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.

Julia Lucia Maxilla stood up to her full four feet and eleven inches and stared at her co-investigator. She saw a tall, handsome man with black hair, pale skin and a square jawline. He glared down at her, and she was surprised by the blueness of his eyes. Her dogs came to lean against her, and this would have alerted her to the idea the man wasn’t precisely pleased to see her if her own intuition hadn’t already made that clear.
“Llewellyn, is it?” she kept her voice cool.
Behind him she could see another man trying to blend into the wall.
“Yes, domina.”
“If we are going to work together, I think we can dispense with such formality. The name is Julia.”
“Julia,” he hesitated fractionally, “I’m Dai Llewellyn. This is Decanus Bryn Cartivel, and is it permitted to ask what those dogs are?”
Julia decided to let the hesitation pass. She summoned a smile.
“Canis and Lupo are wolfhounds,” she turned and indicated the huge Saxon who stood at her shoulder. “The dogs and Edbert guard me. In case you missed it, I’m not very big so if I need to intimidate somebody they help with that too.”
For a moment the Briton actually grinned, then he must have remembered whatever grievance was wearing at him and he started looking sulky again. Julia sighed inwardly. He was going to be difficult and that was a shame because he was really, really pretty. Before she got chance to snap his handsome nose off for him, he surprised her by holding out a hand to Edbert.
“Greetings.”
Edbert actually grasped his wrist and the two tall men stood eye to eye for a moment.
“You play nicely with my lady. I don’t want to have to hurt you.”
Her bodyguard spoke rarely, and when he did his uncomfortably deep voice always reminded Julia of a thunderstorm in some far valley. She winced inwardly, rather wishing he hadn’t chosen to speak now, and was surprised to hear a thread of amusement in the Briton’s response.
“You can be sure I’ll bear that in mind.”
“If you two have finished bonding, I have a visit to make.” Julia turned a carefully blank face to Dai. “You had better come with me. Edbert and your decanus can take a break.”
He frowned.
“Does it pertain to the investigation?”
“No. And yes. It’s a duty visit to the Tribune. The Prefect is just a time server and she’s a complete waste of time as far as I can see. The Tribune is a different matter. Aside from policy, he and I have known each other since we were children.”
“Since you were children?” Llewellyn frowned. “But wasn’t the Tribune born in the Suburra? I heard he was raised in the insulae at the foot of the Capitoline Hills before he was adopted.”
“He was. And so was I. Any questions?”
Dai shut his mouth with a snap. Julia could all but hear him thinking, and took pity on him. It would make little sense to a Briton, who was no doubt raised on TV crime dramas which featured the poverty and criminality of the poorest slum area in Rome, that someone from that place could be in any position of influence or power.
“My father was a soldier, but my mother was a lupa, I think you use the term ‘whore’. My father was killed when he was twenty, in a border skirmish with the Mongol Empire, my mother died soon after of an occupational disease – she succumbed to morbus insu, an STD. I was raised by my father’s family who took me in because I was his only child and I think they wanted something to remember him by.”
“Oh. But how did -?”
“How did I get to be an inquisitor? A long story. And mostly painful, so can we leave it?” She essayed a smile and her new colleague managed a half grin in response. Julia looked at him more closely.
“Your tunic,” she said severely, “is pretty grubby. That fish sauce must be days old. Do you have another?”
He nodded, wearing the expression of a schoolboy caught cheating in a class test.
“Good. Decimus is a fussy blighter. We’ll swing past yours on the way.”

Once Dai was tidied to her satisfaction, Julia led the way to the Tribune’s apartment, which backed onto the barracks housing the cohort of Praetorians that were stationed in Londinium under the Tribune’s command.
“There was a reason I didn’t bring Edbert and the hounds,” Julia admitted.
Dai raised an eyebrow.
“The Lady Lydia don’t like them.”
Dai grinned tautly.
“If rumour is correct, she isn’t seeing people right now.”
Julia treated him to a quick, incurious, glance.
“Oh. Who?”
“One Titillicus. Inquisitor and nasty piece of work. Sent home to his mother in a body bag.”
“Oh. Whoops.” Julia frowned. “Why doesn’t she realise he is never going to divorce her?”

Dai looked down at her, his expression suggesting a genuine curiosity.
“Is she stupid?”
“Probably…”
“I always think bed-hoppers must be the lowest of the low,” Dai told her. “If you can betray your avowed spouse, you are not going to find it too hard to do the dirty in other ways.”
Julia smiled, pleased that they were beginning to find common ground in their values. It eased the conversation as they waited for the Man himself.

Part IV 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…

A second of shocked quiet followed the destruction of Big Bigger’s greenhouse. Then the biggers ran from the house with wide eyes and open mouths, and three chastened nomes crawled out of the burning wreckage.
By the time they reached cover, Brenda was waiting for them.
She had discarded her knobkerrie, but her fists were sufficiently solid to hand out a painful and lasting lesson.
“When I said nobody makes no po-cheen, I meant you three eejits too. Capiche?”
“Yes ma’am,” the terrible trio chorused.
It is a matter of record that Oisin never played his fiddly-diddly again.

Jane Jago

A dictionary for the bemused by Jane Jago…

acupe (noun) – very small brassiere 

anumle (adjective) – of eggs being in that state when they may be edible or wholly rotten

bsaterd (noun) – unpleasant man with a motorcycle 

dtoard (adjective) – half shaven

ehro (noun) – the sound a politician makes when trying to avoid a question

evrsion (noun) – not a tree book

forule (noun) – committee of four 

gunad (noun) – single testicle hanging at a very strange angle

muther (noun) – female dog of dubious parentage 

panster (noun) – crap cook

promambly (verb) – walking to a school dance

realstionship (noun) – a small boat loaded with inebriated picnickers which is in imminent danger of capsize

sogra (noun) – toast that has been dropped into a cup of tea

snadle (noun) – twentieth century scolds bridle

thimk (adjective) – slow of thought and easily goshswoggled 

vorgun (noun) – little-known species of Star Trek villain

vxie (adjective) – of young women, spirited and liable to bite

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

Telling an entire story in just one hundred words…

The village bus used to run twice daily. Most days the bus was half-full. Then, to save money, it was made twice weekly – in one direction on Monday morning and back again on Thursday morning. Which was no good for anyone.

A year later they stopped it.

The Councillor gave me his vague political smile.

“We would reopen the bus service, but there is no demand. No one used it. If people wanted a bus service they’d have used it.” 

Irrefutable logic.

Then he got in his Mercedes and drove off.

Marie Antionette would have been so proud of him.

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…

Buenos dias mis hijos,

It is one, Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV, author, pedagogue, genius, and all-round good egg. Out of the kindness of my heart, and the largeness of my soul, and the sharpness of my intellect, I have elected to brighten your darkness, educate your ignorance, and lift your aspirations. By following my simple guides to literate and effective script, you too may aspire to the success – both in the annals of Mamon and in the estimation of the intelligentsia – of my own seminal novel ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’.

My intention to write this piece crystalised in my mind just yesterday morning when Mumsie threw open the door to my bijou writing sanctuary, her face an interesting shade of puce and mouthed some words at me, which I could not quite discern as I had the climax of the 1812 Overture playing in the background at the volume such an impressive piece deserves.

Without so much as a warning, Mumsie pulled the plug and deafening silence ensued. In the polite and restrained conversation which followed, I learned that apparently, the cannon fire had been loud enough to disturb the neighbours and even waken dear Mummy from her post libatious slumber. But, as I kept repeating, very reasonably if to no avail, how was I to know? It was not as if I could read her thoughts.

Ah, but the world of fiction is so much more amenable to such things, as I shall reveal to you my dear Reader Who Writes. And thus, having established both my bona fides and my intentions, we can move on to this week’s lesson. Pay attention…

Point of View

There is a great deal of advice out there on the vexed topic of point of view. Should one write in first person? Or perhaps close third person? Or omniscient third person? Or? The arguments rage long and bitterly. Devotees of each and every style consider their own personal favourite the only possible option and bitterly denigrate anyone with the temerity to disagree.

I am here to demystify the process in my usual and inimitable style. My dear little bunnies… It doesn’t matter.

Set yourself a scene and write it however it feels most fitting.

Write as if you sat above your protagonists on a pink and champagne-laden cloud. Write as though your prose was dragged screaming and turgid from the entrails of your damaged hero. Write from the careless and unfeeling head of your beautiful female antagonist. Write all three at the same time – one’s own preferred method of procedure – at least then your millions of fans will miss none of the nuances of meaning and intention.

All I will say is that the head hop, so despised by the horde of amateur lectors out there in ‘gosh I’m a published writer’ land, is the finest tool in the hand of those with true talent and exquisite sensibility. How will one’s readers know the texture of a lover’s skin, but also appreciate the blackness at beauty’s heart? Or how shall the simple folk following the journey of your broken crusader understand both his magnificence and his utter bleakness?

No, my students, hop from head to head as the muse wills. It will result in a tapestry of textures and emotions, both beautiful to the eye and instructive to the soul. This is the only way to allow your reader to immerse deeply into the bubbling cauldron of relationships and experiences that you are crafting for their delight.

And what of those philistines who would decry when you choose to write some sections in the first person and some in the third? Or when you write successive characters in the first person? These deluded individuals would have it that such stylistic magnificence is both confusing to the reader and hard to follow. Or they berate it for breaking their reading immersion. Poor precious darlings, say I! They should learn to engage with the author’s carefully chosen blend of points of view. They are lazy readers and not worthy of your literary outpourings. Shake the dust of their denouncements from your metaphorical feet with disdain.

So be bold and brazen, ignore the ignorant self-proclaimed ‘masters’ of the literary art. Whilst their poor prose may only allow scant glimpses of the inner processes of their characters, except perchance their chosen hero, yours will be as sunlight through the thickets of thought and feeling for every character who steps upon the stage of your story.

Until next. Escribe bien…

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.

He thought the flame of her amber hair
Burned for the love of he
He thought without him she’d not dare
She was what he allowed her to be
Her fire burned low and sullenly
So he thought himself her god
And on the day a blaze burst free
He merely thought her odd

©️jane jago 2024

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.

August ground towards an end. It was hot, dry and enervating, enlivened by the odd crack of dry thunder. And the pub was jumping from opening time until we closed the doors on the last nightly revellers.
Ben and I quietly discounted helpful advice about how to maximise our heatwave profitability – like opening early for breakfast or having the pub open on every day of the week. Breakfasts would require yet another full kitchen brigade: staff we just didn’t have. And opening Sunday evening and Monday simply felt like a bridge too far. To clarify, for those who are not our regular customers, we have never opened on Sunday evenings and we made the decision to also close all day Monday a couple of years ago, when we calculated that the profit margins were healthy enough so to do.
To be brutally honest, without that weekly break I don’t know how we would have coped. All our usual staff got some time off, while the cleaning crew came in on Mondays and gave the place what their redoubtable boss referred to as ‘a good bottoming’.
And that’s where we were on a breathless Monday afternoon. The twins were in the orchard, with Sian, Jed and Finoula, pursuing their fascination with gardening, while me, Ben and the dogs lazed gently in the deep shade of our north-facing patio. We were idly talking about a staff bonus when the weather finally broke for good and also speculating about the lack of any more unwelcome visitors.
“I really hope Mr Seanmóir has put an end to our troubles.” Ben said. “I’d about had enough.”
“Me too, but it seems that when he preaches his gospel the congregation listens.”
“Preaches?”
“As far as I am able to ascertain Seanmóir means preacher.”
“Ascertain?”
“I googled it but I ain’t sure I got the spelling right.”
He chuckled. “Only you.”
He was just leaning in for a kiss when we were interrupted by the sound of running feet. Sian careered around the side of the house and hurdled the gate in one. She screeched to a halt in front of us.
“You need to come to the orchard. Now. Leave the dogs and come. Please.”
Her face was sheet pale under her tan, so we adjured the dogs to remain and followed her trim little figure through the car park and across the orchard to where Finoula was talking quietly to the twins and Jed was busily erecting what looked like an oversized cloche under a venerable tree.
Ben cantered over to our daughters, who looked solemn but not overly upset.
“What’s up?” I asked, keeping my voice as level as possible.
Roz grasped her daddy’s hand firmly. “Esme says the hidden ones are found. And you needs to tell the preaching man.”
“I expect I do. And also the police.”
“And Uncle Mark,” Ali put in.
“I’ll do all of those things, but first can you tell me what happened? Clearly and carefully.”
“We can.” They spoke as one child, which was happening less and less often as they grew and was indicative, I thought, of the need of comfort. Ben must have thought it too because he sat on the crisp brownish grass and gathered them into his lap. I put an arm around Sian, who snuggled close as the girls told their story.
“We have been weeding around the raspberry canes, and when we finished we went to clean our trowels in the long grass under that tree. We had rubbed away the dirt when we saw a something shiny. We bent down to look, and saw a golden ring in the earth. It was round something white and hard like a dog bone. We didn’t want to touch it so we called Jed, who bringed Finoula to see with her mind. She said the hidden ones was discovered and took us over here to talk. Jed went for a big cloche to cover what we found and Sian ran to fetch you.”
I bent and kissed them both. “You are mummy’s very good sensible girls. Can you and Sian take Daddy back to our garden and ask him nicely for an ice cream each. I have to do some phoning, then I will come and eat ice cream too.”
They went without a backward glance and I turned to Finoula and Jed.
“I have a feeling this is going to turn into a proper three-ring circus.” Then I looked at the cloche and felt a tug of sorrow for what I assumed was going to be a mother and baby.
Finoula extended a hand and I took it in both of mine.
“She was almost ready to give birth. They laughed when she understood that the child would die too. Bastards.”
Esme spoke aloud. “Will you tell her brother?”
“If Seanmóir is her brother I’m calling him right now.”
“He is. And you have the thanks of she who was hidden to protect the evil ones.”
Esme faded away and I took out my phone. Three calls later and I had done all I could.
“I wish we could give her some privacy,” Finoula said.
“We might be able to do just that.” I showed Jed my teeth. “Don’t we have a load of bamboo fencing that turned up one night from who knows where.”
He nodded, though the lines of strain remained around his mouth.
“What do you have in mind?”
“If I can get you some muscular assistance, would it be possible to fence across the boundary between here and the car park? And I’ll get the lane coned off so access from that way is stopped.”
His shoulders relaxed. “Us’ll set that in train.”
I was about to phone Ben and get him to hunt up some muscle, when the man himself appeared followed by a dozen husky young lads.
“I emptied the bothy,” he said. “Esme deigned to speak to me. Said you would need muscle.”
“We do. Because we’re going to give that poor girl some privacy.”
“What can I do?”
“Nothing involving tools. But you and Simeon could get the road cones from the beer store and cone off the lane up to the memorial garden. Let’s stop the nosy bastards from sneaking up that way.”
Ben and Simeon went and Jed took charge of the fencing crew. By the time the local police, in the shape of a sturdy middle-aged WPC in a squad car and DS Graham Murray in his souped-up Beamer, arrived a tall fence was taking shape.
Graham came over to me.
“What’s afoot Joss?”
“There’s what looks to be human bones buried in the orchard?”
“Bugger. New bones?”
“I don’t think so. There doesn’t seem to be any flesh attached. But not centuries old neither.”
“Show us.”
Jed took them over and lifted the edge of his cloche.”
Graham sighed. “I’ll call SOCO in. And I need to speak to the person who disturbed the earth.”
It was my turn to sigh. “I’d prefer you not to.”
“Why not?”
“Because it was Roz and Allie.”
“Oh right. Fuck. I need advice. But I will have to talk to them.”
“I’m sure you will. But I’d like to ask that they are only spoken to once.”
The WPC looked confused.
“Roz and Allie are my twin daughters. They are six years old.”
“Well shit. That rather muddies the water. Were they digging?”
“Not where the bones are. They had been weeding around the raspberry canes over in the corner. Came over here to clean their trowels in the longer grass under the tree. Saw something shiny and called for adult assistance.”
“They did good, then.”
She looked at Graham. “A word of advice Sarge?”
“Advise away.”
“Best leave it until SOCO determines precisely what we have here. Then we’ll talk to the kids. Once. With their parents present. Record it and then it’s all neat and tidy.”
He nodded. “Whose idea was the fence?”
“Sort of mine. I wanted to give the bones some privacy. They seem awfully naked somehow.”
“What about the back lane?”
“We coned that off too.”
“Good. Keep the wowzers at bay.”
I was wondering how long it would take for our off the cuff precautions to be breached when a bus load of roaring boys turned up from who knew where and appointed themselves guardians of the orchard. I left them in conversation with Ben and the representatives of law and order and went to see my daughters.
Finding them on the grass on the shady of our private garden I sat down beside them.
“Are you all right my darlings?”
They came and cuddled one either side of me.
“We’re a bit sad for the poor lady who was buried in the orchard. But Grandmother ‘splained us that we did good to find her.” Roz sounded subdued but not unduly upset.
Ali put up a hand and touched my face. “It was funny, Mummy, because I could hear Grandmother too. And smell her scent.” She sighed. “I wouldn’t like that all the time.”
Roz leaned over and took her sister’s hand. “It’s okay Ali. She won’t do it any more. It was only so she could tell us that the lady and her baby is free now because we found her.”
“I know. And I was glad to hear it.”
“It’s just a bit unsettling to hear the voice of a person you loved.” I said.
Ali smiled. “It was. But if we helped the buried lady I don’t mind.”
“Oh you helped her. And you did precisely right. I’m very proud of you. There is a thing, though.”
“What’s that Mummy Beckett?” They spoke together although this felt more like solidarity than leaning on each other for reassurance.
“At some time soon, you are going to have to tell some police people how you came to find the bones.”
“We can do that.” Ali said calmly.
“But not mention Grandmother or Esme,” Roz showed me her dimples.
“Indeed not. Now. Did Daddy get you some ice cream?”
“He did not. Because we wanted to wait for you.”
“And now I expect you want to wait for Daddy.”
“We do, but he’s just coming.”
That was Roz who has supernatural help with some things, so I wasn’t surprised to see Ben’s tall figure come through the back gate. Sian was with him, laughing at something he said and I understood that I had no need to worry about her.
“Knickerbocker Glories all round?” I suggested, to be greeted by rapturous applause.

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.

Action replay.
Same arena.
Twenty four hours later.
This time, though, there were two bodies.
One was another British contestant, Tam Docca ‘Fly Boy’, from the Valentia Game team, but it was the second corpse lying as if awaiting funeral rites that had Dai’s fullest attention. Quintillas Publius Luca – son of a Roman Senator and a proper one at that, from proper Rome – not one of those who sat in Augusta Treverorum, giving themselves airs.
Trev, as Dai and most Britons thought of it, was the capital of Prefecture Galliae, home to the man who ruled Britannia and much of the Northern and Western parts of the continent as well. It was one of the four original Prefectures, each governed by its own Caesar, established by the Divine Diocletian under his sole rule as God-Emperor of a new Roman Empire.
According to the information Dai was getting, Luca was not supposed to even be in the province. There were media images which showed him in some small provincial town, identified as Lutetia in Gallia Lugdunensis, sipping cocktails on a terrace overlooking a river, with his gorgeous patrician bride of a year, one Marcella Tullia Junius. The same article claimed Luca was away from Rome on a long-term project to regenerate and oversee the family’s estates in Gallia.
“You would think,” Bryn observed dryly, “that after last night they would have kept a watch. Security cameras all down still and I bet no one saw a thing, just like before. That’ll put a sour look on the face of that jobsworth Flavia.”
Dai shot his decanus a look.
“Shut up, Bryn, you spado. I’m thinking.”
The decanus chuckled.
“It ain’t often I can get the Bard to swear,” he remarked happily. “Let’s see if I can shake a few more curses out of those pure Celtic lips. You know they’ll sic a Roman on us? This is too big for us local yokels.”
“Yeah. Just as long as it isn’t Titillicus…”
“Oh, course you won’t have heard. Titillicus is no longer a factor. He got in a ruck with the Tribune, who sent him home to his mammy.”
“In disgrace?”
“Nah. In a body bag. Seems he pulled a knife.”
“Moron. But what was the row about?”
“As if you couldn’t guess.”
“He didn’t?”
“Yep. The Tribune’s wife under the very eyes of the family lares.”
Dai grinned viciously. He had never liked working with Titillicus, the kind of Roman who assumed he ruled the Province and owned every provincial he encountered. Surely whoever they sent from Trev HQ would have to be better than that?

Two days later, he found out.
He stood outside the Prefect’s office feeling as if he had been grilled like a flatbread on a griddle. The Prefect seemed to feel it was all Dai’s fault too, on top of which she was seething they had not sent one of her extended family’s clients from Trev. They had sent someone direct from Rome.
“This is a client of the Praetor himself so if you mess this up, Llewellyn, you make one mistake, or upset her at all, you will be stuck in the Pit monitoring security footage until you reach your dotage.”
“Domina.”
The Pit was a room under the main HQ where failed vigiles would be sent to serve out their term going over the endless amount of security footage the AI decided needed a human decision. The chances of making the wrong call were high, and too many of those, would get you a missio ignominiosa – meaning you’d be thrown out of the vigiles with nothing and little chance of getting any decent employment anywhere, ever. The idea of a future life as a nightclub bouncer in one of the shadier suburbs did not fill Dai with a warm fuzzy feeling.
That and the fact this was his turf, his case and he was going to have to solve it somehow, whilst keeping some place-holding sycophantic client of Praetor Marius Aurelius Naribus distracted enough not to get in the way.
In the lift back to the main office he had time to contemplate the implications. Bryn must have seen his mood, because the decanus wisely said nothing when Dai gestured to him to follow. The two of them made their way to the plush reception room where important people from Rome could be properly accommodated and entertained. Dai ignored all protocols and strode in, then stopped so fast Bryn pushed into him and he heard the decanus swear under his breath. But Dai barely noticed because he had just realised that this was going to be worse than he could ever have imagined. This wasn’t a woman, it was a little boy in leather trews and bristling with weapons.

Part III will be here next week. If you can’t wait to find out 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…

The veggible garden had fallen silent, and the more optimistic nomes thought the poteen incident might be dying a natural death. Brenda and Granny were less sanguine, and when the moles reported seeing flames and smelling smoke they felt certain some catastrophe was in the immediate offing.
It was coming towards sundown when Brenda felt earth movement through her feet.
“Heads down nomes,” she bellowed and threw herself flat onto the turf.
She was just in time as the ground heaved and distorted before the sound of an explosion rent the air and the greenhouse was consumed by a fireball.

Jane Jago

A dictionary for the bemused by Jane Jago…

ahs sing (noun) – extremely melodious fart

amradidlo (noun) – country song about onanism 

bargrh (noun) – posh barbecue food

fbelievableront (adjective) – of dragons and the like having quirks of personality that make them readable

fraft (noun) – sliced cheese of dubious origins, having a strange odour and an oddly mottled appearance

griness (adjective) – of bread being flabby and of a strange colour

jumipr (noun) – woollen garment smelling vaguely of gin

nayway (noun) – street where only those in the know dare go

ompire (noun) – person qualified to officiate at many sports

peopel (noun) – a peephole in a front door as installed by an idiot where the hole on the outside is an inch below the hole in the inside

qaurrle (noun) – arrow fired by Cupid in an attempt to undo one of his unlikelier  pairings 

resonse (noun) – the chair you kept for the bloke that never showed up

tdrippingap (noun) – computer program for hay fever sufferers

wriitng (noun) – sarcastic grin – of the sort usually aimed at door-to-door salespersons and evangelists

yhen (noun) – curious chicken

zegra (noun) – horse wearing a stripy jumper

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