Saturday Wordzzle No 80

Yay! It's time to play Raven's Wordzzle again. For the what and the how go to Raven's Nest

I must say, there were some very tricky words this week: propeller was a hard one to knock off. Anyhoo, enough moaning and groaning.

The Mini (chisel, worship, suicide, organic, plus)

Michelangelo's Pieta

The sculptor's chisel has played metal midwife
And brought this labouring stone to birth.
Something organic, something dimly understood,
Had been sleeping in this marble block's future,
The sculptor knew, and his hands in worship uncovered it.
The messy minus of stone chips cover the workshop floor
The bold plus of this tender scene now strikes the beholding eye.
A mother gently supports the lifeless body of her son.
Some might say that it was suicide on his part,
But the serene look on her face whispers: sacrifice.

The 10-word Challenge (Charitable, alligator, tribute, drunk, slave, preparation, carrots, mountainside, propeller, lark)

Elroy Jackson, a.k.a. Mr Teeth, was not a happy man. For years now, the jazz club had been a sweet little number for him and now somebody had gone and burned it down. This was bad enough, but what worried him more was the fact that the club's owner, Baron Samedi, had vanished.

Now Mr Teeth may have looked like some steroid-enhanced gym-junkie whose IQ was about half what he could bench press in pounds, but underneath that shiny shaved head was a sharp mind, a wealth of street smarts and the predatory instincts of an alligator. He knew perfectly well that the Baron, one of the more powerful demons around, could not have been killed in the fire: fire would not have bothered him in the least.

Mr Teeth had toyed with the idea that the Baron might have set the fire himself, but that didn't make sense either – the club had been a sweet little number for him too. Who knew how many souls had been ensnared in the place over the years, what with the drink, the discreetly purveyed drugs and the other more personal services offered to the club's most favoured clients. No, the Baron wouldn't have torched his own place.

It was possible that a rival might have done it, but that still didn't explain the Baron's disappearance. Over the years, others had tried to make a move against the Baron but had quickly learned the error of their ways. Crossing him was tantamount to suicide. The Baron had enemies for sure, but none of them were that stupid. No, the only possibility that Mr Teeth could think of was that the Baron had been taken out by one of his own kind. He slid the picture of Harold that had been on the news and in the papers across the table to the man opposite.

"This is him,"

The other, one Edward Peck by name, reached out a slim, perfectly manicured hand and picked up the picture. Behind the twin discs of his steel-rimmed spectacles, a pair of keen blue eyes studied it carefully for a few moments before laying it carefully back down on the table.

"He was here in town yesterday, you say?" he asked. Mr Teeth nodded.

"I threw him out of the club at about three in the afternoon," he rumbled, "and told him to git by sunset or else. Looks like he had other ideas"

"Indeed," agreed Peck smoothly, "Now, when I find him, how do you wish to proceed: am I to bring him to you, beat him senseless, kill him or what?" Peck did not go in for euphemisms: a spade was most assuredly not a manually-actuated implement of horticultural excavation.

Mr Teeth knew that killing wasn't a likely option: the Baron had often boasted that he couldn't be killed by mortals, so it stood to reason that the young trumpet-playing punk in the picture couldn't be either. Truth to tell, he wasn't exactly sure what the most effective course of action would be. Best to keep it simple.

"Bring him here," He handed over a card. Peck quickly scanned the address printed on it and raised his eyebrows slightly.

"Mountainside Boulevard. Nice area," he commented, pocketing the card. He picked up the picture and dropped it into his Louis Vuitton briefcase. "Now, if you'll excuse me," he said, getting to his feet, "I really must be going, I need to call a few people in preparation. My fee will be the usual: fifteen hundred a day plus expenses, is that alright?"

"No problem," said Mr Teeth, getting up as well. He extended a huge hand and Peck shook it firmly. "I'll be in touch." he said, and with that he turned and walked out of the bar.

Mr Teeth watched Peck's Armani-suited form disappear into the crowd on the street. Fifteen hundred a day was a lot, but Mr Peck always delivered the goods.

Harold and Teatime wandered back out onto the street. The tiny cramped shoe-box of an apartment they had just viewed had been somewhat less than suitable: the wallpaper had been peeling and damp, the windows covered in enough dirt to grow a crop of carrots in and the carpet – if that's what the unpleasantly sticky brown and orange layer on the floor actually was, had been alive with vermin. The landlord, an unsavoury-looking slob in a filthy string vest had also been drunk – at just after nine in the morning.

"We could have fixed it up a bit," said Harold, "a good cleanup, some paint, some wallpaper..."

"I'm thinking more in terms of a gallon of petrol and a match," replied Teatime dryly. He scratched himself, "If that place has given me fleas, I'll..." As he was speaking, he was looking back over Harold's shoulder at the way they had come. "Great Ceasar's Ghost! There's that woman again!"

"What woman?"

"You know, the one at the station that helped you pick up the all postcards you so carelessly spilled over the place."

"Oh, good," said Harold, "Let's go and say hi." He turned and started back the way they had come.

"Let's not," suggested teatime, "she didn't seem that keen on you and we haven't time to lark about, we've another viewing in half an hour."

"Oh, come on, a few minutes won't hurt," said Harold, "Honestly, Teatime, you're such a slave to the clock sometimes!"

Sure enough, there she was, dressed differently today of course, but it was definitely her. She was apparently studying the objects in the window of a shop selling second-hand goods for some charitable cause - studying it very intently in fact.

Agent India was indeed looking in the shop window. She had been told in training that a good way to observe someone without looking at them directly and thereby giving oneself away, was to use reflective surfaces like shop windows, car door mirrors and so on. So it was with some annoyance – not to mention a touch of fear - that she observed Harold's reflection turn around and grow larger as he approached her.

"Hello again," said Harold brightly, charisma turned all the way up to number eleven. "You helped me clear up at the station, I think. I just wanted to say thanks."

It was a tribute to India's training and iron self-control that she managed to turn away from the window quite coolly, quite casually in fact, or so she thought. Inside she was buzzing: Apart from that brief encounter at the station, she'd never spoken with an AFO before: more senior agents had always dealt with them directly. Her job had always been simply to spot them and keep track of their movements until others could come and get rid of them. Now the wretched demon had seen her and wanted to make polite conversation it seemed, and she was on her own. Stupid, India, really stupid!

"Er, Hello," She hadn't been trained for this! "Er, it was no trouble, really." Surely it must be able to hear her heartbeat – it was louder than a propeller for goodness' sake! She needed to get out of here fast. Think, India, think! Getting a sudden idea, she made a show of checking her watch.

"Ooh, is that the time?" she practically squeaked in mock astonishment, "I have to go. Nice seeing you." With that she turned and hurried away down the street, leaving a bemused Harold staring after her.

"Am I that scary?" he asked.

"You're positively terrifying, old shoe," said Teatime wearily. "Positively terrifying."

Around the corner, Agent India had slowed to a walking pace. That had to be the lamest way of getting out of a tricky situation ever! Mind you, the look on the demon's face had been really good: surprise and then bewilderment. It had got mimicry of human expressions pretty much down pat, she'd give it that. If she had not had so much confidence in her gift of spotting demons, she could quite easily have believed that she had just rudely snubbed an ordinary human. Her gift was never wrong though and now she'd have to be much more careful about following her target. Still, not for much longer, she thought. The text she'd received half an hour before was unequivocal: JOSHUA SQD ETA 18:30. RV @ OGS 19:00 4 PLAN MTG.

The Mega (Charitable, alligator, tribute, drunk, slave, preparation, carrots, mountainside,propeller, lark, chisel, worship, suicide, organic, plus)

Now, Tony “the Maggot” Ryan, lead singer of the death-metal band, Suicide by Propeller, was renowned for his willingness to do anything for a lark. Having got exceedingly drunk after a last-night-of-the-tour party, he obtained an alligator from somewhere and put it in Sticky Steve, the drummer’s, hotel bathroom.

That worthy had got up in the night to answer a call of nature and had been scared out of his wits by the beast. Being less than impressed by the prank, he resolved to get his own back somehow. He knew, however, that whatever scheme he came up with would need a good deal of preparation if it was to succeed and thereby teach the Maggot a lesson.

His first thought was to take a chisel to the paintwork of the Maggot’s beloved Porsche, but he quickly rejected the idea as too unsubtle, plus he just couldn’t bring himself to do such a horrid thing to such a lovely car. Sticky Steve didn't worship cars the way some men did, but still he thought the car was just too pretty to be disfigured like that.

So what when? Steve mulled this question over as he took a stroll down the mountainside below the hotel. The air up here was so clear and clean-smelling! As he drew in a big lungful, Steve could feel it practically washing out his lungs and invigorating his whole body. He’d grown up in a grubby northern industrial town and the most charitable thing you could say about that place was that it looked best through the rear-view mirror of a speeding car.

Never a slave to passion for long, Steve began to feel his anger ebb away in the warm spring sunshine: it had only been a joke after all and the Maggot was a good mate really, well, most of the time anyway. He sat down on a little stone bench beside the mountain path and took in the view for a bit. Far below, he could see people toiling away in some fields planting something or other – organic carrots, maybe or potatoes, Steve didn’t know.

The hotel had packed him a little picnic lunch which included a nice bottle of wine. Steve unpacked this and poured himself a generous measure. The way the sun sparkled on the surface of the wine was almost hypnotic as he swirled it gently round inside the glass. He took a sip and savoured the crisp, sharp taste. Aaah! That was good! He lifted the glass in mock tribute to his loony friend.

At least it had only been a stuffed alligator – imagine if it had been real.

Keep Off The Grass

Today, my other half and I went to the cinema to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

As we were buying our tickets, the cashier asked us if we wanted standard seats or "Premier" seats (more leg-room, more comfy, etc). We said yes, and dutifully paid an extra quid each.

After taking out a mortgage for some Pick 'n Mix and a drink, we headed into the auditorium and took our seats in row F, just like it said on our ticket.

Now, here's the silly bit. We had paid an extra pound for these seats, but the place was almost empty (the film is now nearing the end of its run, so there were about six people, including us, in the place). We could have bought standard seats and sat in the posh ones. No-one came in during the movie to check that everyone was correctly seated. We would have got away with it.

The thing is, if we had have done that, I would have been uncomfortably aware throughout the whole movie that I was sitting in a seat to which I was not entitled - even though I would not have been depriving anyone else of a seat or doing any serious damage to the cinema's profit margins (not after the Pick 'n Mix, anyway!).

I bet that cashier thought we were right chumps. Actually, I bet he had a bet going with the popcorn seller/Pick 'n Mix Mortgage Adviser about how many people he could con into shelling out an extra quid for something they could have for nothing.

But that's me: if it says "keep off the grass", I keep off.



The above sign was next to a set of stairs in the Forbidden City, Beijing. I did my best to obey it too.

Saturday Wordzzle

Another week has just flown by! It really does only seem like yesterday when I was putting up the last lot. In a rare rush of brains to the feet, I've managed a mini, 10-worder and a mega. The words were pretty useful this week. Florida was the most awkward in some ways – as was singularity.

Anyhoo, as usual, go to Raven's Nest for the rules of the game and some excellent advice.

Now, on with the motley...

The Mini (shadows, singularity, Florida, caterpillars, copy)

The spacecraft Intrepid and its crew returned home to a tumultuous welcome. Theirs had been the first manned mission ever to have entered a Black Hole and return safely from its time- and space-warping depths.

Naturally, the three astronauts were kept in quarantine for a while and rigorously tested to ensure they themselves were healthy and that the ship had not inadvertently brought back space caterpillars to devastate the Earth's crops or anything like that.

Once released, the astronauts were feted in the press and invited onto every radio and TV talk show going. After a few weeks of this, they were tired of course, but tonight was to be their last public appearance before going on a well-earned break, and the make-up artists could easily cover up the sallow complexions and the dark shadows under their eyes.

Relaxing in the green room before going in front of the cameras, one of the astronauts was idly leafing through a copy of the daily paper. He turned over a page and swore loudly.

"What is it, Bob?" asked the mission commander who'd been sampling the complimentary buffet.

"Jim, Steve," cried Bob, "I think you should both see this. Something's not right. I... that gravity anomaly ... the singularity must have..." he trailed off, helplessly.

The other two astronauts hurried over to look at the page that Bob was now holding up. It was a full-page colour article about the actor Harrison Ford. The headline for the piece was:

Harrison Ford Says No to a Sixth Florida Jones Movie

"Guess we're not in Kansas anymore, huh," said Bob faintly.

The 10-word Challenge (Spam, perpetual motion, sprinkle, telephone pole, stains, alphabetical, surgery, flattery, liberty, preservation)

Agent India scrolled her way through her email inbox and sighed. If someone could invent a machine that ran on spam, it would be the nearest thing to perpetual motion as the world could get. No, she wasn't embarrassed by her small member not pleasing the ladies. No, she didn't want a genuine submariner's watch, whatever that was. No, she didn't want to lose 10lb of weight in a week, and, no, she definitely didn't want to give her bank details to Mr Liberty Akubuntu, of the Nigerian Law Socity (sic!) so that he could transfer the residue of a late client's estate out of the country and split it with her.

After all that, there wasn't a single email worth reading. She shut down her email program and decided to surf the net instead while she finished off her morning coffee. It would soon be time to go and take over from Agent Carlisle, but first she would take a quick look at what was going on in the world.

She was just taking a slurp of coffee when the web browser finished loading the main page of her favourite news website. Her sudden indrawn gasp of breath when she saw the main news item caused her to splutter and choke on the hot liquid. Drat it, now she had coffee stains on her nice clean t-shirt and would have to change before going out. The news item was all about the devastating fire at Baron Samedi's jazz club, which was shocking enough, but what had caught her eye was what appeared to be a blown-up still image from some CCTV footage. It showed a young man walking towards the camera, a trumpet dangling from his right hand. The face, although rendered somewhat blurry by enlargement was still clearly recognisable as that of the AFO she had tagged the day before. "So, you're a fire-starter, are you?" she murmured as she read the rest of the article. Was there nothing these creatures wouldn't do? It was lucky no-one had been hurt.

Shaking her head, she drained the last of the coffee, dumped the mug in the sink and got changed. In a few minutes she was out the door.

She parked up and got out of the car, narrowly avoiding bashing the driver's door against a telephone pole (for a Spotter, you can be awfully unobservant at times she admonished herself). She walked briskly up to the side of Carlisle's VW and rapped on the window. His head whipped round and by the startled look on his face, it was clear he hadn't noticed her approach (not just me then, she thought). She dangled the brown paper bag containing one of Marvin's Marvellous Muffins in front of his face as he wound down the window. He eagerly snatched it out of her hand and looked inside.

"Sorry," she said as he examined the contents, "they ran out of Chocolate Sprinkle, so I got you Blueberry instead, is that OK?"

"Yeah, fine, fine, thanks," he replied, "Do you want to get in? I can hand over while I'm eating. Did you get me any coffee?"

India mutely handed over the lidded cup. She then went round the car and opened the passenger-side door. Pulling a moue of fastidious disgust, she quickly brushed the littler of candy bar wrappers and empty drink cans off the passenger's seat before climbing in.

"Sorry about the mess," Carlisle mumbled through a mouthful of muffin. He took a swig of coffee and cleared his throat. "Sorry. Anyway, our boy stayed put most of the night, but did something weird at about three-twenty. Have a look at this." He got out the Cicada and pressed the play button. The VW was instantly filled with sad, sweet music, albeit somewhat tinny-sounding on the recorder's little speakers.
"Pretty sweet, no?" said Carlisle, stopping the playback after a few minutes. "It's a pity we can't put it on YouTube or something. You ever see anything like that before?"

India hadn't, but then she hadn't been an OGS agent for much more than a year, so it didn't mean a lot. "So, it didn't go anywhere else or do anything else?" she asked.

"Nope," replied Carlisle, "it stayed put all night, apart from that one hour. I never lost sight of it at any time when it went for its music practice, and the Ladybird showed it staying put in the motel the rest of the time. Like I say: weird."

"Hmm, then I guess I must be wrong," she said.

"You? Wrong? I find that hard to believe!" laughed Carlisle. India blushed: she was aware that she had something of a reputation amongst the other agents as someone did not take correction or contradiction easily. Seeing her red cheeks, Carlisle's grim disappeared abruptly. "Sorry, India, wrong about what, anyway?"

India explained about the fire at the jazz club and her suspicions of Harold. "But," she concluded, "that demon can't have started the fire: it was here all night. Thing is" she continued thoughtfully, "the police are now looking for it. What should we do?"
"Nothing," said Carlisle. "If your demon didn't start the fire – as seems to be the case – then the police not finding him does no harm, and anyway," he paused for a gulp of coffee, "he'll be gone as soon as we can get a squad over here, won't he?"

"True," acknowledged India. "But in the meantime, they'll be wasting resources looking for the man in the CCTV pictures instead of whoever really started the fire."

"That's not really our concern. We can hardly go to the cops and give our boy over there a squeaky clean alibi, now can we?"

"I suppose not," India sighed. That was the trouble with OGS: it wasn't a government agency and had no more authority than any other group of private citizens being, as it was, essentially a religious order.

"What should we do?" asked Harold for the umpteenth time since he and Teatime had seen the news bulletin about the fire. He was pacing up and down the room.

"Oh, do sit still, old bean," grumbled Teatime, "I can't think with you tramping up and down like that." Harold flopped into the one dilapidated armchair the room possessed.

"Now, these humans are pretty stupid," began Teatime, "so it's my bet that even with your picture all over the news they'll not recognise you in the street so long as you don't do anything to draw attention to yourself."

"I could wear a baseball cap or something," suggested Harold, "shade my face. Maybe wear sunglasses?"

"That's good. That's good, "said Teatime approvingly, "Do you happen to have any of those things?".

"Er, no, just that old hat I was collecting money in." admitted Harold. Teatime rolled his eyes.

"And you're sure you can't change your physical appearance, not even a bit?"

"Sorry," apologised Harold, shrugging, "I was never any good at shapeshifting: it takes all my effort keeping up this one appearance."

"If you take my advice, old button," said Teatime, "You'll start practising: your self-preservation may very well depend upon it one day."

"I will," promised Harold, not really meaning a word of it. Shapeshifting was hard!

"Well, for want of anything better," said Teatime, "I think we're just going to have to rely on humanity's staggering capacity to overlook what's in front of their stupid faces. We can maybe get you a hat or something while we're out. Let's go, old sausage, I'm starving."

They found a pleasant-looking diner easily enough and spent a short time perusing the neatly alphabetical menu in the window before going in. Teatime had wanted to ensure there would be pancakes and maple syrup (there was) and proper English Breakfast Tea (there wasn't).

The Lovin' Spoonful diner was obviously one of those places that relied for the most part on the patronage of regular customers rather than passing trade. As Harold and Teatime jangled their way in through the door, all heads turned toward them and all conversation ceased abruptly. The proprietor – Hank, by name - had just been telling one of his regulars, a middle-aged lady, about his impending knee surgery, and didn't look especially pleased by the entrance of a stranger into his cosy domain. For form's sake, however, he plastered on a smile and asked Harold what he could get him.

Harold was just about to order a nice big plate of bacon, eggs, hash browns and all the trimmings for himself (plus pancakes for Teatime) when Hank registered Teatime's presence.

"Oh, I'm sorry, son," he said, not really sounding it. "This is a food service area. No animals allowed in here, you'll have to leave. Hygiene laws, you know?"

"Aw, lighten up Hank," said the erstwhile recipient of the knee surgery story, a rather blowsy middle-aged woman who could most kindly be described as 'handsome'. "He's only a little monkey and I think he's adorable."

So saying, she leaned her face in close to Teatime's and spoke in the sort of simpering high-pitched voice usually reserved for babies, halfwits and small dogs. "Yeshoo are, aren't you? You're adorable, you wittle monkey, you." She started tickling Teatime under the chin.

Harold felt Teatime tense. His companion's little body just radiated outrage at this violation of his personal space and dignity. Now, Harold didn't know if Teatime was preparing to spring at the woman's face, bite her hand or simply run off. Whichever way, it would not be conducive towards the acquisition of breakfast.

"Take it easy, Teatime," he said soothingly, "the nice lady's just being friendly." He turned to her apologetically, "I'm sorry, ma'am, he's not used to the attention of such a pretty lady – it makes him nervous."

Evidently pleased by this piece of outrageous flattery, the woman laughed but quickly drew back her hand.

"He doesn't bite, does he?" she asked.

"No," laughed Harold, "but he can be very sarcastic at times."

Even Hank laughed at that and grudgingly agreed that, yes, OK, the monkey could stay after all, so long as he behaved himself.

Outside, Agent India was watching the diner from the clean and tidy comfort of her own car. Her cell phone beeped.

"India." she said, not removing her gaze from the diner.

"India, this is Control. Joshua squad has become available earlier than expected and has been despatched to your location. They should reach you sometime this evening. Please liaise with Agent Mercury, the squad leader, from this point on."

"Will do, Control." she replied.

"Also," continued Control, "please upload any images you have of the target and we'll distribute them for you."

"Yes, I will, thanks."

Control ended the call. India allowed herself the luxury of a grin. At last!

Through the window of the diner, she could see the AFO eating a hearty breakfast and apparently laughing and chatting with the diner's owner and some of the other customers. Her grin disappeared. Enjoy your meal, Demon, she thought sourly, because you won't be eating many more.

The Mega (Spam, perpetual motion, sprinkle, telephone pole, stains, alphabetical, surgery, flattery, liberty, preservation,shadows, singularity, Florida, caterpillars, copy)

"I'm sorry, Mrs Eeles, there were complications during surgery..." The Doctor's words have been going round and round in her head – locked in perpetual motion behind her eyes - for days now.

Numbly, she opens the kitchen cupboards one after another. She's not really looking for something to eat: she's not hungry anymore, it seems. An old tin of Spam catches her eye momentarily.

"For the taste of it"

She murmurs the old advertising slogan and those words too are caught up in the whirling.

Complications during surgery...

She catches sight of her own pale face, reflected in the shining chrome of the toaster. No flattery from this unflinching scorcher of breakfast bread: the shadows under her eyes are clearly visible, like tea stains on the skin.

For the taste of it...

A copy of the newspaper from before is lying next to the breadbin, just where he left it. Telephone Pole Destroyed by Caterpillars! screams the headline. She has always hated the stupid red-tops and their lowest-common-denominator mentality, but he always enjoyed them. "A liberal sprinkle of sex, violence, celebrity and scandal to go with a glass of the old freshly-squeezed really gets the day started." he always used to say.

Complications during surgery...

She toys with the idea of the preservation of all the things of his in this room: his paper, the cookbooks in alphabetical order on their shelf, the stupid apron with "I Heart Florida" on it he always wore when cooking, the spoons and knives, the spam tin, even.

For the taste of it...

So, she was now alone. One. Solo. A tiny pinpoint singularity of grief in a vast world of carefree, happy twosomes. A world from which she has been summarily ejected by the nick of a surgeon's scalpel – a world, it seems, which she is no longer at liberty to inhabit.

The tears fall now, their stains blooming silently on the newspaper she hasn't realised she's picked up.

Complications during surgery...

Another Day in Paradise

If you're looking for Wordzzle, it's the post below this one.

I actually hate this Phil Collins song. Who does the sanctimonious little drum-goblin think he is, trying to make us all feel guilty because there are people out there who have to beg a living on the streets? If he's so worried, let him donate a few mill (he probably does, actually, thinking about it, the git).

I'm well aware that there are people who have to spend their days begging for change. I know because I passed a guy doing just that every day last week as I made my way through the Old Street underpass to get from my hotel to where my course was being held (BEA Weblogic Server Administration, in cause you're interested).

Anyway, this chap sits at the entrance to the underpass, so you have to pass him whether you're on the stairs or the ramp (clever, eh?). I, like most other impatient, busy type, just pretended not to see him. Don't meet his eyes, then you won't have to feel guilty, will you?

Except that I did.

A bit.

Just not enough to do anything about it.

Now, what this post is actually about is the sheer contingency, the sheer randomness of that thing called luck.

On Friday morning, I awoke in my hotel room to find the bill they had shoved under the door "for my convenience at check-out time" included a bunch of charges to me personally that should have gone straight to my company which had booked the room in the first place.

Now, I really dislike confrontation, I do. I had even managed to grit my teeth and not got worked up when some stupid woman punched me in the ear on the Tube a few days previously (Ok, it was an accident, I think, but still).

Anyway, I was not relishing the thought of having to have a fight with the hotel about what was on the bill, so I was in a bad mood. The mood was made worse by the fact that I now had to get packed and ready more quickly than I had planned in order to allow more time for the checking-out process. This is always hectic on a Friday when everybody else is doing the same thing, and the possible disagreement, threats (me), tears (me again, probably) and freezing politeness (the hotel staff) would only make it longer.

I stumped downstairs, ready for the fight. Luckily, the queue for checking out was small (bonus) and I was soon at the counter, looking into the smiling face of the improbably pretty young lady receptionist.

Careful to be calm and polite, I explained the situation and showed her the booking form which clearly laid out what was to be charged to whom, and held my breath as she tapped keys on the computer, which seemed to take quite a long time. Maybe she was writing a blog about bolshy customers.

"That's alright," she eventually said brightly, "I'll just amend the bill and there will be no additional charge."

I almost felt let down by having my fight taken away, but not for long.

I strolled out of the hotel to find that the sun was shining, the air was warm, and I had loads of time to get to the course so I could just take it easy and enjoy the walk.

Now, here's the contingency of luck bit that I just know you've been waiting for: the guy at the bottom of the steps got a couple of quid in his outstretched cup – just because I was suddenly in a good mood.

Here's a photo of the area just above the underpass, that I took about two minutes before giving the chap the two quid.



Have a great weekend, peeps!

Saturday Wordzzle

My, how the time flies! It only seems like yesterday I was putting up my last one of these. Anyhoo, go to Raven's Nest to get the rules and guidelines for challenge.

The Mini (side effects are generally mild, clingy, rooster, samples, curiosity)

"Step right up, gentlemen!" shouted the fabulously be-whiskered snake-oil salesman, "and try Dr Portergill's Powerful Patented Potency Potion! Guaranteed to put some pep in your step and get you crowin' like a rooster in no time!"

Well, this sounded just like what Bert needed. Eunice had been so clingy lately and, well, he wasn't getting any younger. He had considered getting some of those vinegar tablets that everyone was going on about, but you had to ask the internet for them and Bert didn't know how. His curiosity tickled and lacking any other option, he got in line.

"No free samples!" barked the salesman at the scruffy young fellow who was one place ahead of Bert. The man shuffled sadly away and then it was Bert's turn.

He was about to make his purchase when an irate individual came barging his way through to the front of the queue.

"Hey!" protested Bert. But the man ignored him and confronted the salesman.

"I want a word with you!" he yelled.

"No refunds!" snapped the salesman, on reflex.

"I bought some of your damn potion!" the man continued. "and I want you to explain the meaning of 'side effects are generally mild'!"

"Well, it means – er - not severe, not long-lasting." The salesman was only a little fazed by the gathering crowd.

"So how do you explain this!" shrieked the man, opening his shirt.

The crowd gasped. Under the man's shirt were two perfect breasts.

Some time later, when the ruckus had died down, Bert started to make his way home. As he was nearing the edge of the field where the fair was set up, he caught sight of the erstwhile salesman sitting on the steps of his trailer. He looked a sorry sight: one of his eyes was swollen shut, his clothes were torn and dirty and one of his mutton-chops - now revealed for the fake it was - was clinging precariously to the side of his face.

Serves you right, though Bert, you should never have offered that poor guy a job in the Freak Show.


The Ten-Worder (records, impulsive, really cool, bread crumbs, angels, Sponge Bob, magical moment, back and forth, suffering, good fences make good neighbours)

It was three a.m. and Harold was wide awake. Beside him on the pillow, Teatime was curled up sound asleep, emitting tiny snores. Harold wondered what sleep was actually like since, as a demon, he did not – indeed, could not – sleep. The nearest thing to it for him was quiescence, a state of relaxation which allowed him to conserve some of the not inconsiderable energy required to maintain his corporeal form – his vessel – here on the Brightside.

From time to time, a car would drive by outside and its lights, shining through the absurdly cheerful flowery curtains of the drab motel room, would light up the framed sampler that someone had hung on the wall. Good fences make good neighbours it said. Harold wondered if all the rooms at the motel had the same embroidered aphorism on the wall or if they were all different. Somebody must have had a lot of time on their hands. He sighed: he was a million miles from the calm mental state needed to drift into quiescence.

They had not been able to find any suitable apartments for rent the previous evening, but had made a couple of appointments to see some the following day. A friendly gas station attendant had pointed them in the direction of the SleepEZ motel, situated, according to a leaflet he had given them, conveniently close to the city's major transport hub. This meant, of course, that it was right next to the busiest and noisiest railway tracks. When they had arrived, Teatime had been unimpressed to see that someone had removed the "P" from the motel's sign and had expressed the hope that the result was not going to be too accurate a description of the place.

Fortunately, the motel room had turned out to be clean and comfortable enough, if a little worn and threadbare-looking, and they had settled in for the night.

It had been, on the whole, a rather disconcerting day. At the start, Harold had had a job and place to stay, but just because of a stupid impulsive whim, he'd chucked all that away and ended up jobless and homeless in a strange city with very little money and nothing but a talking monkey for a companion. Was everybody else's life as confusing and disorganised as this? He wondered. Probably, if what he'd seen so far was anything to go by. Everywhere around on the Brightside, there was hunger, heroism, suffering, saintliness, greed and grace in various degrees. Back home in the Basement, life had been pretty straightforward compared to this.

Three twenty-one a.m. Harold sighed again, got up carefully so as not to wake Teatime, picked up his rucksack and slipped quietly out into the night.

"Three twenty-one," murmured Agent Carlisle into his voice-recorder, "Subject has left the motel. Am proceeding to follow on foot, as the car will be too conspicuous." He clicked off the recorder and, making sure the Ladybird tracker's handset was safely in his pocket, quietly got out and locked the dark blue VW he had spent the night in on Agent India's instructions.

Harold had no particular place to go, but for what he needed to do, he needed to be well away from people. He took a route that roughly paralleled the railway tracks. After a few minutes' walk, he found just the place. It was an old, abandoned warehouse – the derelict cliche of every gritty cop or gangster show – and as he seated himself on the crumbling loading bay platform, it made the perfect backdrop.

Agent Carlisle watched from the shadows as the AFO took a cloth-wrapped bundle from its backpack. He looked through the viewfinder of the Cicada night-vision camcorder to see if it was getting a good image – it was. It was a really cool piece of tech, but then agents always had the best kit that OGS's not insignificant resources could acquire. The War on Error, as he privately called it, was certainly making somebody rich.

Right now the image showed a strikingly good-looking young man who was carefully fitting together the pieces of something metallic and shiny.

"A trumpet?" breathed Carlisle,

Indeed it was. Harold began to play, completely unaware of his audience.

A series of long sad notes drifted up into the night. They spoke of sadness, they wailed of homesickness and wept unconsolably of loss. They soared to the heavens and floated down gently like a breeze. Now and then a passing train would drag them away to screeching, rattling oblivion, only for them to return, soft as a sigh.. In the shadows, Carlisle stood frozen, tears running down his face, all thoughts of observation and recording forgotten, totally caught up in the heartbreakingly magical moment.

Eventually, having played himself out, Harold lowered the trumpet to his lap and sat there in the darkness, eyes closed. He loved the feeling he got after playing his heart out: part exhaustion, part elation. If only they would just leave him alone with his music. What he had played tonight was a new piece that had come to him just as he had put the instrument to his lips. That was the best kind of music.

He decided he would call the piece We Were Angels Once. Then, laughing to himself at his own pretentiousness, he mentally scrubbed out that title. As he cleaned and put away the trumpet, another idea came to him. He'd just call it Missing You instead - more catchy, more likely to sell records – not that anyone would ever be likely to record it.

In the east, the sky was just beginning to show the first faint light of dawn. Harold got up and headed back to the motel, Teatime would not be pleased if he thought Harold was wandering off about the place without him.

When he got back to the room, Teatime was awake and irritatedly flipping back and forth between the channels on the battered TV set in the room.

"Where on earth have you been?" he demanded, "I was worried sick!"

"Sorry," replied Harold, dropping his backpack onto the bed, "I just went for a bit of a think and a walk. You were asleep, so I didn't want to disturb you."

"Fair enough, old sock," said Teatime, somewhat mollified, "but you have to be careful out alone at night. Bad things can happen."

Harold laughed, "I'm a demon! I'm supposed to be the Bad Things That Happen', aren't I?"

"Yes," agreed Teatime, "but there are things out there which are a threat even to you."

"Like what?" scoffed Harold, "Ghosts? Brain-eating Zombies? Dragons? Here, give me that remote." He perched on the edge of the bed and began flipping channels himself.

"Don't dismiss the dragons so lightly," admonished Teatime, "Just because they have some silly agreement not to eat humans, doesn't mean they wouldn't – wait! Go back!"

Harold pressed the remote.

...coat the whole thing with breadcrumbs and bake in the oven for twenty...

"Again!" commanded Teatime, "Hurry up!" Harold did as he was told.

..Sponge Bob is Nickelodeon's highest-rated show and, today, as we go behind the scenes to...

"No, not that one!" Teatime was fairly jumping up and down with impatience. Shrugging, Harold pressed again.

The screen now showed a news bulletin. The news anchorman was speaking over a piece of grainy CCTV footage which showed a young man apparently being thrown out of the main doors of a building by a very large black man. The first man, having landed in a heap, got up and walked away quickly.

"I was right!" gasped Teatime, "That is you! I thought it was."

"Unfortunately," said the newscaster as the film ended, "We don't have any better pictures that these as the rest of the footage was damaged in the fire. The Police Department is very keen to speak to the man you just saw, so if you know who he is or if indeed you are him, please contact them. Now we go live to Sherry Taylor at the scene. Sherry." He turned to the large screen beside him.

A pretty blonde reporter began speaking to camera from outside what Harold instantly recognised as Baron Samedi's club. Behind her, firefighters could be seen coming and going through the blackened main doors, their hoses trailing like fat snakes into the dark recesses of the building.

"Bill, the world-famous jazz club has been almost completely destroyed by the blaze." she said, "Fortunately, no-one appears to have been inside the club when the fire broke out. The Fire Department has yet to conduct a full investigation but, as you mentioned already, early indications are that the fire was started deliberately. We have still not been able to track down the club's owner, Baron Samedi, for comment. I do, however, have here with me the club's Head of Operations, Mr Elroy Jackson." She turned to a hugely-built black man. "Mr Jackson, do you have any idea who could have done this?"

Mr Teeth looked straight into the camera. Miles away in his hotel room, Harold gulped: Mr Teeth seemed to be looking right at him.

"Oh, yeah," he growled, "I got a pretty good idea."

Lolcats

I have recently come across the phenomenon of LOLcats. Basically, someone gets a picture of a cat (there are also LOLdogs as well), and adds a funny caption.

The thing about the captions, though, is that are couched in this strange pidgin english, which has a kind of grammar and syntax all of its own. If you google "cat pidgin", there are some quite interesting bits and pieces about it.

Anyhoo, I present for your amusement, my first ever go at this.

Hope u likez!



You can build your own lolz here.

Saturday Wordzzle

Yes, it's that part of the week and it's just gone midnight here, so I can post this.

This week's words were a bit easier to deal with than last week's, I think. As always, go to Raven's Nest to get the rules and guidelines.

The Mini (class, calendar, keeping secrets, boring, fashion)

A headache was boring its way into Mr Stringfellow's head as the bell shrilled the end of the school day. His class of six-year-old miniature natural disasters, released for the day from the arduous task of absorbing knowledge, scrambled helter-skelter out of the classroom with shrieks of pent-up glee.

He stooped to pick up the homemade calendar that one of the little tornadoes had blown off the wall in its mad dash for freedom. It had a childishly-drawn picture of a windmill on it – all red and green crayon, with an inch or so of blue scribble at the top for sky and a kind of drunken-spider yellow sun, its legs all akimbo, in the corner.

As he went to pin the calendar back up on the wall, he noticed that the picture was coming away from its cereal-box backing. As he went to smooth it back into place, he noticed there was something written on the reverse.

Carefully, he teased the drawing away from the card. It wasn't too hard: the calendar's creator has secured it in a rather cursory fashion with a few blobs of glue here and there.

Dear God, he read. Please make Tracey's goldfish come back up the toilet so she won't tell mum i flushed him down there. Love Jake

Mr Stringfellow smiled and went to fetch some glue. Kids had some funny ways of keeping secrets.


The 10-Worder (blind panic, apartment, fleas, soap operas, cajun cooking, free and easy, legal, sangria, public school, new)

"Right," declared Teatime, having polished off the last of the cheeseburger. "What we need now is to get you a job and a place to stay. Let's go and purchase ourselves a local newspaper and see what's about."

So saying, he hopped smartly up onto Harold the demon's shoulder as the latter got up from the table. Harold reached out to pick up the plastic tray containing their food wrappers and paper cup.

"Leave it there, old fruit, leave it there." whispered Teatime into Harold's ear.

"Why?" asked Harold.

"Because this is a self-clear eatery." Teatime explained.

"Huh?"

"Look, if we leave the tray," the monkey continued, "it will cause annoyance to staff and patron alike, but most people are too polite to do anything about it so they'll just seethe inwardly. It'll put them in a bad mood and they'll probably take it out on their loved ones when they get home – which is a result for us."

"Well, OK, if you're sure..?" Harold quickly grabbed his rucksack and walked away from the table.

"It's the little things," sighed Teatime happily, as he looked back over Harold's shoulder at a young woman in a charcoal suit who was definitely glowering – and probably seething too if he was not mistaken.

Agent India was glowering. She had hoped to get close enough to her target to plant a Ladybird, but it (the target, not the Ladybird) had got up and left just that bit too soon. She let it move off a bit, so it wasn't too obvious that she was following, then casually walked after it.

Harold and Teatime wandered over to a newsstand. The little kiosk was piled high with colourful glossy magazines whose covers shouted things like: The Secrets of Cajun Cooking Revealed! Creationism Must Be Taught in Our Public School System! and Sun, Sex and Sangria – Get All the Gossip from the Soap Operas! (the exclamation mark was mandatory, it seemed).

Harold bought a paper and turned away from the counter, almost bumping into the young woman in the charcoal suit, who had come up close behind him whilst he had been making his purchase.

"Pardon me," said Harold, as the young woman skipped smartly back a couple of steps.

"It's OK," she replied, "You weren't to know I was there."

Harold flashed her a quick apologetic grin and made his way past her and a couple of other people who were waiting to buy something.

Drat it! Thought India furiously, missed my chance again! Planting trackers had been so easy in training, how come it was suddenly so hard? She took a calming breath. Well, if at first you don't succeed... She set off after the demon.

"We should have bought the paper first, then we could have read it at the table while we were eating," said Harold, "Now we'll have to find somewhere else to sit down since we can't go back to that place, thanks to you."

"Oh, pish, my dear fellow," replied Teatime airily, "it was worth it. Anyway, this is what you're supposed to be doing up here – it's not all about getting people to sign the Ccontract, you know?" He glanced around, "And, if I'm not mistaken, there's a new opportunity for you just over there." He pointed a tiny black finger across the concourse to where a girl – in her early teens, by the look of her - was just in the act of furtively trying to slip a cheap silver pendant from the station's jewellery stall into the pocket of her jacket.

Unfortunately for the girl, the concourse security guard had also spotted the theft and was starting to head her way.

"We need to distract him," said Teatime, "See that stand over there? Accidentally on purpose knock it over."

Harold did see, and walked purposefully over to one of those rotating displays of postcards - which just happened to be between the girl and the guard. As he walked past the stand, Harold turned suddenly, as if remembering something important in the other direction, and allowed his rucksack to clout it.

It had the desired effect: the display went down with a satisfying racket and suddenly there were bits of shiny card all over the floor. The guard was not to be put off his quarry that easily, but had perforce to go around the mess. Harold, meanwhile, was busy making a nuisance of himself, getting in the way by diving around and snatching up the scattered cards, all the while apologising noisily to everyone in sight. Several other people had also come forward to help clear up the mess, adding to the confusion.

Hearing the racket, the girl turned and saw the guard for the first time. A momentary look of blind panic flashed across her face, but seeing the guard somewhat hampered by the idiot with the rucksack, she seized her moment and was away on her toes before he could get anywhere near.

"Bravo!" crowed Teatime, as Harold righted the stand and started to replace as many of the cards as he could under the scowling eye of their owner. "Now that girl has had a taste of shoplifting and, buoyed by her success here today, is likely to try it again! Good work, old boy, good work!"

Suddenly, the woman in the charcoal suit was beside him, a bunch of postcards in her hand.

"Erm, I think this is the last of them," she said, offering them to Harold.

"Why, thank you, Miss," he replied, taking the cards, "that's very kind of you." He spread his hands in mock helplessness and grinned, "I'm such a klutz!" His twinkling blue eyes and perfect smile would melt any woman's heart.

"It's no trouble at all," she said coldly, and with that, turned and walked briskly away into the crowd.

"Obviously not your type, old boy," sniggered Teatime, "Come along. Let's see if we can find a low-rent apartment that isn't positively crawling with fleas. You have no idea what a torment they can be, no idea at all"

As demon and talking monkey headed out of the station concourse into the city proper, India fished in her bag and brought out a small hand-held device. To the casual observer, it looked like a typical modern cell phone. India touched a button and the device came to life. Its display brightened to reveal an aerial view of the railway station and its environs. In the very centre of this was a red dot, which was moving slowly along the street outside the station.

India smiled in satisfaction. It had been so easy to plant the Ladybird this time: the stupid demon had been so busy mucking about with the postcards and whatnot that it had totally failed to register her presence as she slid the little device into one of the pockets of its stupid rucksack. India knew that the technology was not exactly legal, but you simply couldn't have AFOs running around the place, free and easy. In the battle for men's souls, there were higher laws to be obeyed.