Tales From The Ridge

Time, and its associated problems

2006-04-26T08:28:00.000Z

So, Ecks has been quiet lately. That has largely been because he was working on the "Last Chance" piece below, but also because work, play, novel writing and assorted elements of real life have begun to fill up more of his time than they have done for some time. As such, the posting on this blog may have to become a little less frequent for a while...

The Dancing On Fly Ash book arrived yesterday, though, so that was a good thing.

Last Chance

2006-04-26T08:24:00.000Z

This piece was written for a competition in a magazine. The guidelines were that it be no more than 2,000 words, and be titled "Last Chance" - nothing else.

It’s hot outside. The stifling night air is gritty and slick with sweat, and when the young woman opens the door it pushes in to agitate the cigarette smoke that hangs floating under the light like a drowned man.
“Hey, Marie,” says the barman, and lifts a bottle of bourbon down from the shelf. He pours a glass and sets it down on the bar before Marie even reaches her stool. The door closes, trapping the sweltering air that chaperoned her in.
“Damn heat,” she says, and tips the whisky down her throat, “Bad for business.” Black fishnets wrestle with the leather of a bar stool. He pours her another drink.
“How’s tricks?” he says.
“So so.”
“You see the newspaper?”
“I don’t read much.”
“There was another one last night. That’s six now.”
“Oh come on Carl, I don’t want to hear it. I came here for a drink, not a lecture.”
“I’m just worried for you, is all. We all are.”
She sips at her bourbon and looks away. A red lip print blooms on the rim of her glass. She lights a cigarette to breathe cirrus clouds into the air. Further along, a young man in need of a shave hunches over the bar in a shirt patched with fresh perspiration. He pushes his empty glass forward, upon whose sheer sides continents of froth paint an atlas. Carl switches the empty for a fresh beer and places it in front of him. The napkin clings to its base – even glass sweats in this heat. The man pushes a five-dollar bill along the bar towards Carl with a hand thick and whorled like carved wood. Carl pushes it back without looking at it.
“On the house,” he says.
“Don’t be a jerk, Carl, I know you’re behind on your payments. I’m paying for this one.”
“You’re my best customer, Donnie. Can’t I buy you a beer?”
“Everyone’s your best customer. That’s why you got trouble with your payments.”
“I’ll be OK. Mr Menezes gave me another week,” Carl waves his hand nonchalantly, “Things’ll pick up.”
“Sure, Carl.”
Donnie shakes his head, pats the crumpled bill on the bar and swallows down a slug of beer. He looks up the bar.
“Hey Marie,” he says through a drawn-out breath, “You know a woman’s mind better than I do: what can I get for Jean?”
“Why d’you need to get her something? It her birthday?”
“No, we had a fight.”
“What about?”
“Doesn’t matter. The important thing is I’m sorry.”
She looks hard down the bar at him with bourbon-rheumed eyes and lipstick like an open wound.
“Flowers. Every girl likes to get flowers.”
“You sure? She’s pretty mad this time. Told me I was on my final warning.”
“Trust me, get her flowers.”
“OK, if you say so. Thanks.”
She returns to her glass, looking down at it as though trying to read the ice-twisted words printed on the napkin beneath. Blonde curls stroke pale cheeks.
“I’d love to get flowers,” she says, confiding in the weeping ice cubes, “Just once.”
“I’d’ve got you some flowers, if I’d known,” says Carl, wiping the bar. She smiles at him.
“You’re sweet, Carl.”
Carl picks up Donnie’s five-dollar bill, wipes underneath it and puts it back on the bar. Donnie sighs and looks away, over to where frayed ghosts huddle over shadowed tables. Above his head a lazy fly slices contrails that simmer in the thick atmosphere; perhaps later the ultraviolet glow of the electric ring out back will seduce it to its death. Carl bites at his fingernail. Marie notices.
“Listen, don’t worry about me,” she says, “Honestly. If business is good, tonight could be my last night. I’m getting out, I’m finally going to take a shot at being an actress.”
“Sure, Marie,” says Carl, “I hope so.”
“Oh come on, lighten up. I’m going to Hollywood, not Afghanistan. The least you can do is be happy for me.”
“I am, it’s just that…well, can’t you just wait until they catch him?”
“And when will that be, huh? Just…try not to think about it. I mean it, I’m nearly there. I nearly got enough to get to L.A. and rent me a place. I’m so close I can almost taste it, I’m not stopping now. Besides, these looks ain’t gonna last forever.”
“Don’t say that. You’ll still be beautiful in twenty years and you damn well know it.”
She laughs, which makes him laugh. A small wrinkle dances by the corner of her eye. They look at one another, the freckles in their eyes shining iridescent. Then an enormous man with a face like a rockslide steps out of the smoke and asks for a drink, and their laughter gently fades. Marie looks sadly at the door as Carl gives the caveman a bottle of beer. The wrinkle remains by her eye.
“All right, if you got to work, why don’t you go work up west tonight?” says Carl, “Just for tonight.”
The chime of the cash register sounds out through the clogged air like a funeral bell.
“Too many damn police up there,” says Marie, still looking away, “That’s why.”
“Don’t I know that,” the man says, “They make me itch all over.”
“Just keep yourself away from them, Mitch,” says Carl, “How you holding up?”
“Oh, you know, man,” says Mitch, “Parole’s parole.”
“You got work?”
“A little.”
“Is it straight?”
“A little.”
Mitch grins, discrete peg teeth jutting from his gums like gravestones. Donnie looks up from his beer.
“You know, the mill’s always looking for guys,” he says.
“Huh? Even guys like me?”
“Maybe.”
“‘Cause the courts is operatin’ this new, uh, ‘three strike system’ now, and I figure I must be pushin’ about two and three fourths.”
“Steel don’t care who works it. I’ll put in a word with the foreman for you, if you like.”
“You’re a good guy, Donnie.”
“You tell Jean that.”
Mitch laughs and claps Donnie firmly on the back with his slab of a hand.
“Really, man, thanks. I appreciate it.”
“You know it all depends on my foreman. It’s not a promise or anything.”
“I know, but all I need’s a chance. I won’t mess up, neither. Not this time. Can’t afford to.”
“I know. You’ll do fine.”
Mitch leans a hawser forearm on the bar and swigs from his bottle. Donnie listens to the game commentary crackling out of the old radio, nursing his beer. Marie still looks towards the door. She lifts her glass to her lips as though she were kissing a child’s forehead; amber liquid trickles over too-vivid lips.
“It’s now or never for the Pumas, deep into the fourth quarter,” chuckles the radio.
“Damn Pumas,” says Donnie, shaking his head, “If Glascoe don’t turn things around for next week’s game, he’s out. Gone. Pfft.”
“Not a minute too soon, neither,” says Mitch.
“You like baseball, Marie?” says Carl. “You going to start following the Dodgers when you get out on that West Coast?”
She turns back distractedly.
“I…no, I don’t much care for it.”
“Oh, I didn’t…hey, we can turn it off if you like. You know, if it’s bothering you at all.”
Carl fusses at the dial on the radio. It hisses at him in protest.
“No, it’s fine, leave it,” she says, “I just don’t much care for it, is all.”
“Are you OK?” he asks. Marie doesn’t answer. Above them a drowsy ceiling fan slowly moves the sultry air from one end of the bar to the other. Mitch frowns and turns his head to look at Marie, as slow as the rotating of the wooden blades above.
“You should listen to Carl, missy,” he says, “What he said before. This guy out there, what he’s doin’ to girls like you, it ain’t right.”
“I’ll be fine,” she says, “Will everyone stop worrying?”
“This last one, he sliced her neck right up. Said so in the paper. Sliced her from here to here. You know that?”
“Well I didn’t, but I sure as hell do now.”
“No need to scare her, Mitch,” says Carl.
“Oh man, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean nothin’ by it. Hell, I was just tryin’ to warn her, is all.”
“I know,” she says quietly, and runs her fingers through her hair. “Forget about it. Hey Carl, pour me another, will you?”
He does. She gulps half of it down in one go, then slams the glass on the bar, sits up proud and turns to face the men. Droplets of bourbon spatter the bar.
“You,” she says to Mitch, jabbing a slender finger at him in mock anger, “You go home and get some sleep so’s you’re sober when you see this foreman tomorrow, and you, Donnie Pearson, you go buy some flowers for your wife or so help me God I’ll take a belt to your sorry hide myself.”
“Hoo hoo, yes ma’am!” says Mitch. Carl laughs. Donnie smiles and drains his glass.
“And as for you,” she says to Carl, “Well, you can just…you…”
Her voice dwindles in the syrupy air, leaving only the cloying scent of whisky hanging by her lips.
“What?” he says.
“Oh, nothing. I don’t know. You should just…keep on being you, I guess.”
She sinks back down on her stool.
“Strike one,” says the radio. Mitch and Donnie snap their attention back to the set, Marie’s scolding immediately forgotten. She cups her drink in her hands like a child.
“Don’t go,” Carl says quietly. Scarlet fingernails tap on glass. She sighs.
“I have to.”
“What if you don’t come back?”
“If I’m not here tomorrow night, look out for me in the movies.”
“I meant what if this guy—”
“I know what you meant.”
Carl shakes his head, eyes closed.
“Come back later, then,” he says.
“Why?”
“So I know you’re safe.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“All right then, come back later so I can take you to a late movie.”
“I got to work.”
“Not even when you finish? I…we might never see you again after tonight.”
“Well…I suppose maybe I could.”
“I’d like that.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I think I’d like that too.”
“Strike two,” comes the plastic voice from the radio, “All you Pumas out there better cross your fingers and hope that Gonzalez sends this one off into the bleachers.“
“Come on Gonzalez,” says Donnie. He tucks his hair behind his ears.
“Come on old man,” says Mitch, “Swing this one for us and you can retire happy.”
“It won’t be the same without you here,” says Carl. “When you’ve gone to Hollywood, I mean.”
“I’ll write you,” says Marie.
“You say that, but you’ll be too busy being a star. I know how it goes.”
She doesn’t answer. Carl crosses his arms and tilts his head forward. He looks earnestly up at her.
“Marie,” he says, “Come on, take the night off. I’ll close up early, we’ll go get something to eat, then we’ll take in that movie. You’ll be safe, and it’ll be fun. Last chance, what do you say?”
“Here comes the pitch,” says the radio. Mitch and Donnie tense, glasses halfway between bar and lips, breaths caught in expectant mouths. Marie leans forward, her breasts perching on the bar like two lovebirds, and kisses Carl softly on the lips.
“Let’s see what happens.”
He stands limp behind the bar, his body hanging from his head like damp washing on a line. Marie turns quickly away, avoiding Carl’s eyes, and gathers up her purse. Tinny white-noise cheering splutters from the radio; Donnie and Mitch look at each other, eyes wide, mouths agape. Carl doesn’t hear what the commentator says. Marie bites her lip, slithers off her stool and walks out of the door. She looks like a setting sun.

Apologies to fans of real science fiction

2006-04-07T17:32:00.000Z

They discovered the first one in 2091, during the seismic lunar surveys. It was communicated to the lab at Mare Anguis 4, in that self-consciously ambiguous way that scientists have, as an 'anomaly' - an unexpected spike on the graph, an unusually sinuous line within the oscilloscope, a decimal place lurking too far to the left - which meant that they had got their predictions wrong. A second survey was ordered, but the results were the same - anomalous - and so an excavation unit was dispatched. Three weeks and several metres of basalt later, a message chirped through the satcom to Mare Anguis 4:

"Littrow? Are you there?"

"Go ahead, EX2."

"You're not going to believe this."

"What have you found?"

"It's...well, it's a bell. A giant golden bell."

The bell, some thirty metres tall and sunk like a boil deep into the epidermis of the moon turned out to be made not of gold but of a material greatly resembling it. Science scanned and centrifuged and resonated and imaged and oscillated, but no conclusion could be drawn from the find other than that it was of non-human origin, and it remained a curiosity, a tourist attraction, until the seismic surveys of Mars in 2118.

The western slope of Olympus Mons was the site of the Martian anomaly. Excavation crews were soon on the scene, and Littrow was contacted immediately when the scientists at Olympus Station received the call to inform them that what seemed like an enormous sunken bell, thirty metres high and made of gold, had been found beneath the surface of Mars. Naturally, Littrow boarded the next available shuttle and was there in hours. But again, weeks of scientific endeavour gleaned nothing more than that the bell was not of human making, and it too fell into folklore.

Then, in 2130, deep beneath the rushing clouds, seismic surveyors on the surface of Venus were alarmed to notice a glowing blip on their hand-held screens as they logged the surface of Ishtar Terra. Checks and double checks led to the deployment of the excavation units, and Littrow, long retired, could scarcely breathe when he was contacted by his old friend Juralle at the Lakshmi outpost.

"I thought you'd want to know," he said.

"Another bell?" said Littrow.

"No...that would have been fine. That was almost what we were expecting."

"Then what?"

"It was a pair of cherries."

"Cherries?"

"A huge representation of them, thirty metres high. Carved deep into the earth and painted bright red."

"Unbelievable!"

"But wait, there's more...next to it there was a message inscribed into the bedrock. Each letter was twenty feet high. Can you imagine?"

"What did it say?"

"That was the funny thing...it said 'Bad luck! Three matches required for jackpot. Better luck next time.'"

The perception of guinea pigs

2006-04-06T11:24:00.000Z

As is often the case, Pongo Richter himself was the only person who did not think that he had gone mad. The authorities certainly thought he was; they were convinced of it. And the guinea pigs were convinced as well, which was ironic as they were the ones responsible for his condition.

Pongo hadn't minded at first. It was unusual, certainly, to be sharing the Tube with a six-foot tall guinea pig dressed in a business suit and reading the Financial Times, but no-one else batted an eyelid. And besides, he didn't think that guinea pigs were so bad; in fact he thought the way they snuffled those little noses of theirs was rather charming. So Pongo simply accepted them as one of the changes that he had to accept as part of modern life - some new genetic miracle or something - in the same way as he had accepted the Chinese family that had moved into the house across the road from him.

He saw more and more of them. Working in his bank, driving about town, playing football in the park, they were everywhere. He looked forward to seeing them; their soft, exuberant fur always made him feel calm. The guinea pigs, that is; not the Chinese family.

But one Sunday morning, as he was digging his garden, Pongo saw in the street one of the guinea pigs hop up onto another's shoulders, crack into its skull with those brutal incisors and lap at the brains inside as though they were the yolk of an egg. Horrified, Pongo leaped over his fence and whacked the guinea pig in the head repeatedly with his shovel until it lay crumpled in the street, dead. Panting, sweating, he walked into his house and called the police.

The police arrived within minutes, and the psychiatrists soon after, when he'd told the police what had happened.

"We can't have this," they said.

"You're telling me," said Pongo.

"Just killing people like that."

"You mean guinea pigs."

"Ah yes, the police told us about that. Do you see these guinea pigs often?"

"All the time. They're everywhere."

"And you say they're six feet tall, some of them? The same size as us?"

"Yes, yes! Haven't you seen them?"

"Dr Berner?" one of them called over his shoulder, "Will you bring the kit, please?"

As the sedatives began to take effect, Pongo reflected to himself that he really should have expected this - one of the psychiatrists was, after all, a guinea pig herself.

Even after years in the asylum Pongo didn't consider himself mad. But unfortunately for him, everyone else did. Especially the guinea pigs. Sadly for him, it was all simply a matter of perception.

Only What Is

2006-03-30T13:22:00.000Z

Ding-dong!
"Hello?"
"Parcel for Mr...uh...Ri...Ridgehead? Did I read that right? Is that really your name?"
"Yes! How dare you, it is a perfectly reasonable name."
"Uh, yeah, buddy...sure. Anyway, here's your parcel."
"Thank you. Now kindly get off my driveway or I'll shoot you in the spine."

And that was more or less how Ecks received his copy of Only What Is by Richard Lawrence Cohen. And what a great little book it is. Though it will not be read from cover to cover in one sitting - Ludmila's Broken English and Melmoth The Wanderer will put paid to that - that doesn't matter; the beauty of it is that it can be picked up as and when the mood or situation allows, and a single anecdote, thought, poem or story can be read in just a few minutes. A few such entries have been read by your intrepid reviewer already, and the vagaries of his memory mean that although they have already appeared on Richard's blog, they still read fresh. Perhaps the action of reading them from a printed page lends them a different aspect? Who knows. Either way, buy yourself a copy - you won't be disappointed!

Then, when you're done with it - though it's the kind of book to keep, in the opinion of your humble ridge-headed correspondent - you can set if free via BookCrossing, if you like.

Hank Marvin

2006-03-30T06:56:00.000Z

Dear Sir or Madam

It is a little-known fact that the cruellest thing for a shadow is the death of its owner, for though a shadow's life is not directly linked to its keeper, its fate is sealed once that final breath slips out past the lips. It lies trapped beneath the prostrate body, sliding around away from the sun but unable to free itself from the dead weight that pins it to the ground. And beyond the initial incidence of death, what awaits it? Burial or cremation of its host, both grisly fates - closure inside a wooden box, six feet of earth denying the life-giving light from sun or lightbulb, or cowering beneath the body as it, that which gives form to the shadow, is obliterated by fire.

But what can I do about this macabre state of affairs, you might say. What can I do to stop my shadow being denied the rights that I enjoy?

The good news is that it does not have to be this way - there is something you can do. The insertion of a simple paragraph into the last will and testament stipulating any of the following:

Open-air "burial" in a perspex casket
Inclusion of a skylight or internal lighting system in a conventional coffin
Cremation followed by reconsitution of ashes into an effigy

...will guarantee that your shadow continues to lead a vivid and fulfilling existence.

So ACT NOW! Change your last will and testament today - create a better tomorrow for your shadow.

Thank you for your time

Linda Aykanian
Liaison Officer
People For The Ethical Treatment of Shadows

One sided conversations #4

2006-03-27T08:07:00.000Z

"It's not unusual to trademark a new species, especially not after the years of modifications that have gone into it. They do have a proper scientific name, but it's quite dry. Not snappy at all. Round here we call them Piggets - you know, like 'pork nuggets'. The fast food places are just lapping them up - they keep them in little pens out by their freezers, like hamster cages, so they're absolutely fresh when they hit the deep-fryer."

"At first we experimented with dunking them in the breadcrumbs whole, but our test consumers were a little squeamish about eating the little heads and limbs, so now those parts are just clipped off. The next stage will be to develop a variant with particularly thin, weak necks and legs - for easy detachment - and beyond that hopefully to go totally headless and limbless. The guys are looking into it as we speak, but it could be months or even years away."

"Initial attempts have been fairly unsuccessful thus far, so we currently recommend just feeding them a diet high in butter and oil - saturated fats - to keep their skins nice and tacky. Then you can roll them straight in the breadcrumbs without adding any binding agent and just drop them in the deep-fryer."

"Oh, you get used to it, and it's quite high-pitched anyway. It's the same with lobsters, you know."

"I know. But we're hoping to bring out equivalent lamb, beef and chicken variants over the next five years, and beyond that...who knows? Mark my words, though - one day all livestock will be bite-sized."

The last celebrity

2006-03-15T08:04:00.000Z

The arrival of the television crew surprised Bee, but this was only because Bee was a hermit, a proper old-fashioned wild-eyed straggly beard hermit, who'd fled to the remotest cave in the remotest hill on the remotest island he could find, just to get away from civilisation. He didn't think anyone knew where he was, but somehow the civilisation he had escaped had sought him out via a three-man team armed with a shoulder-mounted camera and a fluffy boom mic.

"What do you want?" was all that he could think of to say as they set up and began to film him.

"Oh, that's perfect," said the photogenic man who preened his slick of thick ginger hair with an undisguised pride. A camera winked a red eye.

"What's perfect?"

"You are. You're exactly as we imagined. Perfect!"

Bee rolled his eyes, ignored them and went about his morning ablutions, fully expecting the crew to lose interest - though he decided to postpone the rewardingly noisy defecation that resulted from his restricted diet of nuts and berries until after these idiots had gone, as he thought that would probably just encourage them - but they continued to follow him, filming all the while.

"Look, what do you want?" he snapped.

"Just to film you. You're going to be on television."

"I don't want to be on television," said Bee, acutely aware of the degenerative state of his underpants, the only item of clothing that he still wore, "Leave me alone."

"Hard biscuits, sonny - we didn't come all this way to lose a scoop."

"What are you talking about?"

"You're the only person left on Earth who has never been on TV. You're going to be famous!"

"What if I don't want to be famous?"

"Fame isn't something you choose," said the photogenic man, his eyes misting over dreamily, "Fame is something that chooses you."

"Balls," said Bee.

"It's true. A lot has changed back in the real world since you left."

"Like what?"

The photogenic man checked his watch and turned to the cameraman.

"Hang on, that seems about...how long's that, Gerry?"

"Fourteen and a half minutes," said the man with the camera on his shoulder.

"OK, let's wrap it up there and get going."

"What," said Bee, "So that's it? You're off now?"

"Well, yes - what did you expect?"

"I don't get it. You seemed so excited to see me."

"Oh we are, we are! But once we add in ten seconds of intro, ten seconds of outro and ten seconds of scenery, that's your fifteen. And no-one, but no-one gets more than fifteen minutes."

HGP

2006-03-13T13:03:00.000Z

Malcolm

If you are reading this, then it means that I am dead. Let this letter be my epitaph, and my last chance to tell you that which I could not tell you whilst I was alive - had I done so they would have killed you. That you are still alive to read this letter is testament to my keeping my end of the bargain.

The Human Genome Project, my life's work, was supposed to be a beautiful achievement for mankind, but as you are more than aware it was anything but. No-one foresaw the riots, nor the reprisals, the genocide, the slavery...except for Them, the organisation whose name I never even found out. Our current state of affairs was exactly what they planned.

In hindsight, it was insultingly easy for them. They bought us off, all of us - what is more depressing, that everyone has their price, or that the price is always so low? The Project was funded by their money anyway, and it kept rolling in. We were each given bonuses when milestones were reached, and they showered us with expensive gifts - we didn't suspect anything, we just thought that perhaps, finally, scientists were being truly appreciated. Then, when we were nearly finished mapping the genome, we each received a visit from them. At night, at our homes. They told us what they wanted the Project to say - what conclusions it should draw - and they gave us a simple choice. Financial security for life in exchange for total silence, or...well, they made perfectly clear what would happen to us and our families if we decided to jump ship. So we were forced to publish what they told us to publish. That's where the data that went public came from.

That data was wrong, though. What was published wasn't what we found - there is no one single "master race"! No racial type's DNA is any closer to that of animals than any other! But we were too afraid to blow the lid off. These people are too powerful, too dangerous. Even when the riots started and we started to whisper amongst ourselves about exposing the lie, it always came back to "but what about our families"? So, to my shame, we stayed quiet. The lies became the accepted orthodoxy and we entered the age of modern slavery.

As my last wish, I would like to disassociate my memory from the lies, but I regret that I cannot make that decision as it will affect not me but you. With your mother and me gone, you are the only one that they can still hurt. What you do with this letter is up to you, but be aware that if you go public with it, you must be prepared to die. So you must ask yourself - is the truth more important than your life?

Dad

TV

2006-03-08T08:07:00.000Z

Never work with children or animals, they'd said. I should update it, thought the producer. Never work with children, animals or the chronically depressed. He tapped his clipboard agitatedly; they'd been here for four hours already, and nothing. Yes, technically they'd got all night, but...well, he hadn't got all night.

"Come on, what's the hold up?" he said, to no-one in particular.

They looked out into the studio at the man. He was sat on a simple wooden chair in a clear plexiglass booth surrounded by an organised tangle of wires. A camera sat and stared straight at his face as others ogled him from every conceivable angle, for replay after endless replay. The production team watched him expectantly, as they had done for the last four hours. The man bent his head forward and spoke quietly into the microphone on his lapel, and a voice floated out into the editing booth.

"Uh, Mr Partney?" the voice said, "I...uh, I still don't know if I can go through with this."

"Oh for god's sake," said the producer, "Jerry, get on the mike and tell him...tell him he can take as long as he likes, and we're very proud of him, and we know he can do it, and we're sure he wouldn't want to let us down. Some crap like that."

Jerry bent forward and spoke soothingly into his desktop microphone. The producer rubbed his head. Three months of interviews to find the right candidate. Weeks of psychological profiling. Days to build the studio and the booth. Advertising, promotions, trailers. A prime-time Saturday night slot. And the money - all that money! And now this schmo was having second thoughts? Unbelievable!

"You've all been so nice to me," came the disembodied voice, "And, well, that's partly why I'm not sure about this any more. I don't...I've been thinking, perhaps we--"

"Screw that," said the producer as the voice continued to drift out above them, "I've had enough of this loser. I want to get home at some point this evening. Jerry, can you tell him to hold it up to his head anyway, just so we can use the footage for some publicity stills? OK?"

Jerry bent over his microphone and began to speak.

"OK, now we're talking. Camera 1, get tight in on that gun," said the producer, "And Bill, get ready with that remote trigger. People, it's time to make the magic happen."

Who did that loser think he was? If the networks had paid for a suicide, then a suicide was what they'd get. This was television.

This one's for Richard

2006-03-08T07:48:00.000Z

For those of you - Richard Lawrence Cohen, that is - who think that I am some kind of Peter Pan-esque figure, check out my profile...and wish me happy birthday.

Genesis v8.29

2006-03-06T08:45:00.000Z

1. In the beginning there was a big bang.
2. And the universe was without form, and void.
3. And then, though no-one actually said "let there be quarks", there were quarks.
4. And the quarks were good (well, as good as a fundamental particle can be). And the quarks combined to form baryons, and the baryons were divided into protons and neutrons and electrons.
5. As the universe cooled, matter gradually stopped moving relativistically and its rest mass energy density came to gravitationally dominate that of radiation, and protons and electrons came together and hydrogen was formed. And, yes, it was good.
6. Over time, the slightly denser regions of matter gravitationally attracted other nearby matter and thus grew even denser, eventually forming gas clouds, stars, galaxies and the planet that would later come to be known as Earth.
7. And the molten surface of the Earth cooled to form the solid outer crust, and volcanic activity produced the atmosphere.
8. And condensing water vapour, added to by ice from comets, formed the oceans.
9. And in these oceans, highly energetic chemistry gave rise to self-replicating molecules that were not created in anyone's image, that eventually gave rise to primordial life. Well, you've got to start somewhere.
10. And primitive cyanobacteria developed that photosynthesised the atmosphere, creating oxygen. One of them may have been called Adam.
11. And eventually these primitive organisms developed sexual reproduction, for lo, though they were primitive they knew a good thing when they saw it.
12. And it was good, though it was even better once they got to know each other and were less embarrassed.
13. And evolution brought forth more complex plant types. These could have been called "grass", and "herb yielding seed after his kind", and "the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind", but such a description would be simplistic at best.
14. Then there were sponges, and jellyfish, and flatworms, and if they were formed in someone's image then he was one ugly sucker.
15. Then, to cut slightly shorter a very long story involving backbones and gills, the land and the sea were colonised by animals (but not by whales; they came later). There were certainly creeping things, but probably no cattle.
16. Then there were dinosaurs, and they were good, until a meteorite struck the earth, which was not good. Not for the dinosaurs, anyway. The fish probably didn't mind so much.
17. And then there was a kind of ape thing who decided that perhaps it would be fun to balance on these two back legs of hers, and she was called Lucy. Sorry, I mean Eve.
18. And then there was Man, who had dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, except the bigger ones with sharper teeth and claws that had a disconcerting habit of eating Man.
19. And Man evolved bigger brains and opposable thumbs and developed tools that gave man the opportunity to learn that the creeping things that crepteth over the earth and ate him were actually rather delicious when caught and killed and cooked over an open fire.
20. And man was fruitful, and multiplied, and replenished the earth, and subdued it, though in hindsight there was probably more subduing than replenishing going on.
21. And then there was Ikea, and the French, and tennis, and the concept of celebrity, and New Kids On The Block and electric toasters and patterned toilet paper.
22. And the evening and the morning were the 5 trillionth day (give or take 73 billion days).
23. And the Earth was good.
24. But it could probably have been better when you consider how long it had had to practise.

Please keep this book up-to-date! ALWAYS up-issue and redistribute following all major scientific discoveries.

Bad, baaad joke

2006-03-03T08:48:00.000Z

So I walked into The Framing Centre last night. Somewhat overwhelmed by the bewildering array of frames, wooden, metallic, plastic, some empty, some caressing prints and paintings, I sought out the owner, a bespectacled septuagenarian, to consult him.
"Good morning," he said.
"Ah, hello, yes," I said, "I knocked off a bank last night and I need someone to take the rap. What can you do for me?"
"I'm sorry?"
"I need you to place someone at the Wickborough branch of Barcwest yesterday for me. Otherwise I'm looking at a ten-stretch."
"I'm not sure I understand..."
"This is The Framing Centre, isn't it?"

Sorry. Been very busy at work, no time to come up with anything good. This awful joke - based on what I am going to do in a shop of the same name near where I live - was all that came into my mind.

ETA Nother Fine Mess

2006-02-27T18:36:00.000Z

"Take offs are always the worst, eh?" said the fat man in the seat next to him, "Take offs and landings. Once you're up it's OK."

"Yeah," said Gaizka. But he knew different; that's why he had begun to sweat. He bit at his fingernail and squeezed the mobile phone in his pocket with a clammy hand.

The mobile phone was his link. His comforter. He kept it in his hand at all times, alternately stroking and squeezing it as one might the hand of a lover, and in return it gave him a security and a fluttering rush in his stomach not unlike that a woman might have given him. It had been x-rayed and scanned and probed by electronic eyes that had seen further into its heart than he ever would, yet it still rested snugly against his thigh in his trouser pocket. Of course it did; it was just a phone.

Unlike his suitcase. Well, the suitcase itself was of the same shade as any other, but its contents were quite different to its brothers, sisters and cousins. Had he packed it himself, he'd been asked. Yes. Had it left his sight at any point, he'd been asked. No. He hadn't had to lie.

The links between Gaizka Sagastui and the rest of ETA had never been transparent - the neurons and synapses that link terrorist groups rarely are - but they had been smudged by a series of sometimes violent doctrinal arguments with the head of his talde. The rest of his group had shunned him as a result; he had become ostracised, frozen out. Yet his marginalisation did little to dent his enthusiasm; indeed, his identity as a minority within a minority served only to feed the persecutional embers that glowed in the pit of his gut. He remained within earshot of ETA via sympathetic friends, and the osmosis of nationalism continued to seep into him until, one day, his ragged mind hit upon the idea that would write him indelibly - he thought - into the pages of Basque nationalist folklore, and prove to the rest of ETA that he had been right.

Hence he found himself sat rigid in seat 12B on flight IB 3172 from Madrid, clutching his mobile phone as the bird lifted ponderously, goose-like, from the asphalt and into the air. The wheels folded up into the wings with a grinding clunk, and the fat man let out a sigh.

"Worst part over," he said, "Now it's easy. Until we get to Paris, of course. Say, are you all right?"

Gaizka ignored him. Out of the window, past the fat man's greying moustache, he saw the fields recede, the fields of olives trees reduced to green pointillism on a canvas of a thousand shades of brown. He checked his watch; ten minutes should do it.

"You look pale," said the fat man, "You should get the stewardess to bring you some water. I'll call her if you like."

"Really, I'm OK," said Gaizka.

Ten minutes trickled by. Gaizka hunched forwards, his foot tapping an urgent tattoo on the dirty footplate. The hand not holding the mobile phone distractedly wound the hem of his t-shirt into a stiff point. The fat man eyed him with suspicion.

He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes. Gaizka pulled the mobile phone out of his pocket, flipped it open and began to select the autodial.

"Hey," said the fat man, tapping his arm, "You're supposed to have turned that off. Hey!"

Gaizka twisted away and stood up proudly in his seat. Other passengers glanced sideways at him, unsure. He puffed his chest out and raised his arm aloft like a king leading a charge, the medieval glint of sun on sword updated to the cheerful millennial glow of a mobile phone display that winked at his confused co-passengers.

"Gora Euskadi Askatasuna!" he screamed in his ancient language, and thumbed the green "call" button.

Nothing.

At least, nothing that he had been expecting. The plane exploded, but only into a thousand fragments of noise. Men bellowed animal sounds, women wailed and clutched infants to their stomachs, and two men, sat at different ends of the plane, leaped to their feet and barrelled towards him. He squeezed the button again - still nothing. Was it working? He checked: yes. How could it have betrayed him? No; it wasn't the phone, he decided, not his phone. It must have been Mitxel's design. Yes, it was the suitcase that had been faulty.

The first barrelling man reached him, batted the phone from his hand with one balled fist and hammered the other square into Gaizka's face. The other barrelling man forced a gun hard into Gaizka's now fractured cheek. Gaizka deflated onto his seat.

Gaizka would lament again and again, as the cuffs bit into his wrists, as the sentence was passed, as he was beaten by Castellanos in the exercise yard as the guards looked away, the design for the bomb that Mitxel had settled upon. Had he access to the newspapers, however, he would have read of the explosion on the tarmac, he would have read of the destruction of a single, solitary baggage truck, he would have read of the spiderweb distribution across two runways of hundreds of flaming jumpers and t-shirts and pairs of trousers, and he would have read of how one Castellano baggage-handler was being congratulated daily by a stream of tearful passengers for having saved their lives with his laziness.

Buenos Dias!

2006-02-26T19:32:00.000Z

And Ecks is returned...minus his suitcase, which is believed to be loitering in a holding pattern somewhere over Madrid...having been sent back and forth (ida y vuelta, si quieres) four times between Terminal 4 and Terminal 4 Satellite (a trip of some 25 minutes) yo-yoing between various Iberia desks staffed by an exquisite mixture of the ignorant and the apathetic in a sanity-fracturing Herculean labour of trying to get iberoaerobureaucraticos to arrange for him a transfer onto a different flight...ending in a final exasperated exchange:

"Solo quiero ir a Londres, y que mi maleta va a Londres también."
Tippy-tappy-tippy-tappy-telephony-telephony-tippy-tappy
"Vale. Este vuelo - S49, 14:45."
"Ahora, qué hora es?"
"15:00."
"Joder!"

...having to sprint for the flight that had boarded 15 minutes previously...having initially been subjected to a two hour delay on the flight from Granada to Madrid...due to snow.

The moral of the story: the snow in Spain falls mainly on the plane. Oh, and don't fly Iberia.

Hasta luego

2006-02-10T14:23:00.000Z

No posts for a couple of weeks, as Ecks is off to Granada in Spain to relax and get on with some serious writing for his second novel.

Until then...

Logical thinking, 2006-style

2006-02-07T08:35:00.000Z

What are you doing?
I am protesting.
What are you protesting against?
A man.
What did he do?
He drew a picture.
What was it a picture of?
A prophet.
Is that bad?
It encourages idolatry.
What is idolatry?
The worshipping of false idols.
Is that bad?
My religion forbids it.
Does this man follow your religion?
No.
Did you yourself worship this drawing?
No.
Then why are you upset?
Er...death to the infidels!

Diplomacy

2006-01-31T10:20:00.000Z

There was a valley. A wide, flat, ancient river valley. In the valley was a small town called Crick. Not far from it was another small town called Dram. The two towns farmed the flood plain and fished the river and mined the hills. Times were good; the people multiplied and the towns grew larger, until one day a thought occurred to the mayor of Crick.

"If Dram continues to expand," he thought, "They will soon attack us and take our farmland and fisheries and mines."

So he ordered his artisans to construct a defensive wall around the town.

When the mayor of Dram saw this wall he called his advisors to him.

"Crick has built a wall," he told them, "What does this mean?"

"They mean to attack us," his advisors told him, "Why else would they feel the need to prepare defences?"

So the mayor of Dram ordered his artisans to build a wall around the town.

"Only it must be bigger than their wall," he said, "We cannot afford to be seen to be weak."

When the mayor of Crick saw the new wall he called his council into an emergency session.

"Our worst fears are confirmed," he said, "Dram is preparing for war. We have little choice but to show our strength and respond in kind. Only deterrence can prevent conflict."

So he ordered his artisans to build another wall outside the first wall, but bigger and thicker than before.

The mayor of Dram was understandably concerned when news of the new wall came down to him from his watchtowers.

"One wall was not enough," he said, "We must build another."

And so time passed and walls sprung up around Crick and Dram like the layers of an onion, and each time, the people of the towns built houses between the old walls and the new walls, until the point was reached at which Crick's latest wall touched Dram's latest wall. At this, the mayor of Crick called for a meeting with the mayor of Dram.

"We do not want to go to war with you," said the mayor of Crick, "But we will fight if we have to."

"We don't want war with you either," said the mayor of Dram, "But we will fight if you force our hand."

"Why don't we simply not go to war, then?"

"I thought you wanted to attack us."

"No...I thought you wanted to attack us."

"Not at all."

They laughed and embraced like brothers, and jointly decreed that the ugly defensive walls be torn down and the stone be used to build a new wall around the outside of both Crick and Dram, to celebrate and signify the newfound peace and unity between the two towns.

And so they did.

A short way up the river, the mayor of Sill stood in his watchtower and looked at the new wall being built around Crick and Dram.

"This can only mean one thing," he said, and called his council to session.

One sided conversations #3

2006-01-25T10:53:00.000Z

"I'm getting a letter...it's an 'R' or a 'P'. Does the letter 'R' or the letter 'P' mean anything to you? How about 'M'? I'm getting an 'M'. Is there an 'M' close to you?"

"Your father, his name was Michael? Yes, that's what I'm getting. It's your father, it's Michael. OK, I'm getting a feeling that he passed over as a result of something to do with the head or the heart, am I right?"

"Cirrhosis? Liver, that's right, the liver, that's what he's telling me. Because he liked to drink, right? But he's telling me to tell you not to worry, he's not in any pain any more. Now I'm getting something about a trinket of some kind, something that was important both to you and to him. Do you have anything of his that you keep with you, a ring or a bracelet, something like that?"

"Exactly, that brooch, that's the one. Of course. That's what he's saying to me, and he's saying keep it with you and he will always be there. OK, now he's telling me he has to go, but don't worry because he loves you and he's fine, just fine."

"I know, I know. There's...no, I can't explain it. There's no explanation for it. It's just a gift I have."

Run

2006-01-23T10:29:00.000Z

I run. I run to nowhere and from nothing. I run simply to be running.

My heels scold the ground as they throw me forwards. No; not me, it is not me that is being propelled, it is the earth. I tilt my body and at my insistence the world itself slides beneath me. Faster and faster it spins.

I am like the wind. The earth billows out behind me like a streamer until my feet break free from the pavement and I climb up into the clouds. I soar through them and as I rise they burst into explosions of tears. Troposphere, up, stratosphere, up, mesosphere, where the very air is frozen, up. I am the wind.

And then...what? A sword in my side, lead weights around my ankles, a steel band fixed too tightly across my chest. I fall, dragged back by a jealous earth in an Icarian plunge, and I land.

Heartbeatheartbeatheartbeatheartbeatbreathegaspheartbeatheartbeatheartbeat. Breathe. Breathe, heart, breathe.

So, mesosphere this time. Not bad. Nearly. So nearly. But not quite.

Next time I'll make it. Next time.

Oh Britannia

2006-01-18T09:07:00.000Z

Neon lights the empire
Where the sun will never set
The Raj reborn in Bradford
With the hatred that begets
We swear at David Beckham
Red cross painted on our cheek
We don't vote, but we'll never miss
A Coronation Street
We'll give Sanjeev a kicking
When he's waiting for the bus
'Cos when he sings God Save The Queen
He knows more words than us
Oh Britannia, don't think that you'll never rule again
But please don't ask me how, my dear, and please don't ask me when

The lamb of god no longer
On these pleasant pastures seen
We burned him so that foot and mouth
Would not make us unclean
The dark satanic mills are closed
Jerusalem's not built
Now Chinese children make our shirts
Whilst we ignore the guilt
The Mersey's our clogged artery
The Severn is our vein
And though we all love progress
We just stay the bleedin' same
Oh Britannia, don't think that you'll never rule again
But not before you change, my dear, the hearts of Englishmen

An ancient, stagnant monarchy
Wrapped in our red-white-blue
The same Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
On the throne since '52
And whether they're for Labour
The Lib Dems or for the Tories
Cromwell's children seem content
Invoking faded glories
The English way, why are we
So afraid of being rude?
That upper lip stays far too stiff
When we're all being screwed
Oh Britannia, don't think that you'll never rule again
Just don't you hold your breath, my dear, you'll pass out in the end

A Turing tale

2006-01-16T08:47:00.000Z

A funny thing happened at work today. When I got to my desk there was an e-mail waiting that said we all had to assemble in the conference room at ten sharp. So, come ten o'clock we were milling around in the conference room, buzzing with rumours, when the managing director walked on to the stage. He stood behind the glass lectern, tapped the microphone once, then began to speak.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "Dear colleagues, it is with a unique mixture of joy and sadness that I ask you to gather here today, as I regret to inform you that one of your dearest colleagues, Bob Sanderson, is no longer with us."

Murmurs.

"I know this will come as a shock to you, but don't worry. He has merely been switched off."

More murmurs.

"You see, Bob Sanderson was merely a computer program."

Murmurs growing into full-blown hubbub.

"And a very successful one at that. We programmed him with a few stock responses to work-related queries - you've all heard his 'Thanks [insert name], I'll pass that one on for Ray in accounts to action' line, I'm sure - and a number of vague day-to-day social niceties, and we were just amazed at how he seemed to fit right in. But the real masterstroke, we found, was programming him with an auto-forward function for e-mailed jokes and pictures of people hurting themselves in ridiculous ways. That was the icing on the cake. Did you never wonder why you never saw him? Why he only ever communicated by e-mail?"

Hubbub maturing into hullaballoo.

"So, that's the sad news. The happy news, though, is that after Bob's successful beta test CompuColleague v1.0 is now ready for roll-out, and will be taking over the Customer Care e-mail accounts. We're thinking of calling him Jeff. Oh, Barbara? Unfortunately this means you're out of a job. That will be all. Thanks for your time - back to work, people."

We filed out, back to our cubicles. Except for Barbara, of course.

So, it turns out Turing was wrong. Depressingly, in order to pass for human a computer has to display no real insight or intelligence, and only the most rudimentary of social skills.

Be honest, though: you're not that shocked, are you?

But anyway, did you see what those idiots in government have just done? What a bunch of idiots. And how about the game last night? That coach is something else, isn't he?

Dancing On Fly Ash is back up and running! Go and visit, you'll be glad you did.

One sided conversations #2

2006-01-12T12:25:00.000Z

"Never. They don't understand me there. I daren't go back."

"Because of the incident in the desert that time. I thought you knew about it - there's an article about it in the station's 'How Not To' file. Alright. I beamed down there, couple of thousand years ago this was, and I found this guy, all long beard and sandals, and I offered to help him help the rest of the world to, you know, take another step up the ladder. He got totally the wrong end of the stick - which isn't unusual - but of all the rotten luck they wrote a book about him, and I ended up in it as the root of all evil! Talk about a bad day at the office."

"I know, but the horns, the hooves, the tail...they're obsessed with appearances, you know what they're like. Every time I go down there, as soon as one of them sees me they run a mile. They could have the secret to cold fusion if they just stopped and listened. No, they blame me for everything, there's no way they're going to give me a second chance. So we have no choice but to let them get on with it on their own."

"It's not a disaster as such, I've got other planets in my portfolio. I'm still active in Fodgethith, Brao, Wyrgid and Pokmanok. And I'm going to introduce writing to a small hill tribe on Yan Griffan next week, I think they've evolved to a state where they're receptive. Losing Earth isn't so bad when you put it in perspective."

"Well of course they need our help. Look at the mess they've got themselves in without it! But what can we do? We can't change who we are. We're just going to have to give up on Earthlings and hope they stumble across improvement, peace and enlightenment without our help."

Cat in the box

2006-01-11T08:30:00.000Z

I walked into the lecture theatre and took my seat. The lecturer tapped a dusty blackboard and began.

"Carrying on from last time, in the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics each system is associated with a complex Hilbert space such that each instantaneous state of the system is described by a unit vector in that space. This state vector encodes the probabilities for the outcomes of all possible measurements applied to the system. As the state of a system generally changes over time, the state vector is a function of time. The Schrödinger equation provides a quantitative description of the rate of change of the state vector. The Schrödinger equation is written aitch tee brackets psi ecks comma tee brackets equals eye aitch bar delta over delta tee psi ecks tee brackets, where eye is the unit imaginary number, aitch bar is Planck's constant divided by two pi and the Hamiltonian aitch tee is a self-adjoint operator acting on the state space. In non-relativistic quantum mechanics, the Hamiltonian of a particle can be expressed as the sum of two operators, one corresponding to kinetic energy and the other to potential energy. For a single particle of mass em with no electric charge and no spin, the kinetic energy operator is tee equals pee squared over two em, where pee is the momentum operator, which is defined as pee psi are comma tee brackets equals aitch bar over eye invert triangle psi are comma tee brackets. The potential energy operator is vee equals vee are brackets, where vee is a real scalar function of the position operator are. Putting these together we obtain aitch psi are comma tee brackets equals tee plus vee brackets psi are comma tee brackets equals square bracket minus aitch bar squared over two em invert triangle squared plus vee are brackets square bracket psi are comma tee brackets equals eye aitch bar delta psi over delta tee are comma tee brackets, where invert triangle squared is the Laplace operator. This is a commonly encountered form of the Schrödinger wave equation, though not the most general one. Does anyone have any questions at this point?"

I raised my hand.

"Is this British And European History From 1650 To 1850?" I asked.

"No," he said.

So I left.

Chronomether number six

2006-01-06T08:53:00.000Z

I was hiding in the long grass eating humble pie for breakfast
You were standing there behind me with a smile straight out of Texas
Another day of viciousness, a safety razor daydream
The poor men talking tidal waves, the rich men talking sunscreen
So I walked up to the courthouse, pinned a cross to my lapel
Somewhere between the abattoir and the May Day carousel
I ignored her as she danced there in that suit of bleaching bones
Then forced myself to watch when all the good men threw their stones