I walked my brother’s only daughter around the sights, snarling at street corner conmen and would-be pickpockets. The kid just drank everything in open mouthed and adoring every moment. After four leg-weary hours even she was ready for a sit down, and I guided her into Frankie’s Grill.

It’s not the most salubrious joint in town, but the food is good and they know me. I ordered burgers and fries and while we waited I just listened as she babbled. When she suddenly stopped speaking and swallowed as if her mouth had gone unaccountably dry I turned to follow the direction of her eyes.
“Shit,” I said with some feeling, “what’s he doing here?”
“I don’t know. But I wonder if he wants company.”
“Probably. But we ain’t it.”
She regarded me solemnly for a moment then nodded.
“If you say so. Though he sure is pretty.”
He was more than pretty, with the sort of hard-edged handsomeness that turns the knees to water. I laughed.
“Pretty dangerous, kid.”

Right on cue, the server came with our food.
The kid waited a beat. “He a John?”
“He is. Although not one of mine. Now eat your burger before it goes cold.”
The kid applied herself to her plate with a healthy appetite, even managing to finish my fries before she sat back replete.

The man now occupied a booth opposite us, from whence he stared at me with his mesmerisingly blue eyes.
“He looks at you,” the kid remarked, “as if he don’t know whether he wants to fuck you or strangle you.”
“Oh. He wants to do both. Simultaneously.”
The kid looked sick for a minute then firmed her chin.
“Nope. Not my bag,” she gave a nervous half giggle.
“Mine neither. If anybody is getting beaten up I reckon to be doing the beating.”

Then my stalker made a mistake. He turned his gaze from me to the kid, undressing her with his eyes and enjoying the blush that spread from her neck upwards.
“Can you make him stop that?”
“Sure. You just pop to the restroom. I’ll come get you when it’s sorted.”

It wasn’t more than thirty seconds before he came and slid onto the banquette next to me, siting so close I could feel the heat of his lean thigh. He put his big hands on the white tablecloth and I looked at where the black hairs marched across their backs. He spoke first.
“What is it worth to leave the little one alone?”
I didn’t answer, merely turning my head to meet the icy heat of his eyes.
“I asked you a question.” His voice had quite nearly the cut of a whip.
“And I chose not to answer.” I kept my own tones cool and sweetly reasonable. Something I knew would both irritate and excite him in equal measure.
“I will have you,” he groaned. “I will have you bound and naked and at my mercy.”
“I think not.”
“Not even to save the child.”
“You are not interested in her.”
“Maybe not. But I will take her if nothing more challenging is offered.”
I half turned towards him, showing him the white column of my throat. He swallowed and slowly clenched and unclenched his hands.
“Do you want me to call you master?”
“I want more than that. How far are you prepared to go to save the child from the bite of the cat o nine tails?”
“About this far,” I licked my lips and slipped the knife between his third and fourth ribs.
“About this far…”

Jane Jago

I distinctly recall being read to by Miss. Grimdyke in my primary school years. She always wore a dress that looked like a floral tablecloth and, since she had a body like a coat stand, hung on her like one too. Her hair was grey, wispy and coiled into a tight bun. She had the predatory gaze of a vulture and always smiled whenever a parent or another teacher set foot in the classroom. But to us sweet innocent babes she was a gargoyle of ghastliness.

Then one half-term she announced she would be reading a new book with the most unlikely-sounding title that mixed zoo animals with bedroom furniture. None of us innocent younglings had any idea what was about to be unleashed on us, but we all found little problem in identifying with the abandoned waifs who were the stars of the story. Myself, I felt a close kinship with Edmund, the poor misunderstood child.

Anyway, to the point.

My Review of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by Clive Staples Lewis

A group of children run riot in an elderly relative’s house. One of them finds a way into a winter fantasy world. She meets a fascinating half-goat person who feeds her crumpets. One’s own favourite image of the whole tedious book is of this delightful-sounding individual and his umbrella.

The other children inevitably follow. After much tomfoolery, a lion who acts more like a house cat is tied up and killed. For some reason, this changes things. The children become monarchs then wake up and find it was all a dream.

I didn’t really get the point of it all and felt the old ‘good versus evil’ theme was completely overplayed.

A nice enough story for a seven-year-old, perhaps – except the killing of the lion bit.

Two stars for nostalgia.

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.

This, Carla realised, was what was meant by ‘tea and sympathy’. Only, in this case, it was coffee and sympathy – well latte to be exact – and some comfort-eating chocolate cake.
“So it’s over this time?” Her cup, broad and deep, clicked back on its saucer. “Really? Truly?”
Emmy gave a sad smile. Over the last hour and the chocolate cake, she had burdened Carla’s soul with a gory, forensic dissection of the breakdown of her relationship. Cut by painful cut, from the first misconstrued comment to the final brutal insult.
“Oh it’s over. Dead. Buried. Jake knows it, I know it.”
“You’re sure? Last time – ”
“Last time I was still half in love.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m not.”
“So what about Chris?”
Emmy’s blue eyes blinked once, stating clearly that the name was not relevant in her love life and never would be. “I heard from Miranda the other day. Sienna is starting school. Isn’t that incredible? It only seems like last week the three of us were sitting in these very chairs discussing baby names.”
“Emmy – you can’t pretend forever.”
The blue eyes clouded. Emmy grabbed her coffee cup from its brightly coloured saucer and hid behind it. The words ‘I Love Cappuccino’ danced around the rim in bold, red letters.
“Chris won’t just go away,” Carla spoke to the cup.
Emmy lowered the coffee, her face tightly resentful.
“Chris is not involved with this.” Then, suddenly appealing: “Let’s not go there today, Carla hun, please.”
Not for the first time, Carla felt herself being torn between loyalties. Emmy’s baby-blue eyes, pleading, and Chris – dependable Chris – bleeding from a dozen wounds he had never known were being inflicted. Carla shook her head slowly, as the waters of the Rubicon flowed away beneath her feet.
“He’s your husband, not a meal ticket. You have to – ”
Instantly Emmy was by the door, the cup still in her hand.
“I don’t ‘have to’ anything! Don’t you understand? I don’t care!”
The coffee cup arced across the room heading for shattering impact and landed at the moment the door slammed. It bounced on the carpet, with a little spray of coffee and rolled, until it stopped on its handle by Carla’s feet, still safe and in one piece.
Carla bent to pick it up, the words facing her read: ‘I Love…’.
For a moment she clutched it close, then she placed it with extra care on its own saucer, where it belonged.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Namaste you wonderful, desirable and aspiring individual! This bijou blog is here to help you achieve your best ever ‘you’. Here, I offer my help and assistance in reshaping your shape and doctoring your decor internally and externally, to bring your lifestyle into line with your aspirations.

Colours

Colour – or color for those blessed individuals who dwell in the land of eggplants and zucchinis – is not just something surface and insignificant. It is the electromagnetic radiation of a certain range of wavelengths visible to the human eye. A form of radiation that affects you visually. And as we all know radiation can be very dangerous if it is not handled carefully.
The first step is to find your keynote colour – that which resonates with your very soul. The colour that will make you the very best you simply by surrounding yourself with it, and bathing in its ethereal radiance.
A simple task, you might think. But such soul-deep searching is seldom simple. Your true soul colour is not going to be what you might imagine, or even what you might wish.
Everyone knows that we are all drawn to that which is bad for us. We crave the things we are allergic to and yearn for those that make us fat and ugly. The same is true with your colour choice.
You love blue so you wear blue and have blue furnishings. Oh please no! Do not do that to yourself! My heart is breaking here just thinking of the harm you are wreaking upon the most delicate corners of your pure essence with such behaviour.
Your soul colour, the one you need to bathe in to balance and restore your precious inner being, is the one colour you most loathe and despise. The one frequency your conscious mind is seeking to deny and deprive you of so as to entrap you in its coils of materialism! Each time you give in to the urge for your favourite hue, you are allowing a little more poison to seep in.
You must stop.
Now.
Reverse the process before it is too late.
Throw out everything in your wardrobe that is your favourite shade and replace completely with the one you have heretofore not recognised as being the most benign and beneficial. And the brighter the better. If you despise pink, then salmon, carnation, flamingo and fuschia are your future! If you spurn yellow, then let beige, ochre, mustard and lemon fill your life!
And don’t stop with your wardrobe – revamp your entire life from wallpaper to desktop. Let everywhere you go and everything you see be of that hue you believe you hate!
Before you know it you will be vibrant and glowing with the powerful, colourful, radiation you are absorbing.

Namaste!
Lucida the Luscious Lifestyle Coach

White trees, white trees, on a green hill
Bow to the wind, then all stand still
Pale trunks glisten in the cold moonlight
Gleaming with silver, close pressed and tight
A silent standing forest of spear-straight trees
Leaves that a-rustle with each slight breeze
Slender shadows cast oe’r the sleeping ground
Set like a palisade with cat’s ears crowned
White trees, white trees, shining and bright,
What makes you such a magical sight?

E.M. Swift-Hook

Aaspa and her family are to move into the Citadel. But…

The identical looks of disgust on Owl and Moonflower’s faces would have been amusing if they weren’t so deserved. The Citadel was beyond filthy. Everywhere.
“We cannot be moving into this shithole,” Owl declared vehemently.
I smiled my agreement. “Well not until it has been fumigated. Bring  as many drones as you can trust and I will assign you some fighters to ensure the lazy ones in this place shape up.”
“You mean to trust me with this undertaking?” Owl sounded amazed and a little in awe.
“I do. When we move here the household will be in your charge as it is in our present nest. I have neither the training nor the aptitude, and Moonflower will be busy acting as Papa’s hostess.”
Both females looked at me with their mouths agape.
Moonflower was the first to pull herself together. 
“Aaspa,” she said faintly, “surely you will act as The Master Hunter’s hostess.”
Before I could frame a suitable reply the sound of masculine laughter alerted me to the fact we were no longer alone. I turned my head to see my Papa and my Mate who had contained their laughter but were still grinning as if their cheeks would split. 
I put my hands on my hips. “Okay you two. What is so funny?”
Aascko took me in his arms. “You, my beloved, know precisely what is funny.”
Papa, on whom the Master Hunter’s chain of office still looked a bit like something from the imps’ dress-up box grinned unrepentantly.
“Yes Aaspa. You know as well as I do that the second civic reception you were obliged to hostess would doubtless end in a bloodbath.”
I pushed out my lip in pretended sorrow. “How can you think that of me Papa? Am I not beautiful and feminine enough to grace society. Can I not charm if I so choose?”
Both males started to look at me as if I had grown a second head, but then I spoilt the tease by laughing so hard I all but voided my bladder.
Just as I got myself together, Aascko bent his head and whispered a rude suggestion in my ear. Which got me started again. 
“See,” he said dramatically, “wholly unsuitable.”
Owl and Moonflower gave the males the stink eye, which made me laugh even more. 
“I’m a Hunter,” I said, “and not a bit inclined towards either society or domesticity. You two have the enthusiasm and the know how. And you even like talking to assorted females.”
Moonflower’s smile was a beautiful thing to behold. “You, Mate of my son, are an inspiration to us all. You understand that everyone has their strengths and have no fear of promoting those around you to best use those strengths. In addition, you have no jealousy in your heart, and no envy in your soul. If only we could all be like you.”
I felt a flush mantle my cheeks and Aascko turned me fully into his embrace. “Truly spoken Mother of mine. The huntress who holds my heart has great virtue, not least of which is her dislike of praise.”
Owl rescued us from the morass of emotion into which we were sinking.
“This is all very admirable. But it isn’t going to get this shithole of a citadel scrubbed…”
Of course she was right, and the shitadel, as Aascko dubbed it, took an enormous amount of concerted effort to get it clean enough to meet her exacting standards. Me? I helped a bit with bullying lazy and impolite drones, but other than that I just let Owl have her head. 
By the time the moon had turned once, she announced that the Citadel was clean but it now needed furnishing. My Papa gave her a bag of gold coins and told her to go to it. And, bless her steady little heart, she done just that.
From the shelter of the beloved nest we were about to be leaving, and which was now being turned upside down in Owl’s search for furnishings suitable for the Citadel, the imps and I watched in varying degrees of horror. Owlet was firmly of the opinion that Mama had run mad, as was Tiger. Puma and Silver were more tolerant of the upheaval. I mostly kept my own council only putting my head over the parapet when I though Owl and Small Cat were not taking sufficient care of their health. Small Cat was sensible when reminded, but I had to sit Owl down and talk to her very seriously about her own wellbeing and that of the imps she carried under her heart before she could be brought to slow down.
Another moon of turmoil – and some tantrums – saw us about ready to move into the forbidding grey pile of the Citadel. A dull misty morning found Aascko and I following Owl from room to room. I will admit that it all looked splendid – if not precisely homely. When we finished the tour of the grand public rooms my mate looked at our nest sister and frowned a little. 
“You have worked wonders. But I won’t be living in anything this cold and perfect.”
Owl grinned her cheekiest grin, and for a moment she looked almost pretty.
“No. Nobody has to live in this bit, it’s for public consumption. Come with me.”
She led us down a wide staircase at the bottom of which was a long corridor. It had doors on one side and a wall of windows the other. 
“This is the family wing. I’ll show you all of it later. If you are interested. But for now.” She almost ran ahead of us throwing open the penultimate pair of doors. “Me and Cat’s workplace, with sewing place and office.” She didn’t stop there, though. Throwing us a smile over her shoulder she opened the huge deeply carved doors at the end of the corridor. “Aascko and Aaspa’s new nest.”
It seemed for a moment as if we had been transported back to our  old nest except this was all on one level with huge glass doors opening into a high-walled garden. I threw my arms around Owl and gave her a huge hug.
“You are a clever girl.”
“When I saw these rooms they seemed ideal to me. Even if they do seem to me to have some sort of a bad reputation.”
“What sort of a ‘bad reputation’? Aascko was obviously intrigued.
“This was used to be something called a seraglio.” Owl’s little face crumpled with confusion. “Cat and me think it has something to do with mating, because of all the nudging and winking that went on among the older drones and the guardsmen, but we never asked. Because…” her voice trailed off.
“Because you were embarrassed,” Aascko gave her his kindest smile. “A seraglio, little mother, is the place where a ruling despot keeps his whores.”
“Whores? But the only people living here was some very old males. Though they didn’t seem like full males to me and Cat.”
Aascko spread his hands in a gesture of defeat and I took over. “Males can be whores too. Especially those who are neutered.”
Owl looked at me in dawning comprehension. “Oh,” she said and sat down plump on the floor. “Oh. Have I done a bad thing by assigning us these rooms?”
Aascko laughed. “Not by my way of thinking. The rooms are suitable so.”
“And no ladders to hinder Silver’s progress. You have done a good thing here, my sister, never think anything else.”
Owl leapt up and threw herself into my arms. “I so love you Aaspa,” she sobbed. “Nobody never had a better nest sister.”
I gave her a hug and a little shake. “I love you too. But for now how about we get moved in before the imps become impossible to handle.”
Aascko growled and Branwen arrived, almost as if it had been awaiting this signal. It carried Silver on one narrow shoulder and Owl, Tiger and Puma trailed a little nervously in its wake. 
Predictably it was Owl who summed up the situation. “Mother,” he said in his gruffest tones as he came to lean against my leg. “We was worried about moving here. But is just like Home. Only not got ladders.”
I bent to pick him up. “It is Home now. And I’m sure we will all live happily here.”
Puma stood in the middle of the entrance space turning slow circles as she surveyed her new home. After the third turn she smiled lighting her delicate fairylike features with impish glee.
“Owl says true,” she declared. “Me likes.”
Tiger absentmindedly scratched at his itching wing buds and regarded his new home from beneath the beginnings of brow ridges. “Me likes too,” he declared in as deep a voice as he could manage.
Puma slapped his wrist. “Not scratch. Might damage wings.”
Sensing an imminent sibling fight I opened the door behind which common sense dictated the eating place would be. I was right, so I cocked my head at the rest of the family who followed me in – including Branwen, who looked a bit shy but was being inexorably dragged along by a determined Puma.
Inside the eating place a veritable feast awaited us, as did Small Cat, Papa, and my motley selection of brothers. 
Once the imps were provided with brimming plates of unsuitable delicacies the rest of us stood around eating snacks and drinking fermented fruit juice. 

Jane Jago

You can read the full adventures of Aaspa and her imps in  Aaspa’s Eyes and Aaspa’s Imps.

Until relatively recently, I thought I had seen just about everything in the way of persuading silly women to part with their cash.

Oh boy was I wrong…

The wife of one of the more intelligent grandsons brought it to my attention with a snort of derision. It seems she had received a birthday present list from her sister – which included specific items of ‘yoga wear’ from a company we shall refer to as X to protect the innocent. Man, oh man, do they know how to charge. We could see nothing on their webshite under fifty quid, and as granddaughter-in-law so succinctly put it she certainly don’t like her sister in the financial bracket that madam’s specific wants fell into. 

We laughed a bit and sent the offending bitch a subscription to a cookery magazine (given that she don’t cook and barely eats).

However, this piqued my curiosity so I spent an instructive hour researching ‘exercise’ clothing. 

Sheesh.

Leggings ranging in price from a hundred quid to a grand.

Tit squashing ‘support tanks’ fifty quid to the sky.

Socks at fifty quid a pair. (Somebody is gonna be so pissed off when the sock fairy nicks one of them bastards.)

Cashmere ‘warm down’ suits (whatever the feck they are) with a starting price of around £250. 

Even my friend Mavis’ favourite granny shop sells these cashmere trackies by another name… I have now checked with Mave who says she wouldn’t be seen dead as the cashmere stuff is all beige – her taste runs more to hot pink, fuchsia and tomato red. But I digress.

I quick add up on m’fingers had me reaching for a ciggy.

I reckon that to join the yoga generation you have to spend upwards of a grand on clothing, plus a yoga mat, a course of classes presided over by a stringy man whose wedding tackle seems about to escape the confines of his strangely shapeless underkecks, and a Nissan Leaf (other electric cars with slightly less silly names are available) to arrive in.

I may be old. I may be fat. But flip me at least I have never spent a young fortune in order to be miserable…

London, 2030, an August night so hot the roads are soft underfoot and even the feral dogs are staying at home. The decoy stalks the meanest streets, wearing thigh-high needle-heeled boots and a whitish trenchcoat. The puddles underfoot are dirty and scummed with fuel oil, as she steps in them her feet fracture the rainbow reflections into millions of shards of light.

Above her, Jack looks down and his mouth spreads into a rictus grin.
“Such a naughty girl,” he mouths as his hand fidgets with the ten-inch blade he is holding. “Just a little closer. Please.”

The woman keeps on coming and the coat swings open exposing her bare flesh to his heated gaze. For a moment he wonders that she cannot feel his glance, but soon loses interest in that thought as the prostitute, for that is what she must be, steps into the pool of sulphurous light under his streetlamp.

He jumps, meaning to land on her back and bear her to the ground, but he misjudges his leap and lands beside her. She turns and he aims a slash at her unprotected throat. Only she isn’t there. She’s behind him.
“You are under arrest on suspicion…”
Before she can get out another word he leaps screaming wordlessly.

A straight-arm jab to the larynx kills him instantly.

The golem removes its mask and wig and its red eyes glow briefly before it reports.
“Suspect apprehended. Unfortunately he didn’t come quietly.”

© jane jago 

I was a very normal child. Like every other when I was at home in the holidays from boarding school, my darling Mummy would come upstairs at nine o’clock, sit on the side of my bed and read to me some something she thought I should like. Thus it was, when I was about fifteen, she came into my room without warning, to my consternation and embarrassment, and plopped herself down on the edge of my bed a treasured tome clutched in one hand and a glass of Pernod and Angostura bitters gripped in the other and said, in her loving motherly way: “Oh stop playing with it and just get your pajamas on, Moons. Twin Peaks starts in ten minutes and we have a whole chapter to read.”

Thus began my initiation into the phenomenon of Middle Earth with its elves, dragons, dwarves, trolls – and hobbits. It was revealed to me a half-chapter at a time and read in a monotone that preceded, but would be later reflected by, the satnav lady. And here is my review.

My Review of ‘The Hobbit’ by JRR Tolkien

My first thoughts are regarding the central character of the story which is a creature called ‘a hobbit’. I still recall my immense disgust at the concept of it having hairy feet. After that initial moment of repugnance, it was extremely difficult for me to feel any empathy for this creature at all. The hygiene issues were too overwhelming.

It also turns out later in the story that he is a cheat and a thief.

There are also some dwarves who seem to have escaped from another story about Snow White all called things like Loin and Groin and a dragon called Smirk or some such. I did feel for the poor little creature that lived in the caves and had to eat raw fish – I too despise sushi – especially when the hobbit stole his birthday present. That used to happen to me at my boarding school.

The subtitle of the book is ‘There and Back Again’ – which is, I believe, a pretty good summation of the pointlessness of the whole, except we never really know where ‘there’ is or why or who – or how.

Zero Stars.

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.

Kela looked at the babe lying peacefully asleep in the wooden cradle. Today had been the worst day. The villagers had come to her cottage and threatened to kill this innocent one because of her grey-green skin and long projecting ears.
“She’s demon spawn,” they said. “Cursed. Born cursed. And she’ll curse the whole village.”
If Kela hadn’t been the one who had brought so many of their own babes safely into this world and that they feared her reputation for magic, they might have set the place on fire. As it was they gave her a month to get rid of the child.
She had found the babe all alone in a small nest, lovingly woven by someone who clearly wanted to keep the infant safe from the creatures of the forest. A blanket of fur patches, scraps that had been sewn together in haste, her only covering from the elements, and an obsidian trinket on a piece of thong around her neck.
She knew what this child was and something of why it was left there. This was one of the Undermountain People, those her fellow humans deemed demons for their strange looks, incomprehensible language and inability to endure sunlight. She knew very little of their secretive ways, but she had seen their abandoned girl-babies sometimes, half-devoured by wild animals. Always girls. Perhaps some of their daughters were sacrificed to placate a heartless deity or rejected for some unknown imperfection.
It was a ten-day walk to the nearest entrance to their realm and in her mind, Kela could picture a young woman running alone through the dark and hiding in the day to find a place she could leave her beloved daughter where she might have the slightest chance of life. A chance she now indeed had. But not as she was.
Sighing, Kela lifted the babe in her arms and held her close. She could feel in her a future of greatness, a future in which she would lead and teach, a future she could never have if she remained as she was.
Summoning her magic, Kela shared her life-seared soul with the purity and innocence of the child’s and for a time nothing seemed to happen. Then she looked down and saw the human infant in her arms and the grey-green talons her own fingers had become.
She took very little before she set the cottage alight herself. Her life there was over. Walking all night, she left the human baby on the steps of a loving home for foundlings, before vanishing into the forest.

E.M. Swift-Hook