Does it matter who you love
As if you got to choose
The tenor of attraction
To walk in a set of shoes
Does it matter who you are
We all know it should not
But in this gender fixing world
It means a bloody lot

©️Jane Jago 2020

‘Much Dithering in Little Botheringham’ is an everyday tale of village life and vampires, from Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook.

Ginny woke to the sound of bird song and wondered why the ceiling was a pristine white instead of the warm magnolia-cream she had chosen for her bedroom in the cottage. Then she realised the answer and sat up swiftly. She remembered shouting at the vicar and then having the oddest impression that he was a giant rabbit, before she fell. Then she must have hit her head on the stone floor. 
The poor bats. If she was unconscious he might have-
But then maybe not. Presumably some kind person had helped her and perhaps they had been in time to save the bats from the crazy vicar too. Feeling the back of her head there was no trace of the kind of bump she might have expected. Perhaps that was why she was in someone’s guest room and not in hospital. Though it was very odd they hadn’t taken her straight to Bedchester General A&E.
Ginny sat up, and realised someone had removed her outer clothes and put her into a voluminous one-size-fits-elephants nightie in a rather ghastly fabric that looked like it had been inspired by an Edwardian tea set. She looked around, but couldn’t see her clothes anywhere obvious.
The room was spare and sparsely furnished, with a wooden floor, white walls, and shutters in lieu of curtains. There were no pictures or ornaments to give away anything about whose house she might be in, but the bed was superbly comfortable and the bed linens seemed to be of the most expensive quality. Even if they were as white and plain as everything else about the room.
Through the window she could see the church and the little stand of trees from which she had made her mad attempt to protect the bats from the vicar’s malice.
She had barely had a chance to do more than take in her surroundings when after a brief knock, which seemed to be more by way of a warning than a request, the door opened and a woman came in carrying a pile of clothes.
Ginny was pretty sure this was a stranger, as she knew she would have remembered – with rueful jealousy – anyone this effortlessly chic. Never mind that the woman was neither young nor particularly slender, she had style to burn. It wasn’t that she was wearing designer jeans and a cashmere jumper Ginny mentally priced at several hundred pounds, it was the way she carried herself and the sharpness of the cheekbones that all but sliced through the skin in an obviously aristocratic face. Whoever this was, Ginny suddenly had the thought that she might like to become this person when she grew up.
“Oh good! You’re awake. I apologise for the dreadful night wear, Agnes has very strange ideas of such things, but at least it avoids any possible embarrassment when your hostess walks in on you unexpectedly.”
Ginny rather thought that if any apology was due it was not for the nightdress, more for walking in without asking, but she decided not to say so.
The woman put the clothes down on the end of the bed.
“I’m Emmeline Vanderbilt. We spoke on the phone last week as I recall. Call me Em.”
“Ginny. Ginny Cropper. But you probably knew that.”
“Yes. I did.” She held up a hand as Ginny opened her mouth to ask the most pressing of the many questions that rushed to her lips. “Breakfast – well more brunch – is served downstairs. We can talk when you’ve had something to eat and a nice cup of tea. En suite through that door and I brought a selection of things you might wear. Hopefully I’m a better judge of what might fit you and your style than Agnes. See you in a few minutes.”
Strangely, Em seemed to have gone, and closed the door behind her, before Ginny could say a word. Feeling a little put out, but very happy at the thought of something to eat – she’d had this odd gnawing hunger since she woke up – Ginny inspected the clothes on offer. 
Somehow she was not surprised to find that almost all of the items had designer labels – the discreet kind rather than the ones that were blazoned like a badge. She had a quick shower then chose an earth colour blend blouson top  and found a pair of slightly flared jeans that fitted well enough to go with it. 
Scrutinising herself in the mirror, Ginny decided the effect was not at all bad. She had feared she might find she looked ‘mutton dressed as lamb’, but far from it. She might not match Em Vanderbilt for chic, but she still looked pretty good. Her skin seemed to be glowing more than it had in months, her hair, though still thin on top, had a gleam about it and she was aware of feeling more confident than she recalled being since her heyday.
She gave herself a small nod of satisfaction in the mirror and then headed downstairs, feeling ready to take on the world.

Part 17 of Much Dithering in Little Botheringham by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook, will be here next week.

‘Spy will get caught in city. Will talk to save own skin. No deal.’ The little man with brown teeth spoke stubbornly, before he spat a stream of malodorous tobacco juice onto the sand between the feet of the person he had come to meet.
 ‘You are being stupid on a lot of levels Hakim. Not the least of which is spitting so close to my favourite boots.’
Hakim squirmed under an icy blue gaze.
‘Better. Now mind your own business. Our representative has all necessary identification, and will not know your name anyway. All we require from you is a train ticket.’
‘If you got papers and identity, why you need me to get train ticket?’ 
‘You don’t want to know. If you knew I’d have to cut out your tongue to ensure your silence.’
Hakim eyed him narrowly. ‘Isn’t so smart to threaten me.’
‘Oh’ the man said mildly. ‘I ain’t threatening.’ 
A heavily veiled woman, who occupied a curtained litter surrounded by the eunuchs who would carry the ornate conveyance, beckoned to her negotiator with one long, gloved finger. He went to her side, and she whispered something in his ear. 
‘My lady loses patience. Do we have a deal?’ 
Hakim scratched his unlovely armpit. 
‘Ticket from Tashkent to the city. Just one?’ 
‘In a manner of speaking. A ticket for a private first-class compartment.’ 
Hakim looked impressed. ‘Will be expensive.’ 
‘So noted. Do we have a deal?’ 
‘We do. Names?’ ‘No. We’ll fill the names in ourselves. You just get the ticket. For the first day of Maj. You have a week. Meet me here with the ticket.’ 
The negotiator turned away, but not before he had seen the crafty gleam in Hakim’s eyes. ‘Don’t double-cross me’ he threw over his shoulder. ‘It takes a long time to die on a cross.’ He had the satisfaction of hearing Hakim swallow audibly.  
The party from the west mounted their horses, and the bearers picked up the lady’s litter. Hakim watched them with equal amounts of loathing and fascination before climbing out of the wadi to where his own men awaited him. He sat on the ground beside his resting camel and folded another wad of tobacco into his left cheek. Nobody spoke. It was many minutes before a couple of men appeared as if from nowhere. 
‘Well?’ Hakim asked. 
‘Forty men. Dozen veiled women. Went back towards oasis at Binti Hammam. Black ninjas with them. Lot of black ninjas.’ The man shuddered. 
‘Makes easy then. We take their money, do their business, and keep our mouths shut.’ 
‘Tightly shut.’
Hakim nodded briskly. ‘Anybody has ideas about making some moneys. Don’t. I promise slow painful death to anyone betraying our honoured clients. And that means all; includes Hanif, and his witch of a mother.’ 
The man so addressed met his boss’ eyes for a moment. He must have seen something there that gave him pause because he paled under his tan, before nodding his assent. ‘Understood my Father. I’ll behave. So will Mother, or I’ll cut out her tongue.’ 
The party prodded its grumpy, sleepy camels onto their feet and mounted up. When they had all disappeared over the horizon, a figure unfolded itself from the middle of a stand of prickly pear and other cactus. It swore briefly, before whistling on two notes. Another man and two horses came quietly over the edge of the wadi. The original man grunted and mounted up. ‘Fucking job. Fucking thorns. Fucking desert. Fucking Hakim. Let’s go get a fucking big drink.’ 
His friend grunted out a laugh and they turned their horses towards the west.

At Binti Hammam, the veiled ‘woman’ jumped lightly down from the litter and hurried into a big skin tent. Once inside, and with the robe and veil cast away it could be seen that she was certainly no lady, being a leanly-built brown-skinned man with untidily cropped whitish hair and a poorly stitched scar bisecting his left cheek.  
‘Do we trust Hakim?’ he asked the very big plain-faced, sandy-haired man who had been officiating as negotiator. The man shrugged. 
‘No as far as I could throw one of his camels. But when his spies see black ninjas he will at least think carefully before betraying us. Anyway. If I have this right in my head it won’t matter if he do.’
‘True. But that don’t mean I won’t hunt him down and slit his weasand if the little shit plays us false.’ 
‘Goes without saying. I’ll help. It would be a pleasant diversion.’ 
The blonde man laughed. ‘You, my friend are even worse than me!’
‘Can’t be. I’m only wanted in two countries.’ 
‘Yeah. But that’s more by luck than judgement.’ 
‘Possibly. My old mother used to say it was better to be born lucky than rich.’ 
‘This being the same old mother who said never leave dead enemies behind you?’ 
‘The very woman. But now I’m hungry. And thirsty. I’ll go see what I can rustle up.’ 
‘You do that’ the blonde man grinned at his departing back before moving through the tent to an inner ‘door’ where he poked his head around the leather flap. 
‘You awake princess?’
‘Course I am’ came a crisp voice. ‘Come in.’ 
He bent his head and entered the next ‘room’. He bowed floridly to an elegant figure lounging in a hanging seat. 
‘Mission accomplished ma’am.’ 
She laughed out loud. ‘Good. Come and sit down. Did it go as we expected?’ 
He eased himself to the ground in front of her. ‘Yes. Boris had a nice time intimidating Hakim and I sat in my litter like a perfect lady.’ 
She laughed delightedly ‘Oh, I wish I could have seen that, Gren. I’m sure you make a lovely lady.’ Then she sobered abruptly. ‘Will this work?’ 
‘Honestly? I don’t know. And I don’t like it a bit. But the little princess may be the only chance we have to locate the prince.’ 
‘Aye. She might. And I like it even less than you. She is only sixteen. But if we don’t find the prince, Alba will cease to be.’
‘It will. So we carry on.’ 
‘We do, but I just wish I liked him a bit more than I do.’
‘Whyn’t you like him?’ 
‘I don’t know precisely. No. That’s a cop out, I do know. He’s a golden boy. Handsome and born to rule. Very aware of his own importance. And absolutely sure he’s right in any given situation.’ 
‘Oh. I see. But he’s a symbol so we hafta find him even if he is a tit.’

The opening scenes of Billion Dollar Mountain by Jane Jago.

Like children’s brightly painted blocks 
Words build the world we see
They can alter our perceptions 
Tell us how things are meant to be.
The way we understand our words
Defines just who we are
Because we mould ourselves to meet
Their definition’s bar. 

Some words are true derivatives
Taken from other words
Our values they take with them
In repeating what we’ve heard.
Words can be abbreviations as in
‘Car’ and ‘hippo’ and ‘mam’
Or they might even be acronyms like
‘Scuba’, ‘laser’ and ‘spam’.

The power of a word can raise us up
Or bring us down
Can free us or enslave us
Be our shackles or our crown.
How we define their meanings
Changes how ourselves we see
We can play and pick our own
Give words new history.

So let’s grow words from other words
Their meanings modified 
Let us have ‘pullovers’ made from ‘love’
And ‘unbridled’ formed from ‘bride’.
And let us carve new meaning from
Words with a greater span 
So ‘unavowed’ could give us ‘wed’
And ‘womanliness’ bring forth ‘man’.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Surprising though you may find this, the elderly do not live on cups of tea and Bourbon biscuits. Our diets are a little richer and more fulfilling than that. And one day I may even entertain you to my opinions of sushi and sashimi. But not today.

Today we are taking a stumble through the confusing and mind-destroying maze of the soft drink.

By which I mean fizzy stuff. Squash and fruit juices have their own horrors and hieroglyphs, of which I am quite aware.

However, we will concentrate our minds on the job in hand. Fizzy drinks.

Lemonade. Dandelion and burdock. Tonic. Bitter lemon. Ginger ale. Ginger beer. Cola (may whoever invented it be eternally damned). And Irn Bru (whatever the fuck that is). Of course there are more sorts out there. Many more. The above are just what reside in my under stairs cupboard. Obviously I’m an adult so I don’t drink the cola, or the dandelion crap, or the volcanic orange Caledonian stuff, but I do drink the others.

I have made quite a study of them. Particularly the ones you mix with booze.

And I have sad news to impart to you all. With the introduction of the ‘sugar tax’ to ‘curb obesity’ many soft drink manufacturers decided to cut their products with artificial sweeteners.

*pauses to evacuate bit of sick at back of throat*

The results are spectacularly vile.

The great grandchildren inform me that one of the reasons they love me so extravagantly is that I have not succumbed to the ‘reduced calorie’ craze. The little sods come to mine and we have a bloody good walk and then Gyp kicks their asses at football. After which I think chips and full-fat fizzies are perfectly in order.

Which deals with kiddy drinks and leaves us with what the trade so coyly calls ‘mixers’. 

The tonic in your gin and tonic. The ginger ale in your Horse’s Neck. The lemonade in your mojito. And so on…

As the fizzy bit can be anything from a quarter to three-quarters of the drink, if it tastes like shite the whole drinky will be ruined.

Take my word for it.

My advice when making a purchase is as follows:-

Walk right past the own brand, and even eschew the one we always used to buy. No. Sadly the only one worth drinking these days is the hideously expensive one that has No Artificial Sweeteners and no strange plant-based crap neither. It’s delicious. And it won’t fuck up your evening snifter.

Bite the bullet peeps.

Unless you want to spend all evening burping up bitterness and having your mouth go dry because of whatever cactus leaf has been added to fool your head into thinking ‘sweet’.

In the end, sugar still has no rivals. Cut the quantity. But go for something whose taste doesn’t make you want to run screaming from the room…

And finally.

When the world turns and we can get back into the pub. Before you order a large G&T ask the barman who the fuck makes their tonic. You really don’t want to be spending better than a fiver on a drink that tastes like shite.

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 completion we have three runners up! This one is from Ian Bristow.

“Cake or pie.”

Elise looked up at her mum’s attempt at a stern face and pulled a far superior expression of disappointment.

“But … but you said we could have both.” She turned away, as not to betray herself with a sly grin she could no more resist than the desire to indulge in her favorite treats on her birthday. After all, birthdays only came once a year. 

“I said we might be able to have both if you behaved this week.”

Pout reestablished, Elise turned back to face her mum. “And I have behaved!”

Cake and pie it was.

It was a beautiful May morning, but my life was currently being rendered hideous by my five-year-old twins throwing simultaneous epic tantrums. I wasn’t even sure what the screaming was about. I had been feeding the dogs when Ali started to whine, and I turned around just in time to see Roz slap her sister quite hard. Then they both began to scream. The dogs looked at me with deeply reproachful eyes, so I put their food out on the back patio. They went in evident relief, which only left me with two red-faced and hysterical children to deal with. I looked at them for a moment then came to a decision. ​
I filled a large jug with icy cold water. I was just lifting it out of the sink, when a masculine hand came over my shoulder.
​“Allow me.” ​My beloved, and normally wholly even-tempered, husband walked quietly over to where two of the loves of his life were screaming like demented banshees. He poured the water over their blonde heads. Miraculously the screaming stopped. Ben waited a beat then spoke very quietly.
​“People who behave as badly as that the moment their Daddy’s back is turned should be very grateful he isn’t a spanking sort of a man.” ​
Then he turned on his heel and left.
​The twins sat as if turned to stone and I let the enormity of what had just happened sink in. ​
It was Ali who found her voice first.
​“Is Daddy very cross?” she breathed.
“Sounds like it to me,” I said briskly. “Now is somebody going to tell me what all that was about?”
​But of course they couldn’t. It had come over them and they could no more explain than they could fly. They just shook their heads and looked at me with round eyes. Roz even went so far as to stick her thumb in her mouth, even thought she hadn’t sucked it for months. I tried to keep my own expression sober as I looked at their woebegone faces, but I wasn’t proof against the pleading in those big eyes. I held out my arms and scooped the two wet little girls into a hug.
​“We’re sorry Mummy.”
​“Never mind sweethearts. Let’s get you dry and calm.”
​Half an hour later, we were at the breakfast table and the twins were eating porridge. The dogs were in their baskets and peace and quiet reigned. Ben walked back into the room on soft feet and two spoons stopped moving in two bowls. He crouched down between them.
​“You two all better now?”
​They nodded and he put an arm around each. ​
“You still cross, Daddy?” Roz quavered.
​Ben smiled and kissed each rosy cheek.
​“No I’m not cross. Don’t worry my loves. I know you didn’t mean to be naughty.” ​
Ali clutched his tee shirt in one small hand. ​“We didn’t. We wasn’t meaning to be bad, but once we started we couldn’t stop.”
​“I don’t expect you could. But there’s a lesson for you both. Don’t be silly. Because it is very hard to stop once you start.”
​The twins studied his face carefully and he winked at them. They hurled themselves on his chest and he stood up with one little girl on each arm.
​“Have you said sorry to Mummy.”
​“We have.” ​
“Then let’s forget all about it. You two finish your breakfasts.”
​He put them back in their chairs and they picked up their spoons. At a quirk of his eyebrows I got up and walked into his embrace. As I leaned in he bent and whispered in my ear.
​“Fancy a day off? We can keep the brats out of school and take them for a good walk in the forest.” ​
“Yeah. I was going to suggest keeping them home anyway. There’s something not right about them. Even before the screaming fit I was concerned. They are unusually clingy, and when I went to wake them this morning Roz was in Ali’s bed.” ​
“I thought it was just me being fussy Daddy.” He watched the two blonde heads with a worried frown.

The opening of Who Pulled Her Out? from Jane Jago

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

Posting Pictures of Your Dinner

I’m as fond of food as anyone, and I cook some pretty mean stuff. But the day I plate it and stick it on a carefully dressed table in order to post a picture of it on Facebland or Instayawn or Birdnoise you have my full permission to slap me about the head with a wet fish and have me committed. 

Worse still?

Being in a restaurant and perfectly willing to let food go cold so one can be a pretentious poser.

Just. Stop. It.

You are paying through the nose for your food. Eat it and stop fucking about.

Julia chivvied the household back to work and Dai was about to return to his own administrative labour, when Gallus intercepted him.
“Submagistratus, I have a favour to ask of you.”
Gallus was a man typical of his class and status. You could slice and dice through him at any point and the solid soldier would be left in every piece. He had the typical legionary contempt for civilians – a contempt that extended to the Vigiles which Dai had served for many years. If the last few months had led Gallus to give Dai some grudging respect for his abilities, it had manifested in a patronising attitude, which was unspoken but omnipresent. And that grated.
Dai squeezed out a polite smile. “What can I do for you?”
“It’s the matter of my application to join the Vigiles. The Magistratus informed me that whilst he had approved it, since I would be working in your district I  would need your formal approval as well.”
It took a moment for Dai to recover. He suspected that his jaw must have dropped slightly open, but was struggling so much for words that he could not be sure.
“You? You are applying to join the Vigiles?” Not, Dai realised, his finest moment of tactful diplomacy.
Gallus’ expression became even more severe than usual and his eyebrows lowered into a frown.
“I’ve already been approved for it.” He sounded defensive. “This is just a matter of courtesy as you are -”
Dai lifted a hand, feeling acutely awkward. “No. I mean – I know. You just said.” He took a steadying breath, “I am simply very surprised. The last time I heard you say the word ‘vigiles’ it was with the words ‘namby-pamby’, ‘play-soldiers’ and ‘glorified lost and found service’ attached, as I recall.”
At least Gallus had the decency to look a little uncomfortable at the memory.
“Yes. Well – uh – that – that was different. And it was a while ago.”
“About two weeks.”
Gallus cleared his throat and came to attention.
“Submagistratus Llewellyn, I apologise for any prior comments I may have made that in anyway disparaged or demeaned the Vigiles. They were inappropriate.”
“I agree.”
Gallus expression shifted slightly.
“You agree to approve my appointment as an Investigator to the local vigiles?”
“I agree your comments were inappropriate.” As a form of revenge it was petty, Dai knew, but then the digs from Gallus had been too. Dai saw something harden in the other man’s face and realised that his own behaviour was rapidly becoming equally ‘inappropriate’.
“Look,” he said, his tone conciliatory, “before we make anything formal, why don’t you go and spend a few days working with SI Cartivel and his team? See if you fit in. See if you suit the work and if it suits you. I don’t see any point you signing up if not. You can go down to the Vigiles House this afternoon and I’ll let them know to expect you.”
For a moment the grey eyes of the older man held his gaze with the familiar, appraising look that Dai found so profoundly irritating. Then Gallus saluted smartly.
“As you instruct, Submagistratus.”
Dai watched him walk smartly towards the gates and then made his own way into the house. His Senior Investigator and friend of many years standing, Bryn Cartivel, was going to love this. Not.

From ‘Dying to be Welcome’ one of the short stories in The Second Dai and Julia Omnibus by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago

The politician cursed.

Her favourite social media platform, the very one that had helped her reach her electorate, winning votes for her manifesto promising everyone the earth, had turned on her. She’d climbed the greasy pole with daggers between clenched teeth to stick in the backs of those she clambered over and she wasn’t used to having her will thwarted.

So they thought they could tag her posts with fact-check warnings?

How dare they!

When the hack was announced a month later, she hid her smile. The cost to her secret slush fund was worth every penny in embarrassment caused.

E.M. Swift-Hook