Shameless Plug

It is now out there and available for purchase!

What is? I sense you thinking.

Why, Issue 5 of One Eye Grey, that penny dreadful for the 21st cntury, of course.

And so at last the tale of the Toll Raven is told and at its dreadful truth revealed. Go and buy it now, if you dare. No, better than that, buy lots and encourage your friends, family, pets, passing acquaintances, the man who reads your meter, the owner of the disembodied voice who whispers to you at night to forget the diet and eat chocolate instead to do likewise. And if you dare not, try buying it anyway but, instead of reading it yourself, perhaps pass it unnoticed to someone else and see if giant, hairy demon comes to crush them under its hideous, clawed foot.

Play your part in making OEG the cult success it deserves to be. And help make me famous in the process.

Soulcompost, over and out.

What Ho!

“Now then, I wonder what this thingy does.”

With the pens and various items of desk furniture arranged, rearranged and arranged once more for good measure, Bertram Toaster turned his attention to the small dark wooden box with the red button on its top and metal grille set in its front. Specifically, it was the red button that had seduced his attention. Weighing it up, and even though the new job came with the sort of salary that would have brought a fond tear to the eye of Great Uncle Marmaduke, the new mayor doubted that his power and influence extended to being able to conjure up a nuclear strike all by himself. The button, he felt, would be safe to try.

After a second’s delay, a familiar voice emanated from the contraption. Like one who has just heard his winning string of lottery numbers read out over the airwaves, Toaster sat upright with joyous surprise.

“Good Lord! Is that you Shreeves?”

“Yes, sir, it is.”

“But I thought you had gone to bring succour your ailing auntie Doris in Clacton for the week.”

“Indeed that was my intention, sir, but with your unexpected election to public office I thought it prudent to be on hand for the first day or two.”

It struck the mayor that Shreeves’s capacity to second guess a situation and arrange to be “on hand” could at times be uncanny to the point supernatural. No one had been more surprised than Bertram Toaster to find himself installed in a plush office in the corridors of civic power that Monday morning; with the possible exception of that other chappie, of course. What was he called now - Livingroom? Mornington? Anyway, there had been no sign of the fellow that morning, only a box of Black Magic on the desk and card bearing the cryptic lines “Good Luck, You’ll Need It.”

The whole thing had been old Tubby Cameron’s idea, part of his great ‘masterplan’ he had called it. “Tell you what, Bertie, old thing,” he’d said one night over a late evening snifter at the Drunes, “Why don’t you stand for London mayor? You could be just the man for the job.”

They had been friends since they were boys in shorts at Beaton College and had continued to rub along even as their careers had subsequently diverged; Tubby into politics (at which he was making quite a name for himself, though Toaster had never really followed the antics and machinations of Westminster and was thin on the details) and himself into, well, largely staying on the good side of Aunt Agatha and out of holy matrimony. But Tubby had been most insistent, had told his old pal Bertie not to worry about a thing and to leave all the work to him and what he had archly called his ‘team’. And so here he now was: Mayor of London with a big office overlooking the river and a talking box from which the melifluous tones of the marvel that was Shreeves now spilt forth.

“Shall I come through, sir?”

“Excellent idea, Shreeves. Step forth into the sanctum.”

Shreeves shimmered into the room. Although Toaster had no idea what he was supposed to do now that he had landed the mayorship, he did at least feel assured that the sailing ahead, with Shreeves on hand to prepare the metaphorical G&Ts, could be nothing less than plain. With a sigh of almost feline contentment, Bertram Toaster reached for a nut cluster.

Soulcompost says: how; oh, how; oh, how did Boris get elected? I’m serious - how?

Party On, It-Dad

I was listening to John Humphreys the other day. Not on his usual Today slot where he pursues the unrighteous, the unworthy and the downright duplicitous with his journalistic sword of truth, but on his more empathic, sympathetic and, dare I say, touchy-feely Tuesday morning odd-slot filler before Woman’s Hour, On the Ropes.

Each week John interviews some poor unfortunate who has, at great personal cost, taken a stand against injustice or else suffered some terrible fall from grace. Some of the stories have been truly tragic, a few have had redemptive endings even though scars remain (I’m thinking here of his interview with the remarkable abuse-survivor whose name, I’m sorry to say, I’ve since forgotten), and one or two, like this week’s with lone mother Birgit Cunningham, are just poignantly sad.

Birgit, I learn, lives in a small shabby council flat up Ladbroke Grove with her young son. She’s close to broke, ekes out a living by working for a London publisher and, most nights, is just too tired from the demands of work and family and making ends meet to stay up past nine o’clock.

But - and this is why she’s sat in front of John - Birgit is no ordinary single parent. She once had a reputation for being one of the hottest items on the London and LA social scenes. An original It-Girl, her life a seemingly endless string of parties fuelled by daddy’s cash, cocaine and dieting. She is remarkably upbeat about it all, though; doesn’t regret a moment of it, not even a romance she had with Kevin Costner.

“So, how many parties would that have been each night?” asks John.

“Well,” replies the sanguine Birket, “four or five usually,” or words to that effect.

Sitting in the morning traffic, I try to imagine it. Before I had kids I didn’t go to that many parties a year; no, in two years. It’s different now, though. Children really subvert your social life. This past fortnight it’s been everyone in our NCT group’s third birthday. The parties are coming thick and fast. I can barely keep up with the social round. I’m exhausted merely at the thought. No doubt I’ll be plagued by nightmares of Kevin Costner in a clown suit as I crawl into bed at 9pm each night, high on apple juice and sugary icing.

Lessons in Observation

Good observation is a skill every aspiring writer needs to nurture according the OU’s creative writing coursebook, a copy of which sits on my desk. The little details of what people do and say, the smell of city streets, the texture of seats in pubs, the colour of leaden skies, the taste of stale beer: in short, the wit to notice things that might otherwise be consigned to the wallpaper of common experience, or words to that effect. And then, of course, be able to write it all down.

The trouble, I find, with attuning to the small things is that every so often one misses a whopper.

“Do you understand the reason why your car has been immobilised, sir?” The female voice at the other end of the phone was clearly used to saying this line. She sounded polite but resolute, no doubt well-practiced in maintaining professional dignity in the face of outraged and irate callers.

By now, though, I’d gone past anger and was feeling reasonably philosophical. After all, there was only myself to blame.

“I imagine it’s got something to do with the sign I’ve parked beside that says about unauthorised vehicles being wheel-clamped,” I said.

Her tone lightened a little as we discussed the terms of my freedom.

£120: that is the cost of a lesson in acute observation in this part of town. A little steep you might think, but a lot quicker than a long weekend on one of those Arvon writers’ workshops and possibly slightly cheaper.

Onwards, Upwards, Roundaboutwards

What a strange thing it is to be rolling along one minute only to pitch right off the wagon the next. There I am, blogging away from June to Christmas, not exactly prolific but far from idle either, and then, as the first day of the new year dawns, my cyber-muse goes up in smoke. Now, how capricious is that, I ask you?

However, I have not been doing nothing all this time. I have been turning my thoughts to fiction. I’ve been toying with this for a while, by way of pursuing a constructive and inexpensive passtime really, but had a bit of a nudge along the path when my little tale of gothic dread in Crystal Palace (the one I tried to complete in time for last Hallowe’en, remember? Oh, never mind) made it into the small but nonetheless perfectly formed “One Eye Grey“. So, I get to thinking, maybe I should spread my literary wings just a little and see what occurs with a little application. More anon.

And as the World Completes Another Turn…

I find it hard to believe that I’ve managed to keep this blog going until the end of the year, but the fact that I have goes some way to showing the redemptive power of liberal helpings of purple prose marinated in its own drivel, washed down on occasions (I am the first to admit it) with a dash or two of bulls**t.

So now, Soulcompost, to what heights do you aspire next year? It is only an hour and a half away, you know.

Well, I’m glad you asked. It’s an excellent question and deserves a considered answer. Let me pop a log on the fire, pour myself yet another glass of bo****ks and think about it.

In the meantime, a very happy New Year to us all. May it be a peaceful and creative one.

Cake

I felt self-conscious asking. I always do in situations like this; don’t know why, perhaps it has something to do with broaching conversations with strangers. Irrational, silly, but a hard habit to break nonetheless. I suppose it’s the same with parties, but at least at those you can be propped up by a drink or two, something to calm the nerves and occupy the hands. Still, the clock was ticking, there was no Dubonnet to be had, and so I pressed on: “I don’t suppose you have any panetone, do you?”

The man with close cropped white hair stood up from the boxes of ‘Taste the Difference’ mince pies he was arranging on the low shelf in front of him. The sleeves of his orange jacket were pushed up to the elbows. He looked tired I thought, glad there was only an hour or so until he could get home. He pursed his lips and looked down and to one side for a moment. My question, I thought, had clearly struck him as one needing proper thought and due consideration. While I waited for his answer, I tried to make out the picture and words making up the faded tattoo on his forearm. It looked like some sort of insignia, I wondered if it was an old army memento.

“Now, sir,” he at last said, his lined face a study in solemnity and his accent betraying him as a born, or at least mostly bred, South Londoner, “what sort of product would that be?”

There was a time, I am sure, when to ask for panetone in Sydenham would have been an invitation for a slap. But instead he led me to a woman in a dark blue V-neck with fashionable glasses; you know, those old NHS plastic tortoiseshell jobs, only heavier in outline and, needless to say, most certainly not free at the point of delivery. With an official air she told me that, with regret, the Savacentre had sold out of the aforesaid Italian christmas cake. I suspected she had been trained for something like this.

As I stood in the queue at the checkout, my mind turned to the flow and change of the urban landscape. Not only through the rise or fall or refashioning of its architecture, but in the values and aspirations of its dwellers, and never more strikingly than in those those who’ve lived there long enough, I thought to myself, to have beamed with pride as Bobby Moore lifted the Jules Rimet, or celebrated Christmas with, well, Dubonnet. And so, where once panetone might have been seen as the gastronomic plaything of poncey arty types, it is now fare for the masses.

And the masses, it would seem this Christmas Eve, have beaten me to the punch.

Soulcompost would like to wish everyone who stumbles across this blog, regardless of culture, creed, or state of sobriety, a peaceful and joyous Christmas.

Stone Cold in Catford

Bitter, bitter damp cold. Maybe I wouldn’t be feeling it so much if I was walking, but cycling is making the air cut straight through me, snatching away my body heat as it rushes past like a handbag thief in the night.

Still, here I am, peddling home at close to midnight, the warmth and seasonal bonhomie of the Cutty Sark Tavern a dwindling memory, as many miles ahead of me as behind, though now they’re all uphill. The shortcut around the back of the theatre in Catford is almost as quiet as the crypt. The orange glow from the christmas lights colours the grey, hard pavement and discarded wooden pallets left over from a day’s trading, making the street look strange, eerie. It makes me want to stop, to look along the road behind me, to the all-night kebab shop keeping a kinder light burning for the sake of late night souls in need of greasy succour.

A century ago, Shackleton’s crew, surviving off boiled seal blubber huddled together under a tarpaulin on a godforsaken rock in the South Atlantic while the man himself set off across the iceberg-riddled and barely liquid seas in a leaky bathtub to find help, entertained themselves with imagined fantastical feasts to keep their spirits up and hopes alive. Would the thought of doner, chips, extra chilli sauce have crossed their minds? Perhaps not. Maybe, even in their darkest moments, things never got quite that bad.

But, you know, there are times when a man truly arrives at the limits of his physical endurance and when, in the name of survival, the previously unthinkable becomes the only thing to do. As Shackleton must once have done, I make the hard choice…

He came from near here, you know.