Dying to be Roman by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook is a whodunit set in an alternative modern day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules.

Annia Belonia Flavia was not at her place of work and it took a combination of Dai’s bardic charm and Julia’s patrician authority to learn her home address from her subadiuva, a woman who seemed either fiercely protective of her boss or frankly terrified of her. Dai found it hard to be sure which.
Flavia lived in a very posh apartment in one of the new towering insulae built on the edge of the Tamesis. They were loosely modelled on the tenements of Rome in their outer appearance, but the irony was that these were top class luxury all the way. Even the floors of the public areas had the soothing warmth of a built-in hypocaust. They were tiled with mosaics showing the Divine Diocletian defeating the rebellious self-proclaimed Restitutor Britanniae in the failed Carausian Revolt. It was a popular meme in all Britannia, especially here in Londinium where the final hope of British independence had fallen forever with the dying bodies of those last loyal men. The place it supposedly happened, was now marked by a tall pillar,  guarded by stone lions and topped by the Roman hero of the hour, Constantius.
Not that the bastard had even been there, but like all the Romans Dai had ever met, he was probably very good at taking the credit and burying the name of whichever Gallic auxiliary had actually achieved the victory for him.
The lift slid silently upwards and Dai wondered how much it must cost to live in this kind of place. Certainly far more than his humble salary. Not that he would have the option to live here even if the salary he earned ever reached that kind of level. He had seen the stone eagle above the main entrance, its wings outstretched to embrace the chosen few and the letters ‘SPQR’ clutched in its grasping talons. This was a place where only Citizens could live. Regular Britons, such as himself, were confined to the huddled suburbs of Londinium where concrete leviathans provided hutch-sized boxes for people to live in. Those who were licensed to do so, of course, which meant having a job that qualified as ‘essential’.
The door to Flavia’s apartment was open. Not so surprising when it had a foot lying over the threshold – bare, with toenails carefully manicured and painted. The foot was still attached to its owner, who lay with her bare buttocks on the face of the Divine Diocletian that was mosaiced into the floor. Dai could tell it had to be Diocletian by the inevitable wreath and halo which surrounded the image. It was obvious Flavia was quite dead. It was not at all obvious what had caused that. She was completely naked and her hair was in damp curls around her face, which wore a look of surprise.
Dai reached for his identipad so he could officially confirm her identity and log the death, but Julia’s small hand gripped his arm.
“No. We’ll leave that for the forensic team. I want to get back to the arena. If she has been killed to silence her, the sooner we can find out why, what she was being silenced for the better. Whoever did this is starting to panic.”
Dai opened his mouth to object, then closed it again. It was not his call to make. Julia had done such a good job of making him feel like a partner he had almost forgotten she was the one holding the nerve whip. He straightened up and forced a smile.
“Of course, domina. Whatever you say.”
Julia did not even seem to notice, she was speaking rapidly into her wrist phone to report the murder and call in the necessary forensic team. Before she finished she was leaving the apartment, still snapping brusque details as she went.
Dai stood beside her in the lift and felt his stomach plunge lower than the ground floor.
“I’m sorry.”
He looked down to see her small face, so like a child looking up at him.
“You have nothing to apologise for, domina.”
“Clearly I do or you would not be calling me that.” She studied his face for a moment then looked away. “I have to make executive decisions, Dai – and you may think you know this crime better than me, but this is a Roman crime, not a British one. I know the signs.”
Dai had no idea how to answer that, and the rest of their journey back to the Augusta Arena took place in a tense silence.

Part VII will be here next week. If you can’t wait to find what happens next you can snag the full novella here.

Though the biggers never see it, there is much going on in their own backyard where the ‘nomes make their home…

It was getting towards spring and the gnomes watched with mild interest as the biggers came out of the brick place and started their annual frantic scrabble in the soil.
“Why’d they do that stuff?” Camille was watching a female bigger on her hands and knees in a puddle poking what looked like flower bulbs into holes is the cold sodden earth.
“Do what?”
“Kill flowers. I mean, surely they know Mother is still cold and dormant. And that female is planting them bulbs downside up.”
Bertha looked over her spectacles. “It’s a bigger Camille, they truly don’t know nothing.”

Jane Jago

One for Sorrow – an impossible love story by Jane Jago

Two damaged souls in a steampunk world. Can Marta and Magpie discover the origins of the conspiracy that threatens them? Or will one of them wind up dead.  The story begins here:

It was an unremarkable chop house in an unremarkable street. The gas lamps hissed, the waitstaff hustled, and the ‘companions’ of both sexes cruised the room like hungry alligators. In the darkest corner, two people sat at a table eating pie and mash of the day. The man was handsome, in a narrow-featured sort of a way, and his well-pressed city clothing might have marked him out for a chiv in the ribs had he not been well known in these parts. His companion was less remarkable, if you discounted the scar that marred the smoothness of her face, drawing down the left-hand edge of her eye and twisting her lip into a permanent sneer.
She pushed her chair a little back from the table. “Lovely though it is to see you, Louis the Lip, I’m pretty sure you never asked me here for old home week.”
His smile was humourless and didn’t reach his fish-cold eyes.
“I might have a job for you, Marta.”
“Go to hell, Louis. I ain’t forgot where the last job you talked me into got me.”
He showed her his teeth. “Do this one and you can forget you ever owed me a debt.”
“That’s what you said last time.”
“I did. But you never done the job, did you.”
She reached across the table and bunched her fist in the snowy whiteness of his shirt.
“Careful Louis Boy. You know what that train wreck cost me.”
He couldn’t meet the cold anger in her eyes, instead he tried and failed to pull his shirt out of her hand. He gave up and grabbed her wrist exerting all the pressure he could, but she was immobile. He tried another tack.
“Be reasonable Marta. That weren’t none of my fault.”
She let go of his shirt and snarled deep in her throat.
“No. But I bet you enjoyed it. You’re the sort of son-of-a-bitch that’d take pleasure in that kind of carnage.”
He snarled and snatched for the pistol that hung at his side, but his hand never got there. Marta laughed, though it was a sound as cold and smooth as the skin of a winter rattlesnake. Louis looked towards the sound and found himself staring into the twin hexagonal ‘eyes’ of a short-barrelled flintlock.
“Don’t move, asshole. If’n that’s your idea of a fast draw, it’s a wonder you managed to survive this long. You want to be careful or you’ll end up in the ground with a cross at your head and a stone at your feet.”
Louis put his hands on the table and a big red-headed man in the next booth laughed.
“Smart Mouth Louis. Died of a case of the slow.” He mocked.
Louis’s neck went puce with anger, but he knew not to push his luck any further. At the moment the clientele of the chophouse was amused, but if he drew down on Marta after being beaten fair and square he knew he could expect to wind up as full of holes as his cooking cousin’s best colander.

To find out what happens next get your free book here.

Telling an entire story in just one hundred words…

Valeria Dalca held up the vial.

“And this holds immortality?”

Cahaya shook her head.

“Not immortality. You can still die from illness or accident. It just reverses and prevents the degeneration of natural ageing.”

Dalca made a dismissive gesture.

“Immortality in effect. But is humanity ready for it?”

“Of course. It’ll make people value life more as it is no longer ephemeral. It will make them consider how they treat the planet as they themselves, not their descendants, will be living with the consequences.”

Dalca smiled and put down the vial.

“You really don’t understand people very well do you?”

E.M. Swift-Hook

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV takes time from his immensely important life to proffer profound advice to those who still struggle on the aspirational slopes of authorhood…

Dear Reader Who Writes,

It is one, Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV, breathlessly excited and a teensy bit fearful. One pens this missive to one’s faithful followers from the departure lounge at London Heathrow. One sits in the relative safety of the business class lounge, managing to avoid the eyes of the various suited, booted and frightening ones around one, as one metaphorically sucks one’s pen in an effort to order one’s thoughts and compose a missive suitable to emanate from the ballpoint of a genius such as oneself.

And why, do I hear you gasp, is your beloved pedagogue leaving England’s verdant pastures of tender green? You may well wonder. And you must be assured that this dereliction of duty is none of my own doing.

Those of you who have retentive grey cells will recall that it was one’s pater’s avowed intention to desist one’s paltry allowance forthwith. However, it would seem to be beyond the capabilities of even that scrawny unfeeling reprobate and the creature who is soon to become Madam Metheringham VII. Something about trust funds and tontines and other such things of which one wots not… One is experiencing extreme difficulty in not wrinkling one’s brow in that manner which is both unbecoming and wrinkle-inducing. But what is, in vulgar parlance, described as the bottom line, would seem to suggest that one may not be cast off without a shilling, and that one’s signature is necessary on a raft of documentation to both ease one’s parent out of a little local pecuniary difficulty and to provide one with a guaranteed income no matter how many round-heeled harlots the lizard-skinned oaf espouses.

All of which means one is summoned to a meeting at the offices of Messrs Schuster, Schuster, Abramowitz, and Flugelhorn in San Francisco. Which is why one is seated amidst this faux leather splendour sipping creme de menthe and penning a missive to my estudas.

But hark. One’s flight is called. A bientot.

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

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

August for the children is a small eternity
The time when school goes out to play
And weeks so seem to stretch away
And endless dreaming fills each day
And summer’s path’s a golden way.

August for the farmer is the time to gather in
To combine harvest wheat and rye
To cut them down and pile them high
To stack the bales and let them dry
Until the last has been set by.

August for the worker is the time to holiday
To pack the bags and pack the car
To make a journey near or far
To see new sights, drink in new bars
And kiss beneath the twinkling stars.

August is the season that closes summer’s book
It takes the flowers and doth them press
Between the pages, to impress
The memories of summer’s dress
As autumn’s change her hands caress.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Since Ben and Joss Beckett took over The Fair Maid and Falcon, they have had to deal with ghosts, gangsters and well dodgy goings-on. Despite that they have their own family of twin daughters and dogs, and a fabulous ‘found family’ of friends.

The rain was almost over the edge of what’s credible as it threw itself at the ground in cold sheets. Stan and Ollie got up from where the wet stuff was bouncing in on them and shepherded the staffies inside. Ollie poked his head out of the open door and gave the twins a steady stare. They waved their hands at him but went inside. Sian followed and shut both halves of the stable door.
I shivered and Ben chivvied us all inside.
“Fuck me,” Morgan whispered. “I thought last month’s storm was bad.”
Simeon leered down at her and she blushed rosily, before bouncing high enough to box his ears.
“It’s not nice to embarrass your girlfriend.”
He grabbed her in a huge embrace, and she peered at his face.
“Whassamatter you big lump?”
“That’s the first time you have ever said you’re my girlfriend.”
She lifted a hand to rub against his jaw. “Sorry, love. I’m just not finding it easy to admit to myself how much I…”
She stopped speaking and I thought she might cry. I searched around for the right thing to say, but Ben was ahead of me.
“Take an hour. Go and have a cuddle and talk to each other. You could have the beginning of something good here. Don’t lose it by not communicating.”
They went and I grinned up at him.
“Did you just give those kids shag leave?”
“Possibly. Probably.” His smile turned more than a bit wicked. “It’s a shame we don’t have the time right now.”
I swarmed into his arms. “Sex maniac.”
“Are you complaining?”
“Nope. Just stating facts.”
After a stolen kiss we went to work. Grinning.
Lunchtime turned out good be busier than the weather might have led me to expect though compared the the heatwave days it was a doddle. By three o’clock we were bussing the last tables and the kitchen brigade was standing down. I leaned against the bar and Ben came to stand beside me.
“Buy you a drink, pretty lady?”
“Yes please, handsome hunk.”
“What is madam’s pleasure?”
I laughed idly. “Surprise me.”
A particularly vicious gust of wind had us looking towards the door and a besuited gent who neatly furled a large black umbrella before placing it in the redundant milk churn that was doing umbrella stand duty. As he straightened up I caught a flash of very pale eyes and had to suppress a shiver. Ben must have seen it too because he whistled softly. Stan and Ollie appeared at my side. I put a hand on each noble brow and awaited developments.
The suited gentleman approached the bar and asked if there was any possibility of speech with Mrs Beckett. I lifted a brow.
“Who wants to talk to me?”
“My name would mean nothing to you.”
“Perhaps not, but I’d take it as a sign of good faith.”
He stretched his lips in a polite facsimile of a smile. “Perhaps it would, but what would you trade for my good faith?”
“Honest answers to whatever questions you have.”
He frowned. “And if I refuse to tell you my name?”
“Then we have nothing to say to each other.”
His jaw jutted like a flint axe-head and he attempted to stare me down. I, however, have been winning staring matches with hard men for a lot of years so I stared straight back. He held my gaze for a long beat then smiled, this time a little more naturally.
“My name is Cormac.”
“And I’m Joss.”
He made me a half bow, then scratched his chin. The scraping sound reminded me of fingernails on a chalkboard, but I held my calm.
“I’m not sure how to proceed,” he confessed.
“Just tell me what you want to know.”
“I’m interested in a body that was recently discovered on your land.”
“If by body, you mean a pile of bones…”
“I hadn’t thought, but now I do, it is likely to have been heavily decomposed.”
“And you know this because?”
“Because the young lady in question disappeared, supposed murdered some forty years ago.”
I treated him to a straight look. “This assumes that you know whose bones were found. You didn’t have anything to do with her demise, did you?”
“I did not. And may I ask why you say her?”
“Because the skeleton found in our orchard had a skeletal foetus inside it.”
He took that like a slap in the face.
“I did not know that.”
“No. It seems you didn’t. But what is your interest in a pile of bones? No matter how sad it’s still just a pile of bones.”
“So why did you hunt for her?” he demanded sharply.
“Nobody hunted for her. She was found by accident.”
“Is that the truth?”
I gave him my coldest stare. “Mister Cormac. I don’t know you. I don’t want to know you. But in return for your name I promised you honest answers.”
He had the grace to look shamefaced.
“I’m sorry. But our information was that you had teams of people digging up the ground behind the pub.”
“Whoever you bought your information from is a liar.” I said steadily. “And I could even guess at a name.”
“What name?”
“Proudly.”
“Because?” His eyes flashed a challenge.
“Because a certain Miss Proudly came at me and got a bloody nose in the process.”
“That works. Rom don’t like losing to gadjo.”
I lifted a shoulder. “I’m not precisely a gadjo. But. She was told to sit and stay by both the Lovell clan and the Smiths. They really aren’t going to be amused.”
“There may be a queue.”
I judged it best to tell him the truth of how ‘Cherry’ had been found.
“I have six-year-old twin daughters, who are very fond of gardening. They helped to set up a row of fruit cages at the top of the orchard. The plants are immature but require weeding. The girls like to weed. When they were finished, they cleaned their trowels in a patch of thick grass under an old apple tree, during which they saw something gleaming in the grass. Not knowing what it was they called for adult assistance. Once we saw it was bones we called the police. Who took the bones away. And that’s where our involvement ended.”
He looked truly deflated. “I am sorry to have bothered you.”
“So you should be. Are you going to tell me what you expected to find?”
“A shrine to a heroine of the Provos,” his voice was edged with real bitterness.
“Do,I look stupid?” I made my voice as acerbic as I could. “Why would anyone with even half a brain want their pub to become a place of pilgrimage for a group of terrorists?”
“What about if their business was on its uppers?”
I couldn’t help laughing although the insult also made me angry. “The Fair Maid and Falcon is probably the most successful pub in the county. I don’t need dubious characters like yourself, or your enemies, in order to be making a stonking big profit. And now, if you’re finished insulting me, and my business acumen, I think we’re done.”
He gaped at me and I looked at him as if he was something the dogs thad brought in from a walk in the forest. Stan growled softly, but the threat was implicit. Cormac bowed his head.
“We’ve been sold a pup haven’t we?”
“You have. And you could have saved yourself a good deal of the egg that’s currently on your face if you’d just googled the pub.”
He spread his hands. “My apologies. I really have put both feet in it haven’t I?”
“You have. And I’d have thought better of you if you had done some research before you came here.”
“Me too. But that girl’s disappearance has haunted me. It’s worse now I know she was pregnant.”
“Would it help to see where she was found?”
“It would. Though I have no right to ask.”
“Indeed you don’t, but I have the right to offer. It will be some small comfort to you I believe. Plus you can go back to your confederates and assure them that no shrine exists.”
He bowed his head. “I can. But for myself I’d like to see where she lay and offer a prayer for her soul.”
“Okay. But you’re going to get very wet.”
“It will be worth a wetting.”
Ben appeared with my wellingtons and the bright yellow oilskins I wore for wet walks in the forest. He also held a fairly disreputable parka and a pair of scruffy boots.
“Not pretty but waterproof,” he said. “And please remember that I expect you to be respectful to my wife.”
“I will. She’s a woman who inspires respect.”
Ben grinned. “She is. Don’t be backsliding will you.” His voice was pleasant but his meaning was quite clear.
I dressed myself in bright yellow waterproofs and our guest covered his suit with the elderly parka and removed his brightly polished brogues before sliding his feet into the oversized boots. I moved to the door and he stepped up to my side.
“Umbrella?”
I shook my head. “In this wind we’d just be chasing it. I’ve a sou’wester and you have a fairly disgusting hood.”
His smile was the most natural I had seen so far.
“So I do. Though I can’t help wondering where your husband found this coat.”
“Me too,” I smiled, unwilling to admit that the last time I saw the parka it had been lining a dog bed.
Outside it was wet and windy enough to make conversation impractical. I crossed the car park and opened the gate that led to the orchard via the overflow car park. The overflow is grassy and the ground squelched under my boots. Another small gate in the far corner led into the orchard where the ground was actually steaming. Pointing to the venerable apple tree under which ‘Cherry’ has been concealed, I stood back.
My companion moved like a very old man as he walked to the spot. I hadn’t thought too much about what a prayer for her soul might entail, but if I had I’d not have considered a hard man on his immaculately tailored knees in the pouring rain with his head bowed.
I averted my gaze, feeling somehow voyeuristic, and waited quietly.
He wasn’t long, and once he finished he followed me back into the dry warmth of the bar without a word.
Ben helped me out of my oilskins while Cormac wriggled out of his borrowed ‘finery’. He tied his shoelaces with careful precision before making me a sort of half bow.
“Thank you for your time and your honesty, Mrs Bennet. I can promise that you won’t be bothered again.”
He left without fanfare or ceremony, closing the door quietly behind him.

There will be more from Joss, Ben and their friends, courtesy of Jane Jago, next week, or you can catch up with their earlier adventures in Who Put Her In and Who Pulled Her Out.

Dying to be Roman by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook is a whodunit set in an alternative modern day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules.

Interview over, Julia felt the need of a fortifying drink. Being unfamiliar with the city, she let Dai lead the way towards the taberna where his team awaited him. Julia followed, carefully not speaking to allow this proud and prickly man time to absorb what the Tribune had to say.
They were walking along a little-used alleyway between two warehouses when they were attacked. A dozen or so burly toughs surrounded them, coming from both ends of the alley simultaneously. Julia touched the emergency alert tab she wore on her wristphone before putting her fingers in her mouth and whistling shrilly.
“I’d be surprised,” she remarked, noticing Dai touching his own wrist device, “if Edbert is actually out of earshot, even if I did dismiss him, but in the meantime.…”
She positioned herself so that she was behind Dai, facing the opposite way. Knowing him to be weaponless she pulled the nerve whip from the back of her belt and pressed it into his right hand. He grunted as his foot took the first thug between his meaty thighs. The man went down whimpering. Secure in the knowledge that Dai had her back, Julia turned her attention to her end of the alley. A huge tattooed figure was running towards her yelling obscenities, and with his hands clawed. She unholstered her personal weapon and shot him through the thigh. He fell to the floor, and she shot a second man as he vaulted his groaning colleague. While the other four were thinking about their options Edbert and the hounds arrived in the company of two angry Praetorians. Satisfied the threat from her end of the alley had been dealt with, Julia turned her attention to Dai’s side. She was pleased, if unsurprised, to find he had managed to incapacitate four of his assailants. Two were running away. Julia shot both in the legs.
“Sorry if that offends, Dai…”
“It doesn’t. I’m a great believer in making examples.” He looked at the nerve whip in his hand. “And this is impressive; we Vigiles don’t get issued them. Or any personal weapons.” Julia looked at his face, expecting to see bitterness and condemnation. To her surprise, he just favoured her with a lopsided smile, and said: “Not your fault. And you did share.”
Came a small commotion at the entrance to the alleyway and a group of Vigiles sauntered in, looking smug.
“What’s afoot here?” the biggest one demanded in haughty tones.
Dai handed Julia her nerve whip.
“Excuse me, domina,” he said, his tone scrupulously polite. “I have merda to shovel.”
He strode over to the group of Vigiles and without any warning ploughed a big fist into the belly of the leader. As the man folded, retching and coughing, Dai turned a furious face to the other five.
“Since when,” he demanded savagely, “did the Vigiles of this city take money to turn a blind eye when law-abiding members of the populace are attacked?”
“And since when did ‘the populace’ think they can get away with attacking servants of Rome?” the biggest of the Vigiles blustered taking a threatening step towards Dai.
Unfortunately for him, the tall Celt was not in a good mood and the man took a well-aimed boot to his solar plexus that had him rolling on the filthy cobbles alongside his confederate.
“Anybody else?” Dai’s voice was dangerously quiet. For an instant nobody moved, then there came a high-pitched whistle from the street. Dai whistled back. His men came thundering in, screaming to a halt as they took in the scene. Bryn was the first to find his tongue.
“What happened, Bard? Scorpius’ thumbs started twitching so we come looking for you. Then your panic alarm sounded…”
“Somebody thought it would be fun to ambush me and the Inquisitor.”
“Inquisitor?” a voice from the back of the group sounded truly confused. Dai gave what Julia was coming to see as his characteristic grin.
“Bryn has had the pleasure already, but the rest of you, allow me to introduce Inquisitor Domina Julia Lucia Maxilla. And before you lot make your minds up there are a couple of things you should know. First, she swears worse than any of you. Second, she loaned me her nerve whip until the cavalry turned up. Plus. See them dogs and the big guy with the muscles. They belong to her. So drop the hostile and take these gentlemen to the Praetorian Barracks where they can be asked some pertinent questions.”
“What, Vigiles and all?”
“Oh yes. I very much want to know who paid them to turn a blind eye. Oh, and Bryn, you lot are moving in with the Praetorians until further notice. All leave is cancelled and you had better call your spouses or the local lupanar and tell them you are not coming home for a few days.”
The middle-aged Vigiles looked at his superior officer with wise eyes.
“That dangerous, is it?”
“Could be. So if anybody wants out I’ll sign you off, on sick-leave.”
Nobody did, and Dai’s men hustled their prisoners into a hovercart and made for the barracks with one Praetorian along to vouch for them.

“I don’t want that drink now.” Even to her own ears, Julia’s voice was as cold as an Appennine snowstorm. “Instead, I’d like a word with the curator of the Augusta Arena. I want to know who paid him to look the other way.”
Dai grinned.
“Not him, her, one Annia Belonia Flavia.”
Their one remaining Praetorian spat on the ground, and Julia lifted a questioning eyebrow.
“Futatrix,” the man grunted. “One of the lady Lydia’s patrician friends. Too good to talk to the likes of the Tribune.”
“Let’s go ruin her day then, shall we?”
“What a perfectly splendid notion.”

Part VI will be here next Sunday. If you can’t wait to find what happens next you can snag the full novella here.

Though the biggers never see it, there is much going on in their own backyard where the ‘nomes make their home…

Jenry chuckled a fat chuckle that went with his snowy beard and generous belly.
“Sup big man?”
“Them lot is looking for aliens. Again.”
“But they don’t see us?”
“They ain’t yet and we been here since before they crawled out of the fragging water.”
Jenry’s wife put aside her knitting. “Do we want them to notice us?”
“Well… I guess…”
“It’d be a lot of work, calling home planet and all that stuff, and I haven’t nearly finished this jumper.”
“You’re right missis. Better to be thought of as garden gnomes than to communicate with the horrid pink things.”

Jane Jago

A dictionary for the bemused by Jane Jago…

ahrd (noun) – inconvenient erection

down’t (adjective) – pale and needy as in children and rejected lovers

greay (adjective) – of civil servants, properly impassive

editititing (verb) – titting about when you should be editing

flookingorward (verb) – catching flatfish with a pole

garcen (noun) – french child with a speech impediment

goig (noun) – zit on the end of the nose

manged (adjective) – of old men looking like a dog with a skin disease

miseray (noun) – a bloke called Raymond in a bad mood

prominenet (noun) – contrivance for collecting hormones from urine

ratehr (noun) – bossy person who works in ‘human resources’

sceince (noun) – calling up the spirits of the dead by means of the microwave oven

specail (noun) –  vegetable with the colour and texture of vomit

tidey (adjective) – prone to the influence of the moon

waery (adjective) – of hair, prone to spring out at unflattering angles

Disclaimer: all these words are genuine typos defined by Jane Jago. The source of each is withheld to protect the guilty.