Bonjour mes petites,

C’est moi. Polymath. Polyglot. Polly Parrot (oops tiny family joke slipped in unannounced).  But one digresses. One is, bien sur, your favourite tutor and all round good egg. Superlative author, raconteur sans pareil, and most recently philosopher and photographer. For those of insufficient erudition to have grasped the simplest of themes one will reiterate. One is Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV, author of that seminal work of sprawling imagination ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooh’. Known to one’s chums as IVy, to one’s confused and emotional parent as Moons, to one’s special friend Stavros as Kolos, and to yourselves as Magister, one is a kindly and tolerant soul and one who, moreover, voluntarily wastes one’s precious time attempting to impart at least the vaguest smidgin of knowledge into your dense and unintelligent noddles.

I was shocked into realising I had failed in my primary pedagogic duty, when I discovered Mummy had been reading my acute and suscinct grammar lessons online.

“You’re wasting your time with that ‘eye’ before ‘ee’ crap, Moons,” she slurred. “It don’t matter how perfect their prepositions and pronouns if they come out sounding like a bunch of ignorant prats because they’ve been reading your poop about stuffing sentences with pointless words. If they can’t sound sophisticated what’s the effing point? You’re trying to make them writers not bloody editors.”

I had to concede she had a point. So I shall digress from the strictness of grammar for one week to make amends. After all how can you, my dear disciples, write well if you have no idea of sophistication? Thusly I say unto you do listen with care, as this semaine one attempts to cure your little literary efforts of the inevitable rusticities engendered by your own lack of social polish.

How to Write Right – Lesson 8. The Write Touch of Sophistication

Whatever you write, from the turgidity of literary fiction, through to the popularised genres of ‘romance’ and ‘adventure’, there is very little that cannot be improved by the seasoning of sophistication.

You look puzzled my dear little hayseeds, allow one to elucidate. Call to mind if you will the seminal spy, psychopath, and lady killer, Mr James Bond. Ask yourself, if your grey matter can be brought to such an unusual exercise, whether there would have been such interest in a man who wore a flat cap, drove a Ford Focus, and drunk pints of mild and bitter. One thinks not…

A hero of suave sophistication is the essential leavening in the mix, lightening the doughy drabness of your prose and lifting it to coruscatingly crusty charm.

So, does one here you muse, how should one introduce such an aura?

There are, mes enfants, two possible avenues. One is that you, the author, are possessed of such ineffably suave sophistication that it imbues your writing without any effort on your part. However, looking at the shiny and occasionally snot-stained faces that surround one, this seems excessively unlikely. Which only leaves. The Rules.

1. Your hero NEVER wears an item of clothing that has not been bespoke tailored at enormous expense.
2. Your hero NEVER drives a conveyance that can commonly be purchased on the open market.
3. Your hero drinks only Russian Imperial Vodka, or vintage champagne, or cocktails of the sort not given witty nomenclature in Magaluf
4. Your hero NEVER eats in a burger bar. Nowhere without a Michelin star.
5. Your hero NEVER goes to the local pub. He will belong to a gentleman’s club.
6. Your hero NEVER attends an association football match. Rugger is just allowable.
7. Your hero NEVER eats fish and chips, cheese and pickle sandwiches, crisps, pork scratchings, pickled onions, or anything ‘southern fried’
8. Your hero is unmarried, wealthy, and has a devoted housekeeper
9. Your hero is a stranger to the tenderer emotions
10. And finally. Your hero is a crackshot, expert skier, fast driver, and player of games of skill and chance.

Follow these rules my little country dumplings and your work will accrue that sophistication you so desperately need.

For now, attempt to learn the rules and apply them rigorously. For oneself moussaka and retsina call.

αντιο σας

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.

Keeta watched the shaman paint figures for hunting rituals in black, ochre and red on the dark wall of the cave, watched him set the fire to bring the images to life—men hunting beasts to provide for the clan.

Then Keeta went to an unused part of the cave and found some of the coloured muds which were too old for ritual use. She drew her own images—images of the small furry predators, lithe and graceful, who shared the cave with the clan and kept it vermin free.

She lit the fire and so created the first ever cat video…

E.M. Swift-Hook

Picture by Jane Jago

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

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We had jam yesterday
And we’ll have jam tomorrow
But today is a day when the jam has gone away
A day to scrimp and borrow.

We had peace yesterday
Maybe peace comes tomorrow
But today is a day when the warmongers make play
A day of strife and sorrow.

We had love yesterday
We’ll still have love tomorrow
Because love is here to stay, come whatever come what may,
And will last through every morrow.

E.M. Swift-Hook

A hundred stories of a hundred words from the combined quills of Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook.

Happy Never After

It was the divorce of the decade. Two A-listers whose marriage had been ecstatically happy, were on the rocks. Mainstream and social media were in feeding frenzy. Fans scanned the words in his books and her songs, finding subtle knives aimed at each other.
They met for the last time before the divorce became final on a publicised mediation weekend in a secret location.
“I’m going to miss you,” she said, as she lay in his arms.
“Me too. Just think of the sales so far and how much free advertising we’ll have when we get back together next year.”

emsh

A Hundred Lashes

“A hundred lashes”, the old man with the dead eyes intoned. The accused woman swayed in the dock.
Her court-appointed lawyer studied his knotted hands in silence. He had just heard an effective death sentence, but he accounted his skin of more worth than hers.
Shocked silence hung like a shredded sail, broken only by the sound of the heavy footfalls of the execution squad.
Ten masked men, armed to the teeth, into whose care her captors gave her.
Their leader looked down into her eyes.
“You are with child?”
She nodded.
He shot the judge between his eyes.

jj

You can snag the book here to enjoy the other ninety-eight…

What the heck is, ‘Itching Down There’?

Is it scratchy anus time?

Does it indicate something stirring in the lady garden (okay itchyfanny)?

If the advertiser of the cream known only by number means itchyfanny why don’t they bloody say so, not make me think the whole of Australia has impetigo.

And while I have your attention. What the fuck is ‘feminine leakage’? 

Is it menstrual fluid, or maybe urine? But it can be neither as it’s blue. (Hint: if you are leaking something blue seek medical aid. Now!)

And finally. 

Stop sending me Viagra adverts. I. Don’t. Need. It.

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

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

When he had finished writing his message, Homes swung out of the carriage and along the swaying corridor.
“Where’s he off to?” Yore asked
“At a guess, he’s gone to ask the guard to send a telegraph.”
“Yes. But. Who to? And saying what?”
“Surely that should be to whom, old chap. And I have no idea.”
Yore huffed and puffed a bit.
“I don’t suppose it would be any manner of notice asking Homes what he is up to.”
“You don’t suppose quite rightly. He likes to keep his investigations close to his skinny little chest until such time as he can dazzle us with the brilliance of his deductions.”
“Aye. He does that.”
It was some several minutes before Homes returned, and judging by the amount of purple pencil all about his chops he had written more than one message.
Once he had climbed back into his corner he treated Yore to the smug semblance of a smile.
“I think we have done all we practically might until we reach Princesstown where we may better assess the lie of the land.”
With which announcement he promptly fell asleep.
“He’s an irritating little detective isn’t he?”
Bearson nodded. “Indeed he is.”
Yore produced a greasy pack of playing cards from somewhere about his person and propounded the theory that a hand or two of piquet would help to pass the journey.
Bearson acquiesced, and by the time the train was slowing for Dumplingshire City, he owed Yore all his worldly goods plus any wife he might later acquire and any offspring said wife produced.
Homes awoke and gave Bearson one of his looks. “That, old chap, will tech you to play at picquet with a policeman of Scotland Yard. They are card sharps to a man.”
Yore smiled, although it was a facial expression more suited to a crocodile on the banks of the Irrawaddy than an officer of the law.
Homes turned his attention to the smirking Inspector.
“If certain persons require assistance in the matter of their investigation they should perhaps rethink their attitude in the matter of card sharpery .
Yore inclined his head. “I think upon this occasion,” he announced magnanimously, “that we can call it quits.”
The train roared and hissed its way into the station and Homes hung out of the window.
“It’s a fine night,” he announced happily, “we should have a bright moon for our journey across the muir.” He turned his gimlet eye on Yore. “Do you have a conveyance awaiting us at Ashbaconton?”
“I do. And a sedate driver.”
“Very well. And now I think we need to hustle a little as we have no desire to miss our connection.”

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

Jane Jago

Is it that time again? <<sighs and assumes a pedagogical expression>>.

It is one,  Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV, freshly returned from the inspirational home of Calliope and Clio, Melpomene and Erato, where one walked in the very footsteps of those fair daughters of the gods. One is, of course, already well known to you as the author of the superlative science fantasy classic “Fatswhistle and Buchtooth” which has received plaudits from many unexpected quarters and dismissals from the usual suspects.
Being still in the post-prandial glow from many wonderful Greek meals and replete with sun, sex and ouzo, one is not, if truth be told, even remotely in the mood for imparting knowledge to the willfully ill-educated. Therefore it behaves one’s estudas to sit quietly and absorb today’s pearls of wisdom without any of the primitive rowdyism, behind-hand giggling or ink pellet flicking which seems to have become a feature of our weekly learning curves.
And do not play with that thing in my presence.  Naughty step at once.
<<places malacca cane prominently on desk>>
Now, to today’s lesson.

How to Write Right – Lesson 6. The Write Adjective

I am, quite simply, unable to believe my ears. How many of you do not know what an adjective is? A show of hands please. And those of you who do know have no excuse whatever for looking smug. At least half of you had only the vaguest knowledge of what a noun was a few weeks ago…
So to explain. An adjective describes what a noun is like.
OMG.
Now nobody knows what a noun is!
A Noun Is The Word For A Thing. Thus. Dog. Book. Bedroom. Boyfriend.
Not walk, read, retire or spank.
So. In the following sentence, the noun is ‘sky’ and the adjective is ‘blue’.

Today the sky is blue.

This is a perfectly acceptable sentence but how plain and unadorned. What is there for the reader to clasp to their intellectual bosom and feed the inner hunger of their imagination?
Try again.

Today the sky is aquamarine.

See how already the word-painting is beginning to add subtle touches to the inner vision it conjures? But, if one, sole, more decorative adjective can lift the sentence a little, imagine how much more can be achieved with a second? or a third?

Today the broad, pearlescent sky is purest aquamarine.

Ah! You see? So much better that is. So when you need to describe a noun, reach for your thesaurus and lavishly adorn it with such glorious gems of the English language. 
Here are some common adjectives alongside their more expressive brethren:

Blue – aquamarine, azure, cerulean, navy, sapphire, oceanic.
Green – viridescent, grasslike, emerald, glaucus, verdurous.
Soft – silken, squashy, downy, velvety, fluffywuffy.
Hard – adamantine, stern, stiff, rigid, flinty, phallic. 
Nice – kindly, delightful,  gratifying, satisfying, friendypoose.
Nasty – beastly, foul, ghastly, mephitic, studentesque.
Old – tattered, bewrinkled, archaic, hoary, senescent, Mumsical.
Young – smooth, vigorous, fresh, spry, virile, Greek-godly.
Tasty  – delicious, mouthwatering, ambrosial, luscious, seductive, Stavrosian.
Tasteless – bland, untoothsome, pallid, frigid, the Tabloid press.

Now you must surely begin to understand the complexity of the adjective and why each must be delicately nurtured and placed with as much exquisite care as a jeweller setting gems in a tiara.
For today’s homework, I would like to see a list of ten common adjectives with more descriptive alternatives.
Class dismissed, please leave quietly. Your beloved tutor suffers the pangs of an ouzo-fuelled migraine.

A bientot.
And NEVER mix ouzo with Babycham…

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.

When people started seeing ghosts, everyone of a rational mind imagined it to be some sign of a new form of mass hysteria. Especially as there was no way to record the sightings. They seemed immune to any electronic method of photography. My social media feed was full of images of empty spaces and video clips of people running screaming from empty air. 

I saw my first ghost when I was eating my lunch sitting on a bench in the park outside my shop. It took me a few moments to realise it was a ghost. The outline looked like a normal person, but when you actually looked at it, the whole seemed translucent – as if there was some kind of projection. Apart from the eyes. They glowed with an eldritch red that made me almost choke on my avocado and three-bean sandwich.

I got back to my shop shaking, physically.

Now I understood why people were so afraid of these ghosts.

But how to prove they existed?

My shop sold old things. Things that were not really old enough to be antiques and were not really rare enough to be collectable. I called it the retro-shop. One thing I had a number of was old-style photographic cameras – including a couple of working polaroid’s that took instant pictures.

For the next week I went to lunch with one in my bag. But there was no ghost. I can’t say I’m sorry as it was not good for the digestion.

It was on the Friday when I was walking to the station having locked up the shop, that I heard a scream. Running I saw a teenager clutching a knife and stabbing at the ghost. The blade passing through. The lad dropped the knife and ran. 

My polaroid captured the moment – and the ghost. 

It went viral.

E.M. Swift-Hook

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

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