Orinoco Flow by Enya

Pisces.

Pisceans have surprisingly catholic musical tastes. They will listen to anything as long as it is loud and immersive.

Favourite tune: Brown Sugar by The Rolling Stones

Madame Pendulica predicts she will return…

Knobsie was in the cabbage patch sobbing. He had lost his tiny pink winkle and he was inconsolable.

“Where did you lose it?”

“Me doesn’t know. It just gone.”

Which, in an acre and a half of garden, wasn’t much help.

The gnomes tried, but it was close to impossible, a one centimetre piece of pink plaster wasn’t going to be found unless they got very lucky indeed. 

A week later, a sparrow overflew Bertha and dropped something at her feet.

As she superglued Knobsie back together she chuckled. “It’s a good job your winkle looks like a worm’s nose.” 

©️jj 2021

Leo and Mike would have quite liked to forget the body in the river, and the teenagers with the weird women, but life wasn’t going to let them do that.
The first intimation of this came when they had a visit from a very smooth operator with an educated Transatlantic accent rendered oddly theatrical by more than a whiff of trailer trash in his vowels. He looked like everyone’s mental image of the archetypal WASP from his smooth blonde hair to his horn-rimmed spectacles, and his Brooks Brothers brogues. He introduced himself as the Reverend Amos Summersby, and stated his reason for visiting was to thank them for their care of the girls. But it didn’t ring true. While he drank tea and ate Ro’s excellent fruit cake Mike could feel him watching her from the corners of his eyes. It was a feeling she didn’t much relish. It wasn’t to go on for long, though, because Leo put a stop to it with uncompromising savagery.
‘Keep your eyes off my woman’ he snarled ‘or I’ll pull them out and make you eat them.’
Summersby recoiled in genuine surprise. ‘That is not what I have come to expect from an English gentleman’ he said in a voice of gentle reproof.
Leo was scathing. ‘I’m neither English nor a gentleman. And I don’t make idle threats. So just say whatever it is you came here to say and leave while you still have the use of your legs.’
Summersby’s fear appeared to Mike to be the first genuine thing in his visit; all the colour left his cheeks and he floundered about in a morass of half-sentences.
‘Hurry up, man. You are wearing my patience thin.’
‘Very well. I was simply instructed to find out what those naughty little girls may have said about their school.’
‘To us. Nothing’ Leo bit the words off sharply. ‘We noticed they didn’t much care for their keepers but that was just ordinary observation.’
‘And yet the police wouldn’t let the girls return to school in the minibus?’
‘I would suspect that is standard procedure. They had, after all, just discovered themselves to be swimming with a dead body. I’m sure that’s exactly what a group of teenage girls needs to make a camping trip complete.’ Leo’s sarcasm was biting.
The ‘reverend’ stared into Leo’s angry eyes, then sighed.
‘I fear we have been misinformed. Will you accept my apology?’
Leo looked at Mike, who shook her head.
‘No. Now we’d very much appreciate the air you are using.’

Ro appeared as if she had been listening at the door (which she probably had) and escorted the uninvited visitor to where his car waited in the street.
‘Nasty piece of work that is’ she said when she returned. Then she sat and poured herself a cup of tea. Leo raised an eyebrow.
‘I found stuff out.’
‘Such as?’
‘The ‘church’ calls itself The Apostolic Gospel of The Lord. It seems to have originated in America. No surprise there, but what is surprising is that they now have control of three schools in the UK. There’s one in Somerset and two in Greater London, and the police are quite interested in them because there is some question of providing underage girls for a form of ‘marriage’. Or so I’m told.’
‘And how did you get told?’
She grinned. ‘Sex. That’s how I get told most things. Wasn’t even unpleasant.’
Mike laughed in genuine amusement. ‘Ro. You are bad! Who?’
‘A detective from the smoke. His name would mean nothing to you even if I could be arsed to remember it. But a combination of a blow job and a bottle of Ma’s sloe gin got him to part with all of his knowledge of the subject.’
‘You really should be careful’ Leo put in. ‘You can’t just go around importuning coppers for information.’
Ro grinned. ‘You’re right. I can’t. But I didn’t. He started it. I was helping out at the chippy when this long streak of piss comes in and gets all flirty. Uncle Bob gives me the high sign he’s a copper, so I agree to meet him for a drink. I reckon he still thinks he weaselled info out of me.’

From Shall we gather at the river? by Jane Jago

The writing that inspired this art by Ian Bristow

They rode out under cloudy skies without a backwards glance.
The countryside swept down from their village to where the River Wyvern wove its way along the bottom of the vale. It was the picture of peace and rustic harmony, with cottages and houses dotting the landscape, roofs tiled with the blue flecked slate from local quarries and walls built from the dark grey rock brought down from the mountains. 
The mountains themselves lurked like ominous misshapen giants, stretching fingers or lifting shoulders towards the sky. From the gentle slopes of the vale, they rose to bleak and desolate heights.
The two barrel-shaped hill-ponies seemed happy enough to set a smart pace. Poll had managed to find his old dragonhide targe which he looped over his back and Hepsy was pleased to see the gemstone set in the pommel of his dagger was not glowing. Maybe things were not so desperate as they thought? Maybe it was all rumour and no truth? Maybe…

E.M. Swift-Hook

Ian is an awesome artist and cover designer, you can find his work at Bristow Design or watch him in action creating this piece on ART with IAN

… or ‘How To Speak Typo’ by Jane Jago

abjective (adjective) – crap at describing things and very apologetic about it

asrisk (noun) – a very chancy bet

bedeffen (verb) – of folk singers the act of blocking the ears before singing 

cormflack (verb) – abuse from the seed of an orchid 

downstaris (noun) – small marsupial found in the understairs cupboards of suburbia

eafle (noun) – unimpressive bird of prey

lement (adjective) – of underwear being prone to crawl between the bum cheeks

nadke (adjective) – of clothing, becoming transparent when wet

nppli (adjective) – bumpy and prone to the cold

reabi reder (noun + adjective) – trainee preacher whose sole function is to recite the scriptures during dull bits in the service

rgeat (noun) – green cheese with bits of gravel in it

sayrt (noun) – tongue in cheek folk wisdom

shatreted (verb – past participle) – having rubbed diahorreah on one’s spouse in a fit of pique

ther emay (proper noun) – any one of many fuzzy-haired wannabe guitar legends – natural habitat social media

vitupus (noun) – the excretions of angry acne

wharever (conjunction) – southern Belle speak for wherever

yaest (adjective) – liberally bedaubed in marmite 

Big Bertha had a headache, which meant that most of the gnomes were walking carefully. But there’s always one idiot. 

Today it was Norbert, who was voicing the latest conspiracy theories loudly and nasally. He had got to the lizards in human costume who were invading somewhere called the White House when Bertha appeared. She stomped over and squirted something between his teeth. 

The ensuing silence reigned unbroken until Bertha disappeared.

“Superglue,” someone whispered. “He’ll be okay in a year or two. If he learns his lesson. Don’t piss off Bertha. And. Listening to biggers is deleterious to gnomely health…”

©️jj 2021

When the ship finally opened up, Stin stood waiting with Panvia, who still held her tea and was sipping at it. He helped her to kick the blocks to the ramp in an ultra low-tech parody of the way a spaceship dock would normally autosecure.
The first person out seemed more as though he was expecting to meet an armed assault than a middle-aged maintenance technician sipping a cup of tea. He held an energy snub in one hand and looked more than willing to use it. He wore a slightly garish, military cut outfit and his black hair pulled back into a short ponytail, separating on one side around the slight lump of a skull implanted port.
Panvia completely ignored the weaponry and lifted her mug.
“If you want a cuppa, I’ve something warm and spiced on the brew. It’ll help get your innards used to the local micro-flora and fauna. Tastes pretty good too.”
The black haired man didn’t reply, he finished his visual check of the environment and apparently satisfied that there wasn’t a secret ambush waiting in the shadows, moved aside.
“Tea sounds good to me.” The reply came from a second man who emerged from the ship. This one was dressed like he was attending a debut event in Central, but with a shaggy mane of golden blond curly hair tempering the effect. “And your tea always tastes good, Pan.”
Panvia’s normally dour expression lightened to something that nearly approached a smile.
“You look like you could do with it, too. You been living on all that alien muck too long.”
Any reply the blond man might have made was cut short by a shout of unmitigated delight from the entrance to the dock.
“Durban,” Gernie called and strode over to the ship with a huge grin on his round face.” You know until I saw you just now I was only half-convinced it really was you. When you sailed out of here with that cargo I was thinking that was it. That you’d use it to set yourself up – somewhere nice in the Middle Worlds, maybe the ‘City. Or possibly, knowing you, even Central way. Why the hell would you want to come back here, man?”
He finished the speech as he reached the blond man and threw his arms around him in a close embrace which was returned with mutual back slapping. The man with the ponytail moved sharply, clearly worried and only relaxed when Gernie released his victim and stepped back, still smiling. “They still talk about you in Micha’s from when you were first here that winter we met. How long ago was that now?”
“Too many years, maybe even too many decades,” the blond man said, his own smile as warm as Gernie’s. Then he looked directly at Stin. “This a new member of your ground crew?”
Gernie followed his look, turning to see.
“Oh, that’s one of our waifs and strays. Stinian. His girlfriend dumped him and jumped out. He helps out to earn his passage one day.”
“Harmless?”
“Mostly, for sure. Aren’t you Stin?” Now what was he supposed to say to that?
“I guess,” he agreed.
Gernie had already turned away again, his back to Stin.
“This your latest boyfriend?” he was asking, nodding at the man with the black hair and the scalp port. The blond man, Durban, laughed.
“Jaz is a friend – a very good friend.”
The other man, Jaz, seemed unconcerned by Gernie’s assumption. He seemed to still be expecting some kind of trouble. Or maybe that was just his normal way of being

From A Walking Shadow, the final book in Haruspex Trilogy of Fortune’s Fools by E.M. Swift-Hook. You can listen to this on YouTube.

Writing inspired by the art of Ian Bristow

Reynard sat in the sun. It lit his fur and warmed him to his bones. He had almost everything a fox could need. Except a mate. He half closed his eyes and saw her against his eyelids as svelte, and smooth, and subtle as a snake.
When he heard the voice, he thought himself dreaming at first, but the  he realised it was a real happening and he looked to where the sound came from.
She sat about two feet from him basking in the same sunbeam that warmed him.
When the sun went in they walked the night together.

 Jane Jago

Ian is an awesome artist and cover designer, you can find his work at Bristow Design or watch him in action on ART with IAN

The Rabid Readers Review What She Said by A. M. Leibowitz

This modest collection of six stories (and one poem) does exactly what it says on the tin (cover) offering a variety of women-centred short fiction.

There is a gentleness about most of the stories and the prose is cleverly descriptive.

Two highlights for me were: Between Us and the Penguins, a story of misunderstanding and reconciliation, and Wishin’ You Were Here a fresh and delightful take on the theme of wedding nerves.

This little book gets four and a half stars rounded up to five and a sincere recommendation.

Jane Jago

A Cracking Little Collection!

This is a really great collection of short stories all on the theme of relationships and focusing on relationships between women. It is warm hearted and genuine and has life lessons for us all, but will particularly appeal to LGBTQ folk.

It is superbly well written and each story is a near-perfect cameo scene taken from lives that feel full, real and well-rounded.

What I loved about it most had to be the characters. After the first story I wanted to know more about the lives Drea, Alice and Junie and the same with Addie and Jenna, Penny and Regina… you get the picture. My favourite characters though were Barbara and Dottie who combined warmth, wisdom, humour and humanity.

This is a wonderful book about the human heart and a reminder that, as always, that which divides is is as nothing to that which unites us as human beings.

E.M. Swift-Hook