Granny’s Life Hacks – Hot tubs 

A man with a very strange accent phoned me today. He seemed to be under the misapprehension that he could sell me an outdoor bath. That wasn’t what he called it, but what else is a fecking great tub of hot bubbling water in the garden…

It would, he assured me, be just the thing for family parties. And simply super for romantic evenings with my significant other. He was so enchanted by the picture he was painting that I put the phone out in the garden and went back to watching some halfwit trying to cook a hugely complicated chocolate sculpture – of which more another time. 

For now let us examine the idea that my life might be completed by the addition of a ‘hot tub’. There are so many holes in that hypothesis that I’m not even sure where to start. Let’s just jump in at the deep end shall we? 

*Laughs immoderately at her own joke and lights a ciggy*

Number one: romantic with my ‘hubby’ as the geezer on the phone referred to the late Mr Granny. The late rather points out the little

difficulty here.  Besides which, even if he was still favouring me with his presence and the occasional uprising of his wrinkled willy, what woman in their right mind wants to share a tub of hot water with a person who is going to fart in the water to make his own bubbles…

NB. My current significant other is a Jack Russell terrier whose water aversion is only equalled by how hard he bites anyone trying to introduce his rotund little person to anything wet.

Number two: family parties in a bubble bath? The thought of the bodies of most of my family without significant amounts of fabric coverage is sufficient to frighten the stoutest of heart. And those who aren’t already wrinkled and wobbly are young and randy.

Think about young and randy for a moment and consider what such persons might find to do in a tub full of hot bubbling water.

Precisely.

And then ask yourself how long young and randy’s bodily excretions might possibly live in warm water.

I rest my case.

I’m now off to rescue my phone from the flower bed…

To celebrate our third birthday at the beginning of July, the Working Title Blog held a drabble writing competition.

As it is our third birthday competition we have three Honourable Mentions. This one is from Joyce C. Mandrake.

As disguises went it was not too bad. Easy to apply, easy to cake on, the smell was earthy with a bit of something Relefe could not put her finger on. Smell was important as the Clicks had an extraordinary sense of smell, relying upon it as their eyesight was poor. Relefe was certain her partner might have been taken. Told to stay close as they fanned out from the ship, Nelee ignored the commands. She jumped at a touch, Nelee was invisible completely covered with his earthy, muddy mixture then he wiggled in next to her to wait.

Sam Nero PI is the creation of Jane Jago and a denizen of The Last City. A place where the past and the future come face to face as a prohibition-style private eye walks the mean streets of a dying world

Katie Scarlett took a sip and inhaled the icy vapour.
“Sam,” she said and her voice was kinda soft and appealing, “am I ugly?”
I looked at her assessingly allowing my eyes to caress her creamy skin, and I was rewarded by a rosy blush that spread up her long throat and mantled her cheeks.
“No,” I said, “and you know you aren’t. But that’s not the question is it?”
She met my eyes bravely. “It isn’t. You know what the question is.”
“I do. But I promised your daddy that I wouldn’t explain.”

We finished our drinks in silence, and I looked at my watch. I was just beginning to think I would have to ask for a few more moments when the cellphone in my pocket bleeped. I pulled it out and the readout was what I was waiting for. I stood up and offered Katie Scarlett my arm.

She looked puzzled for a second then put one red nailed hand on my sleeve.  I signalled Myk and Zig to follow us and we made our way to the private elevator.
“Where to?” I could feel the waves of puzzlement coming from her rigid figure.
“Your daddy’s apartment.”
“Okay, but we won’t be able to get in.”
I lifted one eyebrow and Katie gave a small moue of defeat. She put one slim hand to a palm plate.
“Daddy’s apartment.”
The elevator moved with a silky smoothness that spoke volumes of money and maintenance. The doors hissed open and the four of us stepped out into a white painted foyer with a thickly carpeted floor. Opposite us was a set of double doors, painted to look like wood, but if I’d have been a betting man I’d have put the farm on them being plasteel.

I took the card out of my pocket and applied it to the almost invisible plate beside the doors. Katie Scarlett opened her mouth, but I forestalled her with a finger across those delicious red lips. It almost went without saying that the door which slid open wasn’t even in the same wall as the imposing looking ‘entrance’. I chuckled inwardly as I shepherded Katie and the twins inside, the door closed behind us and we found ourselves in another elevator. It was a quick trip, I guessed one floor only.

This time the door opened into a big room, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a view over the rooftops of Level 39 to where trees and grass grew in the only municipal park in this level.
“That you, Nero?” a voice called from what I guess was the kitchen.
Katie Scarlett swayed like a leaf in the wind and I braced her with my hands around her slender waist.
“Yes it’s me. And I have your daughter with me.”
O’Halleran barrelled out of a door to our left and grasped Katie Scarlett in his brawny arms. I signed to Myk and Zig and the three of us went to enjoy the view. The low-voiced conversation behind us went on for some time, and it seemed to me that Mister Aitch was having some small difficulty pacifying his little girl.

From Sam Nero and the Case of the Disappearing Daddy.  You can find it and other Sam Nero stories in Sam Nero PI by Jane Jago

Pearls of wisdom from an octogenarian who’s seen it all…

Glassware

On the very occasional ‘special occasion’ one has been known to slap on the razzle and do the whole ‘let’s do it and fuck the expense’ thing. 

One such occasion arrived last summer, when number one son reached retirement age. A splash was called for and a large table was booked at a suitably expensive eatery. 

Knowing the family propensity to lateness and disorganisation we agreed to meet in a trendy bar for pre-dinner drinkies. I rolled up and ordered a Negroni, which arrived. In a jamjar.

All I can say is What The Actual Fuck. And just NO…

“We call it PhrAInology,” Professor Gross said proudly, the slides on the screen behind him flashed through a sequence of pottery heads their skulls marked into a mosaic each section labelled with an attribute such as ‘Ideality’, ‘Benevolence’ and ‘Sublimity’.
The watching journalists were all wondering exactly what “philoprogenitiveness” was supposed to be. A few looked up ‘phrenology’ on their smartphones and frowned to find it was a long-discredited pseudoscience.
“Ever since Franz Joseph Gall realised that the shape of the head could reveal the psychology of an individual in 1796, we have been striving to perfect this technique,” Gross was saying a glow of pride in his eyes, “and now we have.”
There was a murmur of expectation as Goss called up the next slide showing a facial recognition scan turning the head into a mesh-like simulation.
“PhrAInology can use regular facial recognition software on security cameras and take things up a notch.” The screens showed a man wearing a hoody walking along an alleyway behind some shops, shoulders hunched. then he looked quickly around. The screen froze and zoomed in on his face and a rapid animation showed the graphic processing going on. It finished with his face being surrounded by a flashing red outline.
Goss was smiling now as if PhrAInology was a child of his who had just done something clever.
“See? PhrAInology has identified this man as a criminal which means we can now act to prevent him from committing any more crimes.”
On the screen, a spray of bullets could be seen apparently issuing from the camera and the man was thrown back, his body jerking spasmodically, in eerie silence as there was no soundtrack to the video.
“We are presently working on a version that can be used in reception and nursery classes in schools,” Gross told the shocked audience. “Soon criminals will be a thing of the past.”
The lights on the stage shifted and revealed three men sitting on barstools to one side of the stage.
“Now to show how effective PhrAInology really is, I have given some of the journalists in the audience the chance to run PhrAInology for themselves.” He gestured to the three men who all looked well presented. “Here we have three people, one of whom has a criminal background and two do not. I challenge those journalists to tell me which one is the criminal.”
After a couple of minutes of excited speculation, the results came in, flashed up on a screen behind the three men. All had chosen the man in the middle who then got off his stool and admitted he was indeed a convicted criminal.
As the applause died away, Gross said he would take a few questions and most were concerned with possible applications of PhrAInology, but one young woman from an independent-minded news source had a different question to ask.
“Professor Goss, are you a criminal?”
The Professor laughed and shook his head. “Next, question.”
“But Professor Goss, I just ran PhrAInology on you and it says you are.”
Like phrenology before it, PhrAInology proved that the shape of your face and the way you look says nothing about your criminality – or any other aspect of your personality…

E.M. Swift-Hook

Margaret had been chatting to a delightful young woman, Clarice, who often joined her for lunch on the park bench. They would talk about the headlines in Margaret’s paper. She bought a paper every day as she had never yet got the hang of that internet thing and at ninety-three she was sure she never would.

Today’s headline was about men who wanted to be women.

“I quite understand that,” Margaret said. “I’ve always wanted to be one.”

Clarice gave her a strange look.

“So are you a trans or cis woman?”

Margaret smiled vaguely.

“I’m an old woman, dear.”

E.M. Swift-Hook

“Don’t go you by the Castell Blighe
And if you go by, run!
Don’t go you by light of the moons
Go by light of the sun.
Don’t listen to the voices there,
Don’t hear what they do say,
Or you will find you stay behind
Until your hair turns grey.”

The four girls chanted and clapped, stepping to the side and swapping places in the familiar ritual of the rhyme. Tani, the youngest and smallest, squealed with delight as the other three scooped her up and turned her half upside-down at the end. She could see her own long hair escaping from under a bonnet, trailing on the grass and glinting copper-bright in the thin rays of the late springtime sun.

“Tani!”

The other girls set her back on her feet and they all turned as the man strode into the sunny meadow, he looked almost cross, coming right over to the group and grabbing Tani’s hand.

“We was just playing, Uncle,” one of the other girls protested.

The man’s face lost its hard expression for a moment and he gave the girls a brief smile, but it looked too tight. Tani felt her heart sink. Her Da was carrying his big pack and the bow, unstrung, like a stave. He would be going hunting again up in the Heights and she would be left alone, staying with her cousins for a moon at the least. Every spring, when the ice broke and the streams ran free, the whole village would move up to the summer pastures so the flocks could eat the new grass. But even the very highest of the pastures were well below the Heights.

“I know – I’m sorry. But I need Tani,” her Da was saying, stooping down beside her, one hand gently brushing her hair back and straightening the bonnet. Voice low, he spoke so only she could hear him: “We need to go, Little Chick – right away – to the Heights. Those bad men I told you of? They are coming – looking for us.”

He had told her last night after he tucked her in bed. There were stories from down the mountain, he said, men asking after him by name and even offering coins if any had word to sell. But, he said, the Folk would never sell their own, they were not like the Lowlanders. And so, he said, the Little Chick could sleep safe in her bed.

But something must have happened because there was that sadness in his eyes again. 

The sadness she had not seen in Da’s eyes since the winter before last, when Ma and her new baby brother went away and he told her they would not come back. Tani had been very small then, not even seven summers old, now she was in her ninth summer, much more grown up and she knew her Ma was dead.

Her Da was still looking at her so she nodded, hoping that was enough to show she understood. He smiled after a moment and squeezed her shoulder with his hand.

“That’s my brave Little Chick,” he said and straightened up, looking over her head to the other girls. “Tani has to come with me now, and you should all be for home – your Ma asked for me to tell you that.”

The start of the story Changeling Child by E.M. Swift-Hook, a Fortunes Fools story from the Inklings Press anthology Tales of Wonder. 

Pearls of wisdom from an octogenarian who’s seen it all…

Drawn on Eyebrows 

I thought I had seen every possible eyebrow, but boy was I wrong.

Plucked, arched, thick, thin, fine, winged – pale into insignificance beside felt tip brow.

The brown or black scrawl halfway up the orange face. It’s as if somebody appended a couple of slugs to a persimmon and managed to persuade the young and clueless that this was attractive.

It’s not. It even frightens passing birds.

I have been sighing sadly, and putting it down to the folly of youth.

But wait. A (forty-plus by the neck) makeup ‘designer’ actually claims to have invented ‘the brow’. 

Ye gods…

The Ascension Machine by Rob Edwards is a scifi superhero adventure yarn aimed at young adults of all ages. It launches on 1^st September 2020 and I am very excited. The story follows a teen grifter who accidentally cons his way into a superhero college. To his surprise, he finds a place he can belong, if only it wasn’t all based on a lie. His lies get more complicated as he tries to stay at the Academy until finally… well, that would be telling, right?

The students from the Metropolitan had joined a larger throng gathered at the base of the ramp. I set my shoulders and walked across to join them, concentrating on the scuffing sound my shoes made on the sand as I walked. The sky was there above me, waiting to claim me, but I wouldn’t let it take me. A railing flanked the ramp, and I placed myself beside it and held on. I hadn’t floated off the planet yet, but the gravity felt lighter than 1G standard, and I was taking no risks.
Seventhirtyfour forged through the crowd to join me, two other students followed in his wake. The Brontom beamed at me. “Thought we’d lost you there for a minute. Look who I’ve met! This is Pilvi and this is Dez, they just came in on the Fawcett, from out east. Pilvi scored top three percentile on the science section of the entrance exam, and Dez…”
“Didn’t,” said Dez. She was comically short next to the giant Brontom; I didn’t recognise her species, but she was reptilian, all angles and scales, her tail flicked constantly as she spoke. “I didn’t score well on any of the book stuff, but that’s okay, I’m going to be more of an action superhero, I expect.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said.
Dez looked up and up at Seventhirtyfour. “You’re so lucky. Testing positive for psychic ability! You could have actual superpowers. All I can do is lightly swat things with my tail.”
“Just because you don’t know what kind of hero you will be, doesn’t mean you can’t be one,” said Pilvi. She was human, about my age, blond, with a quick smile. “We’re all here to learn; that’s what counts. They’ll find ways for all of us to be heroes, you’ll see.”
“She’s right Dez,” I chipped in “How does the advert go? ‘Phooey to that!'”
Seventhirtyfour laughed. “That was just like Captain Hawk! Hey, maybe you have super-mimicry.”
Ouch, that was a bit on the nose. Maybe turn that down a bit. “But joking aside Dez,” I repeated her name, committing it to memory. “Don’t tie yourself up into knots about it on day one. Unless that turns out to be your superpower.”
Pilvi nodded. “Quite right,” she said and flashed Dez a smile. “Hi, nice to meet you…?”
“Mirabor Gravane,” I lied. “But call me… Grey?”
“Oh, nice,” said Seventhirtyfour “That’s halfway to a code name already. You could be the Grey Ghost or the Grey Avenger?”
I laughed. “Hard pass on both of those. I’m further behind than Dez. I don’t even have a tail, and the only half-decent score I got in the entry exam was for Maths.” 
“Ah, that solves it then,” said Pilvi “Enter: The Grey Accountant!”
Oh well, at least they weren’t talking about my mimicry skills now.

The Ascension Machine is out tomorrow but you can pre-order it right now!

A Bite of… Rob Edwards

How much of you is in your hero/villain?

That’s an interesting question for this book. Grey has the potential in him to be a superhero, he’s physically adept, brave, and smart. Modesty forbids me from drawing too much similarity between us on those qualities. Grey’s relationship with the truth is complicated and distant, while I am a terrible liar. But, for all that, Grey’s genesis comes from a D&D character I played a long time ago. The section of the book that takes place on Bantus is drawn from events that my character instigated in game. It all plays out differently in the book of course, but Grey and I have that one scheme in common, at least.

Is it important to include all shades of belief and sexual orientation in a book?

Oof, not going for the simple questions here. Look, I don’t know if I have a great answer to this. The book is tightly first person and we really only see the world through the lens of what interests Grey. He is straight and has no strong faith, but it doesn’t matter to him if you’re different. I don’t show different belief systems in the book because Grey would never think to ask anyone about theirs. Sexual orientation is slightly different. It does come up, a bit. Grey is straight, but his best friends Pilvi and Seventhirtyfour are not. Pilvi is gay, but we won’t meet her girlfriend until book 2 (spoilers!). Technically Seventhirtyfour is from a clone race without sex or gender; he identifies as male and loves everyone equally.
At the end of the day, the central ethos of the Justice Academy, and the book, is that everybody has the potential to be a hero, in the right place, at the right time. And that was the important thing for me to include.

Would you rather be James Bond or Batman?

Ah now this is more my speed. Batman. Without hesitation. But I’d be really bad at it. 
It would kind of suck to be either of them, really. They both have pretty awful things happen to them on a regular basis. Sure they both get lots of fun toys to play with, and get to visit interesting places, but most of those places turn out to be dangerous, and I can’t imagine I’d enjoy getting shot at, or the amount of exercise I’d have to put in to be an international superspy or masked vigilante. There are more similarities than differences between the two. For me, I need people. I think of myself as an introvert, and I do tend to hide in the corner in large gatherings… but I need people and while both characters are typically considered loners, for Batman, that’s just not true. There’s Alfred, Dick, Jason, Tim, Stephanie, Damian, Duke, Barbara, Luke, Lucius, Jim, Selena, and, depending on continuing Carrie, Helena, Terry, and Harold. And that’s without getting into his teams or love interests. For Bond he has, what? Q, R, Q, M, M, M, Moneypenny and Felix. Sorry, I’ll take the Bat Family every time. For when I get shot on my first mission out and need people to bring me comics to read while I recover if nothing else.
Also, my book is about superheroes, and I’m a DC Comics fan, I couldn’t say James Bond.

Rob Edwards is a British born writer and podcaster, living in Finland.  His podcast, StorycastRob, features readings from his short stories and excerpts from longer work.  His work can also be found in the anthologies published by Inklings Press and Rivenstone Press. You can find him on Twitter, Facebook and blog, or watch him on his YouTube channel and listen in on his podcast.

Adana was the always super-happy kind of person that Tanisha would avoid if possible. But it was impossible when she was your boss. 

“Good morning, Nisha, another wonderful morning!” Adana gushed.

Tanisha, who’d overslept and been late dropping the kids at school said nothing.

Mid-morning Adana came in with a punnet and tipped it into a bowl.

“There. Healthy and sweet. Life is a bowl of cherries.”

Tanisha wondered why it was Adana always got the ripe ones and herself the sour. So she forgave herself for having a little smirk when Adana chipped a tooth on a cherry stone.

E.M. Swift-Hook