Tag Archives: short story

A portrait of a provincial dickhead

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Walking down Hemel Hempstead high street in the half light of an autumn evening, the industrial estates rising upward against a violet-blue sky, is a pleasure unparallelled. Sexual ecstacy, the embrace of a fat woman, intellectual breakthrough, and moments of realisation and creativity are but hundreds and thousands to the Walls Cream of Cornish ice cream of sittin’ in Has Beans coffee shop with a coffee and two scoops of the aforementioned. x

The hotel where I lost my virginity.

A bottle of JD mate.

Just off Leighton Buzzard Road is where I go hunting on a Sunday.

the hum of a distant city
orange through leafless trees
looks like an eyelash

The gutter I vomit in.

– Oh yeah which way did you go?

– M25 at that hour?! Oh no, not a good idea mate.

Nice one mate,

A parody of 50 Shades of Grey by replacing Grey with Brown

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Before we begin, may I politely remind you that my Edinburgh Fringe show, Computer Programmer Extraordinaire, opens tomorrow of all days! 16:45, at Globe Bar, Niddry St, 4-25 August (not 14), Free.

Warning: this post contains scenes of a deeply pretentious and pompous nature.

50 Shades of Grey has successfully duped the last major group of people still unaware of free online pornography; middle aged women. I’m going for another, not so major group; materials scientists.

She came in to the room and looked at his dick. “mmmm, nice knob” she… SHOUTED… seductively! It is fair to say that he was hard. As hard as steel. As hard as diamond. Literally harder than diamond. She took a Vickers hardness tester out of her vagina and struck his cock with it. His penis… scratched… the diamond. Yes, it was a fucking 2000 on the Mohs scale. Coincidently the number of years since Christ’s visit to Jerusalem? Me thinks not. Assuming Dawkin’s proto-theory of the penis in human males fulfilling a kind of health display role, like the Peacock’s tale (they do spin a good yarn!), his blood pressure was fucking insane, indicating this guy had certainly been taking his cod liver oil supplements, if you know what I mean1. He was so fucking hard that his sex organ… fucking… popped. “There’s plenty more where that came from” he… SHOUTED… seductively, before sprouting a new one “down there” like a lizard grows a new tail. Yes, it is fair to say that Chris Brown (strange direction?), is, capable of autotomy. His blood dribbled down her face like a money shot gone awry. “Odd” they thought.

1 I mean I find the book offensive in it’s mildness. A kind of stark symbol of the timidity and lack of imagination of modern humans.


Figure 1. Vickers hardness tester.

“Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. “Fuck,” she said. “Fuck,” he said. They reached sexual ecstasy in Unison (they were inside the HQ of the public service trade union).

Now.

He produced a contract. A patent. She looked upset, as if there was something distasteful about deriving sexual pleasure from simulating literal and intellectual bondage. A concept that is, of course, completely abhorrent. Oh, did I mention he was a… billionaire. It was Bill Gates pretending to be the violent Chris Brown.

Infinite suffering was inflicted upon the woman. Sensory and cognitive oblivion. Wastes of pain and horror. Sexy pain. Sexy horror. He also, and more importantly, provided financial security, something that is all too rare in the current economic climate.

But she wouldn’t do anal and he wouldn’t do gay.

*         *        *

Claire Sarahly left the stage of the Canal Cafe theatre. Her satire had gone down a storm. As in everyone wished it hadn’t happened. Forty years of her life flashed before her. She looked back at her younger self with scorn and said ‘I was a bit of an idiot for writing that’. She died poor and alone.

Yours with love and devotion and an erection,

PS As a little bonus, if you insist, you can listen to a stand-up set I recorded recently sans audience:

[audio: http://www.raphshirley.com/media/RaphShirley-BBC-NCA.mp3]

or download it for your portable digital media players here

Hemel Hempstead AMateur dramatics Society (HHAMS)

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“Imagine creating something and giving it both consciousness and a rectum. What sick joke is this? And then Jesus has the audacity to say ‘consider the lily.’ Yes, it’s easy when you’re a lily, sans-bum-hole. I did consider the lily and then I shat myself.”

– Raph Shirley, Hemel Hempstead, 2011.

When you’re a busy busyness man you wear many different hats (try to remember that I just set up the word hats for in a minute). Computer programmer yes, computer gamer yes, computer owner… oui, but I release my creative juices in the form of being technical director of the Hemel Hempstead Amateur Theatrical Society; The HHATS (remember?). It’s actually called HHAMS but I don’t wear many hams so it’s harder to fit in, joke-wize. I’ve been wanting to talk about something that happened with HHATS/HHAMS/HHADS for a while now, but so far the emotions have just been too fucking raw.

It is the 2011 Autumn season. A cool wind tickles an oak tree, like a lover tickles his woman during the sex act. The production is Noel Coward’s Private Lives. I’d never heard of it, but I had heard of Noel Coward. The script was formulaic yes, but the (my) lighting design was radical to say the least (it was fucking radical). The venue was The John Smithingwaite Hall. It was a three nighter and on opening night the cast were in a frenzy of conceited theatrical buzz. Line runs and high jinx and irritatingly good spirits all round. You know the sort; great fun when you’re on the inside, sickening when viewed from outside. Like one of Eddie Murphie’s fat suits.

I’d always suspected that am-dram-socs were little more than flimsy covers for provincial swinging clubs for the actors, but that night I wondered if there was more to it than just middle aged infidelity inappropriately on display to the naive sub-twenty members. They dreamed of playing the HH dome the young fools. I’d often take them for a McFlurry and tell them the truth that ‘every creature on this earth dies alone’. A speech no less profound for having been lifted from the over-rated Donnie Darko film. I’d go on to tell them that realizing Donnie Darko is not good is just a necessary step on the path to maturity. Truth is, when you’re one of the Kidz like me (taking an admittedly broad 5 to 31 age range) you dream crazy dreams like that every day, except the night time dreams, which are mainly sexual: The original Catwoman, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Oy vey: the realization that even your fantasies have dated badly. I digress.

So anyways, I’m running the lights in the fourth scene and it occurs that this lighting job has been proficient at best. So I start to mix it up a bit. Disco lights and strobes, mirror balls and pyrotechnics. Yearly budgets in seconds. Blackouts over punchlines. Snow machines over set ups. Before I know it I’ve barged the seventeen year old beside me off the sound desk and I’ve taken control of the audience’s ears as well. Zoo sound effects and techno beats at full volume. The Stage manager’s in my ear “what are you doing? Could you stop doing that? I think someone is having an epileptic fit.” I say “believe me Kate you’ll understand when you hit 16.” I’m lookin’ at the audience reaction – they’re bewildered, they’re ecstatic. True, some of them don’t like it, but they gots to admit that it is a truly unique vision, an experiment in to what is possible in a theater.

The show finishes, the bows are taken, the audience leaves. I run down the stairs and in to the dressing room. Bunches and bunches of flowers await me, I’m hugging the flowers to my tingling flesh – I rush out into the car park, where the cast have gathered to smoke and discuss the evenings events. The Leading Lady (LL) approaches dramatically, and says “those are for me you stupid fucking idiot”. “No need to swear.” I think… and say. “Where we goin’ now?”. LL, stares at me, mouth open. Barely able to conceal how impressed she was with the lights. I’ve always been good at judging moods, but I’m not sure what the vibe is here. I decide to go for it. I lean forward to kiss her but she puts her hand on my chest and says “fuck off.” I run in to the darkness, and in to the night, and in to an oak tree (same one), and am informed by email that I am fired from HHATS for 6 months, and that I “ruined” the evening.

I obey their dictat (except for one drunken final show where I sneak in to the audience on closing night and steal the microphone while that same dreadful leading woman thanks her husband for being ‘a rock’, and I tell the baying crowds how narrow minded they would seem to aliens if they landed on earth and what a slapper the leading lady is, and my beret disguise droops off my indignant face as I realize my life behind the lights must end, and it is time to walk… befront of the lights).

Cheers,

On sex with a slightly fat man

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Yielding to the cycle of guilt, hunger, and McDonalds (oh the vortex!), the slightly fat man builds himself a vile home.

‘You see, at the heart of sex lies a contradiction. The show of abandon and the reality of forethought embodied and emphasized by the prophylactic’ I’m sittin’ w’ Claire in a McDonald’s on an Industrial estate. Claire has just made a complaint about my crying during sex, which she claims kills the mood like a dog in a cattery. ‘It [the sex act] is a symbol of the temporary, and if you don’t find that either deeply sinister or profoundly sad, then you are the one who needs professional help’. I’m watching her leave the carpark in a (Mc)flurry of spinning Nissan wheels and raised (index) fingers. I look to my right at a man with Down’s syndrome who has been watching all. ‘Do you know what I mean though?’ He doesn’t know what I mean. And let’s be honest nor do I.

I set about finding the best value product on the menu in terms of calories per pound sterling, with aplomb. Aplomb turns to reckless abandon. Reckless abandon turns to a smashed Casio scientific calculator. A smashed… to an arrest. Blah, blah, yada yada, you’ve heard it all before. ‘Fucccckkkkkk’ I scream, and dramatically. (Large coke)

Heading over to PC World; I’m out of control. The mood I’m in, I’ll end up like buying a £50.00 mouse/keyboard gaming combo or some shit. It is times like this that I am liable to have a major relapse into over dependence on World of Warcraft. Stop. Count to ten. Remember what we say at the meetings (which incongruously take place inside the on-line world). I’m in PC World and calming down. I’m pretending to be considering buying a MacBook Pro in order to check the internet. A man comes over asking too many questions. I keep him busy with an enquiry about mains power adapters. He perseveres. ‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’. ‘Alright, I don’t really want to buy one I just want to check the fucking internet, Listen mate, I worked here for ten years, I’ve spent shed loads in this place’. I leave £1500 poorer. ‘Most expensive fucking internet cafe ever’. ‘You really didn’t have to… I was just trying to help’. ‘Yeah right, help… my arse’.

The automatic doors part in a sort of parody of Moses and the Red Sea, and I decide to go into Pets World (as far as I’m concerned it is effectively a free zoo) to Chill Out. In a spectacularly unfortunate turn of events, I am again harassed by a shop worker. I walk out of the automatic doors, MacBook Pro in my left arm, Flemish Giant rabbit in my right arm. I look up at the sky and shake my fist. ‘What have I done to deserve this?! Have I not been a good man? Have I not insisted on tipping in inverse proportion to meal cost so that the poor souls at McDonald’s get something and the relatively lucky devils at Pizza Express get a fairer cut?’. And then, just as I am on the verge of a nervous breakdown, I shit myself.


Figure 1. Sergeant Harold.

A shatting myself of biblical proportions (hat tip Michael Buerk (via @MichaelBuerk)). I also wet myself. I lay on the floor soiled and humiliated. Even the (genuinely huge) rabbit looked embarrassed. I felt sorry for the rabbit for having me as an owner. Oh well, no use crying over pooing your pants in an industrial estate, with a massive rabbit watching.

Tonight, I’m getting home, logging straight into World of Warcraft and entering a giddy dream of lager and Doritos.

Best regards,

Accidental booze cruise

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Friday, 1700h, I’ve just finished programming a total hog of a Dell XPS 15. The rain knocks on my window and I’m compelled to literally run outside to demonstrate my quasi-youth (thirty one) by taking part in a typical Friday night out, that will no doubt involve significant use of the the sound ‘woooo’. I’m drivin’ out of the industrial estate where I work and buzzing with the adrenaline of a man who knows that within one/two hours (tops) I’ll have traversed the B2264, the A1273, the M1, the A1145, and the B4432, the doors of The Regal, and the upper annulus of a tapered glass cylinder with a blocked end that contains the first pint of like seven/eight with my mates mate.

But today, unlike the Fridays of 27/04/2012, 20/04/2012, 13/04/2012, 6/04/2012 etcetera, I’m feelin’ hot. Hot with the ecstasy of electronic conquest, bathing in the fizzing glow of slave central processing units and magnetic storage devices yielding to my deft touch. Today I’m wild. Today I decide to go on an unplanned trip to Eurodisney just for the fuckin’ shit of it. This is the sort of thing an employed single man’s disposable income was invented for mate.

Hour after hour whizz past the window of my Ford Focus. My mobile telephone not beeping a single bleep of “mate, why aren’t you comin’ out with us?”, “mate, seriously, when do you think you’ll be here?”. “Ha” I chuckle to myself, if they aren’t even texting me they must be really mad! I group text them “don’t worry lads, you’ll have an ok time without me, sure – not as good as usual, but Mickey calls! wink wink. I’m sure you realise that the implication of that is that yes, I am off to some text missing” [sic]. This weekend is going to be fucking awesome mate!

I arrive at Eurotunnel at 2345h, still essentially hot. “I’ll have one return to France comin’ back Sat’ bro’ ” I bark at the automatic ticket machine in a language it evidently doesn’t understand. A trip to the office, and I’m gettin’ somewhere. “Two hundred and fifty pounds! Are you fucking serious?! Jesus fuckin’ hell. Mate! Seriouly, mate”.

***

Saturday, 0900h, I’ve got my passport, a speeding ticket, and I’m sporting a jittery caffeinated mania. I’m back in Folkestone, and before I can say “which carriage?” car plus train equals transport symbiosis and a potent symbol of technological and diplomatic progress. “Freight? Am I freight? Shit. Shit. Shit”. Articulated lorry to my fore, articulated lorry to my aft, am I to be crushed? Is this my last moment on earth – Tired, groggy, and with an unsatisfied appetite for Disney products and theme parks? No. The driver brakes with the virtuoso ease only a professional haulier knows.

A minibus is collecting all the drivers to be taken to the restaurant carriage and I’m cheek to cheek (arse and face) with flabby tattoo riddled arms from various EU countries. All the while concealing my true identity as a non-commercial-driver. And then, I take a long smooth inhalation through my two nostrils. An unharmonious funk filters through my olfactory canal and nerve bundles overwhelm my brain with wave upon wave of atonal funk. I mean no offence to professional wagon masters, but based on this (admittedly small) sample they stink disproportionately. The apparent leader (the fattest) is talking to the minibus driver using only the response “fuckin’ ‘ellll”. By the return journey I will have developed an ear for these smells and will understand the joy to be had from that sharp vinegary BO cocktail. An odyssey of exotic flavours from that sense organ residing at the very centre of one’s face.


Figure 1. A new notation system for malodorous humans.

I digress. Ok. How should I put this? Lets just say me in Eurodisney is like a drunk old man in a pub with free beer: I’m drunk and a man and I can have as many gos on space mountain as I like, but I’m not old (thirty one). By 2200h I’m back at Calais. A short stop at Boozers: The Spirit of Calais, and my voyage of self/theme-park discovery is complete. By Sunday 0300h I’m tucked up in bed tired, drunk and completely satisfied. I can’t wait till next friday and tellin’ my mates about my awesome… accidental booze cruise. I haven’t seen Neil since I told him he was my best friend. He changed the subject – clearly moved to the point of silence. After I tell him ’bout this he’ll almost certainly invite me to his BBQ on Saturday. A perfect opportunity to give him the 1.5m Winnie The Pooh teddy that I (tried to win and then gave up and just) bought him.

See you Sat’ lads,

Yeah?

Sheer Power Alert

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As you almost certainly will have heard, last summer I holidayed in [Las] Vegas (baby!). Trouble is, whilst I had arranged to go with my mates, there was a catastrophic breakdown in communications and I ended up arriving a week before them, thus being forced to holiday alone in a big bad city of sleaze and high crime rates (even by American standards and this despite there being very few activities that are still illegal in the state of Nevada – babyyyyy!). Essentially when they said 13 June, they had actually meant 20 June, an easy mistake no doubt, and there is no doubt in anybody’s mind that it was a genuine mistake. No doubt whatsoever.

I have seen the photos mate, where they were reduced to consoling themselves with alcohol to the point of vomiting, due to my absence, and their lack of proper planning, I was taking a luxury helicopter ride for one over the strip/Hoover dam (the original pump priming – gives you a lot to think about) ($300 is too much, I’d recommend seeing on foot). ‘Is it just you’ said the helicopter pilot surprised. ‘I’m flying solo. Affirmative. What’s the ETA on this bad boy?’ I said, displaying an impressive knowledge of helicopter terminology. ‘Bet you don’t get to many MPGs on this baby’ – I added, further cementing my status with the fifty year old driver, a man with a saggy bag of a face hidden behind cheap aviators.

It is true that I did pass vomit due to a highly unorthodox turning manoeuvre that the old fool beside me insisted was the ‘safest way to land’, but there is no evidence that I cried and/or shat myself. None whatsoever, and I challenge anyone to produce any. I was busy telling the man that whatever the reasons for my not fighting in Afghanistan, cowardice is not one of them, when he span the iron bee on a sixpence and plopped it down on an H sign.

Anyway, all this is by the by, I haven’t said anything that we don’t already know for certain. After the first day’s thrill ride I was running out of activities faster than shit down a scared man’s leg (note to self – that’s a good simile – use in conversation at work). I sat in my motel room looking out the window at a car park with an argument going on in it. I guzzled some beer, which had the effect of jolting my mind into an important realisation and causing my mouth to emit a slight burp. Suddenly, I knew what I had to do that week, I would start working on my screenplay, and ASAP.

Ever since I saw a film I knew that I’d quite like to write one, so I went out to the shops and bought a pen. I went back out later remembering I needed paper, stocked up on beers galore and ‘potato chips’, and began. It’s called Sheer Power Alert and I plan to blog it as I write it so that I can get feedback before I send it to Spielberg et al. SexyPete99, please stop leaving comments telling me to ‘f*$% o&* it’s s*^%’. I wont publish them. It is trolls like you that ruin good forums.

Here is the first segment (segment/section/scene?).

***

Sheer Power Alert

A Screenplay by Raph Shirley

INT. DAY. A LAS VEGAS MOTEL ROOM.

The camera peeps at the rippling flesh of Ken Goodman. There is a beautiful/sexy woman lying on the bed naked except for a tattoo of a computer mainframe on her bum cheek. There is no question as to whether she wants remuneration, because she does not, and Ken is the sort of guy who knows. There is no question as to whether he has homosexual thoughts, because he categorically does not. Ken is counting the bullets left in his machine gun (Steve, should I be more specific – M16?).

KEN
Fuck, I need more ammo man.

WOMAN
Come back to bed Ken, I know you are a secret agent for the US government but can’t you take a break from trying to stop the rise of the machines for once.

KEN (raising his eyebrows)
Women! You know as well as I do that there is a terminator [will there be copyright issues here? – exterminator? abolitionist?] out to get us.

Ken is flicking through TV channels, there is genuinely nothing on.

KEN
There is genuinely nothing on. Perhaps I should get nothing on too.

WOMAN (giggling)
Yes, you are so good at jokes and… sex.

KEN
I know. So are you.

They have sex. (What can we get away with here Steve?) During lovemaking The Abolitionist smashes through the wall and opens fire with a helicopter cannon.

KEN
Fuck!

WOMAN
Fuuuuucccckkkkk!

KEN
Get down! (good time for innuendo maybe) Shhhiiiiiit.

Ken has been badly hurt but he managed to destroy The Abolitionist after the woman put a bag over its head like you would an ostrich to sedate it.

CUT TO:

EXT. NIGHT. A LAS VEGAS MOTEL CARPARK.

The woman (Sarah? Claire maybe? Claire Sarahly) is pushing Ken in a wheelchair at full speed in to a McDonalds! She grabs some tissues with which to cover Ken’s stumps. They get Happy Meals and get the ‘hell outta there’. The scene fades as Claire pushes Ken into the sunset and the desert.

***

Let me know what you think. Please send any funding offers or contracts to Flat 6D, 16 Rushworth Gardens, Blanche Road, Hemel Hempstead, HH13 6TR.

Miss Thomas

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The clearest way to describe Claire Thomas is to say she is fat. It isn’t genetic or due to some other ‘modern BS’. It is because she frequently scoffs. She scoffs indiscriminately. Domino’s Two For Tuesdays by the two, eggs by the eight, and milkshake. She loves food like an English teacher (which she is) ‘loves words’, but she eats a lot more than she reads, and reads a lot less than she drinks, and eats and drinks to excess. That is the main fact. Anything else is conjecture. She is also lazy.


A copy of the photo by Liu Zheng. Does anyone know the copyright situation with this sort of thing?

Splayed, and it wouldn’t be unfair to say ungraciously, over her bed like a dead octopus on a chopping board, she was masturbating furiously. She could just about concentrate on her pornography for a few seconds at a time between checking the news headlines, some of which were reporting multiple fatalities, and reading an email from her school’s headmaster. After around ten minutes and without a proper resolution she gave up any pretence and relaxed, sighed, and turned the volume up on Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. The now muted laptop still blaring The Garden of Earthly Delights. The film was (is) unsatisfactory.

Now, Claire is watching Stefan Graves, an incompetent maths teacher, telling some children off for making light of Nazi war atrocities. She finds this most amusing and it makes her penguin biscuit doubly enjoyable. She chuckles through chocolatey lips, bubbling hot tea to a dripping foam. She imagines the warm embrace of her bed with its luxurious duvet and ready access to Terminator figurines (and lets be frank, to Terminator paraphernalia more generally). This thought inevitably leads to sexual dreams of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career making character and the thrill available to her by drawing his genitals. To do for them what Dali did for the unconscious; to render them visible. Around ten such drawings are tacked around her room as if to draw this was to own it; to see it was to experience it, and to display it was to go too far maybe. Imagining the machine’s penis is an impressive feat when all that is available to us is the barmaid’s reaction in Terminator 2: Judgement Day.

There is a second thing that Claire takes an interest in: The 2011 Royal Wedding. She was lying in her overfilled bath staring at the same patch of flaking wall paper that she has seen every week for the last thirty years. She is next to the room with the bed that her mother died in, demented and miserable, and she is thinking about all the men she has slept with. Atheist, republican, and with an intense interest in Kate Middleton she was again making a show of pleasing herself knowing she would ultimately give up the ghost. She sang ‘I cain’t get no… satisfaction’ and laughed. Her phone beeps, she has an email from me informing her that it is my belief that the Terminator has only a mound, that the waitress’ response was a directorial error, and that all her theories are wrong, that her terminator fan fiction is shabby at best and that I will not allow a further Terminator/Royal Wedding tie in story to appear on the forum I manage.

Yours sincerely,

Presentation to GreenLight

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Here’s a little light relief before we get into the blog proper:

One of the great things about being a programmer for one of the largest solar panel manufacturers in the south east is you get to do a lot of travelling. This week, I was going to Newcastle to give a talk on account management systems to GreenLight; a fellow green power company.

I arrived at the Newcastle travelodge around 6pm. I’d had a tough train journey and fancied a litre or two of strong lager, or as I say ‘I’ll have a lagerita, neither shaken nor stirred’ before explaining exactly what I mean by that. I walk in to town and go the local Wetherspoons (I know!). It was actually, a lovely little place. An old university lecture theatre with a number of interesting pictures on the wall.

By closing time I’m drunk as a carefree business guru and head back to my temp pad. I’m singing like a bloomin’ mad man mate! I stumble through the streets filled with those few of years and fewer of clothing (two years blogging for Two Hour Blogger equips one to turn a pretty sweet phrase, often inside of half an hour), but exercise enough restraint not to shout and merely fall over six times. But wait! I’ve noticed something. Something beautiful! A small entrance in the wall leads to a multicoloured rainbow escalator (not in a gay way (not in a homophobic way (regret nested parentheses))). I climb on and ascend into the antechamber of a shopping centre. Lo, I’m greeted at the top by a gigantic Christmas tree. It is a great hollow cone of tinsel that you can walk under and look inside.

I go underneath it. I look into the eye of the Christmas tree… and I pass out.

I woke up at 9am on the floor of the shopping centre. The Christmas tree hanging above me is like a big sick inducing finger down my throat now (again, I think yule agree my extensive blogging experience shows). Shit! 9am! Shit! I have to be at the presentation. I get there and I decide to come clean and tell them the above ;-) I can tell by their feigned embarrassment that they are deeply impressed. It is clear these guys need to be taught a thing or two about partying! And taught/party hard!

Afterwards, I’m informed by email that they will not be offering us the contract. In hindsight it was a mistake to tell them I was drunk presenting. I craft a perfectly worded email to me’ boss painting them as a backward company who don’t understand how powerful the internet is. I mean, that is basics! I add a little joke about me giving them a business 101. I’m confident I won’t be fired and at most will receive a harsh telling off. Nothing that my rearrangement of the secret Santa and purchase of a hilarious card for my boss, which makes a cheeky accusation of infidelity at his wife (hinging around a Christmas based demi-pun), can’t solve.

Terminator X: Abomination

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One of the major advantages of running your own zine is that you get to work with some great geeks. One day while I was hangin’ out in Forbidden Planet I was recognised (eugghh) by a fellow weblogger. He knew all too well the ongoing battle between me and SexyPete99. Don’t worry, he’s on our side! Anyway we got to chattin’ over a mocha at the local independent coffee house (he had a cappuchino) (Has Beans, Guildford high street – check it out).

He knew a lot more about computer programming than I do (and I know alot – coding for one of the largest solar panel installation companies in the South East has some effect bro) and he said he could set up a special webzone to allow opensource writing projects. Err, yes please! This is the result. Enjoy!!

Terminator X: Abomination

‘If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.’ – Leviticus 20:13, King James Bible.

Thuds and cracks flash over the sky casting a shimmering blue light over the Terminator’s rippling, scarred, and massive pectoral muscles. I’m hungry. We haven’t eaten since May, which was almost two days ago now, and even then it was some rat’s brother. I wondered if the machine really needed all that living tissue over his metal endoskeleton. Could some be spared for a barbecue? From somewhere you never see like his anus? “You must sleep, the human resistance depends on you John, you have a long day tomorrow” said the machine, coyly. I said I knew he was right and asked if he could try to catch another rat in the morn. “Affirmative” he said, coyly.

It must have been another two hours before I awoke again. This time it was a huge cannon fire on the horizon. The machine tutted, coyly. To my surprise he lay behind me, spooning. “What are you doing?” I demanded. “Survival probability is increased if humans are kept warm at night”. For a second I thought I detected… flirtation? No, surely not. I laid back down and shut my eyes. “Do you have… needs?”. “I require a constant power source, and can only operate between 100 and 1000 degrees Kelvin and…” I cut him off. “No… I mean… sexual needs” he paused. “I was programmed to be asexual, however it is possible to reset the motherboard” My mouth dropped, coyly. “The original infantry models were homosexual but they were withdrawn after the catastrophe of the omega wars” My eyes literally popped open. “Since then we were programmed to not ask nor tell” I couldn’t believe it.

The battle against the machines is a long and arduous campaign and every soldier needs some R and R. But this? This was shocking. I’ve seen a lot o’ things since the nuclear war. But this?! I mean, it is his job to maximise the chances of the resistance. If that means improving my mental health and making me a more effective leader then… But this?!?!

Suddenly, everything started to fit together. That is why I sent him back in time! My husband is the only person I can trust to protect me. And he knew the whole time! The whole time? The whole time. We were married in the morning and lived happily for 3 short years before it was time to send him back. We had lost the war. Sending him back was my last act as leader of the resistance before we set off the Cyberdyne global destruction device and everything was gone. Somehow the eternal cycle seemed good enough. Those three years of marital bliss with that kind man were worth the annihilation of mankind. Because if a machine can learn the value of the institution of gay marriage… maybe we can too.

“We sent Lot and he said to his people, ‘How can you practice this outrage? No other people has done so before. You lust after men rather than women! You transgress all bounds!’ The only response his people gave was to say [to one another], ‘Drive them out of your town! These men want to keep themselves chaste!’ We saved him and his kinfolk – Apart from his wife who stayed behind – and We showered upon [the rest of] them a rain [of destruction]. See the fate of the evildoers.” – 7.80-7.84 Qu’ran, translated by M. A. S. Abdel Haleem.

The End.

And SexyPete99 thought T1 was better! Unbelievable!

We’re currently working on a TNG prequel. Watch this space!

Live long and prosper,

Hi fi sci fi. Why? Because it rhymes and rhyme is equal to reason.

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Hello, welcome to my zine. I believe that sci-fi, or more properly science-fi, can teach us about the human experience of the human condition, and aliens and cool spaceships too. That is why I have created this cool weblog (to share my stories). I wrote this story in 2005 during my emotional period (because all my pets died on the same day because my uncle had a funny five minutes and shot them all). I hope that you can enjoy it and that some good can come of that difficult time. Please enjoy…

The Search for the Left Edge

The key is in the circle of 8s. The key is in your heart. I’ve never spoken with more emotion.

Part I: The real map of the world.

In what sense is the world round? Because some guy sails one way and comes back the other way? Is it not possible that the man from the other way is merely an exact copy of the man going the other other way?

Every time I went ‘around the world’ I noticed slight but fundamental changes in the nature of the place. My mother seemed slightly more irate in every new version. I knew it was not the same but a replica. I continued to search for one half of the two mysteries: what is left and what is right?


Figure 1. Have you ever noticed how the floor is flat yet they still try to pretend the world is round. They lie. This is a more accurate map of the world. The two problems are the poles and the photos from space. All explorers are lie tellers. This map uses the now outmoded and deeply offensive name Birrel Quarrel instead of Birrel Quabble.

I have been searching for the left edge for ten years. I have sailed by banana boat. I have flown by banana plane. I have eaten an orange. At 5am on January 1st 2012 I found it. I found the land of Birrel Quabble and the left edge.

Part II: Birrel Quabble; The Land Outside Reason.


Figure 2. The inside of Birrel Quabble. This imagery is heavily influenced by the Shirley Pet Massacre and the nightmares that preceded and proceeded it.

The return journey was a nightmare.

My thoughts are with you at this sad time. The sadness of realising the truths my stories reveal.

James Bond (asexual gay Lord and master of sexy epigrams)

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This post is dedicated to Sirs Isaac Newton and Bobby Charlton (They don’t make them like they used to).

Figure 1. Sir Bobby Charlton, “A Football Man”.

Bond had just graduated from Oxford with a massive degree, inferior in magnitude only to his perception of it. The careers office recommended the civil service but little did they know that he was not going to be civil, and even less servile was he going to be.

MI6 it was then.

One evening, while Bond was composing bizarre introductions and engineering contrary opinions regarding the correct serving of cocktails, he got his (phone) call to arms. M told him by text to go to Darlington and get the train timetable off of some guy working for Great North Eastern as a test.

Those of a nervous disposition should look away now. Even the most hardened reader, used to the frank, honest, and often uncompromising style of this weblog, may find the graphic homosexual pornography that follows too much to bear, and… hardened might also refer to the state of male genitalia during sexual arousal. I must also apologise for breaking one of my own rules of sex scene writing that one should always include a pathetic fallacy but never a pathetic phallus.

It drizzled. The antiquated Bond was obviously a huge homophobe but his first assignment was to get the train times from this fat controller by any means necessary. He was going to have to be a gay Lord.

Against my better judgement I am still amused by the phrase gay Lord.

Bond lay still, ruined. He pondered the etymology of the word gay and wondered where it might go next. A desperate mixture of blood and semen dribbled from his anus to the bed, beating a primal rhythm, syncopated with the pitter-patter of rain on the window of this northern motel. This seemed to suggest that gay might describe a new school of linguistics? A homophobic teenage boy? (e.g. look at those gays studying Nuts magazine and learning misogyny) An ecstatic metaphorical explosion?

The next joke is set in the year 2000.

Bond hated political correctness and whenever it was mentioned would say “I believe one is incorrect to take the correct approach to anything. 1+1=2! That is mathematical correctness gone mad!” in his usual nonsensical idiomatic style. He did not play by any rules, and certainly not the rules of formal logic. He was extremely proud of this personal brand of cod philosophy and, now, it led him to a choice. Should he remain a low level spy in the hope of future promotion to heterosexual humiliation in more expensive hotel rooms, or should he stop being such a Top Gear type, car fan, and arse?

Right there, right now, he decided to change his life and become a professor of language, right where our story began…

Figure 2. Professor James Bond, professor of syntax and philology at the University of Oxford.

It shows how personal decisions can impact real lives. Real people. Real lives.

Thanks in advance,

Raph Shirley (prophet)

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I was walking down the street the other day, and I bumped into this woman (I don’t know if you’ve ever met a woman, they’re basically mad hideous monsters, like men) and she’d got into her head the misguided idea to manufacture a person. Now, if it was me I would probably do this using a computer controlled 4D special laser printer but she considered the appropriate course of action to be to grow one inside her stomach.

I remembered how my mum, Sharon Shirley, had accidentally sacrificed her own innards to the nefarious purpose of creating a mutant hybrid between herself and my old man after placing too much faith in the stress resistance of polyurethane. I relayed my experiences to the wench before me and reiterated my belief in laser printing technology. We adopted a little Chinese girl as a compromise. She was a little two dimensional grey one from my HP LaserJet P2050 Series PCL6. I added a third dimension by spraying it with Impulse Jasmine (body mist).

“I’m confused by the word ‘this’, it’s like a piece of string between the world and the sentence” I said. She said that all words were like that and asked me why I was standing on top of the gigantic whoopy cushion I’d been gradually blowing up. The noise that followed was genuinely hilarious. We all laughed and had pancakes for dinner. Except our beautiful daughter who was killed in a tragic shredding accident.

The end,

Woman makes strange sound in conversation

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A 34 year old woman today made an unusual sound in a conversation with friends. The confused onlookers refrained from querying the woman’s meaning for fear of “embarrassment”.

“It was a sort of short high pitched steam train’s toot” – Darren, 35. A number of leading sceptics have suggested it might have been a sign of incredulity or bemusement.

Despite communicating very little it did cause Darren to have a mild and short lived burst of giggles. “I really didn’t know what she meant and then I just started to consider the sound which appeared more and more absurd to me”.

According to an international speaker, sounds like this should be celebrated and we must try not to be prejudiced against them. “People will often embellish their conversations with wordless noises. Although I will admit, it can sometimes be hard to figure out exactly what they mean”.

Cheers,

The banana

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The banana in its sluttish yellow overcoat eyed me from across the hall. The way it draped its slender ripe figure provocatively across that pawn of an apple. The way it affectedly brushed past the orange. Oh that banana had it coming, and don’t let no one tell you different.

I pretended I hadn’t noticed. I went on about my business. I constructed a look of busy action at the computer face. Staring into the abyss of an excel spreadsheet displaying tawdry accounting jargon such as ‘costs’ and ‘total’ when all I could really think about was that fucking banana.

Tony Blair famously said education three times. And of course, I, in my way, am painfully aware of the simplicity of the mechanisms of it. The straight forwardness of combining two objects like this sickens me even as I spew it, although I must admit that that ‘even’ is out of place given the tautology.

But at least I stopped it in the middle, even if my intention was to disregard your generous attention and to thank you for visiting by flippantly giving you nothing of worth.

Unfortunately this is not a wedding and I can’t get one of the band members to give me a late, drunken, and drummed out joke announcer.

It has all fallen to pieces. I’m not quite sure where it happened but its lost now for ever.

Do you follow?

Story time 3

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There is one thing that can be derived from first principles and that is that Squibble Bobble, the peculiar little alien, likes grub. He went in to the nearest grub shop which in this instance was a bakery. Gregg’s bakery. “Hello”. “What’s going on, who said that?”. Squibble Bobble is just two inches small and can not see over shop counters without his ham fisted stilts which were currently under repair after snapping instantaneously upon first use. “Any bananas”. “No”. Squibble Bobble wasn’t paying attention now because he had found a crisp. He’d just polished that off when he found another. They were all in a pile in a crisp bag that he had opened without permission. “No, you have to pay for that”. “Pay for what? Ah”. Squibble Bobble proceeded to build replacements from the assorted grime and fluff round the corners of the shop. “Good as new. Good as new? Goodbye”, and he disappeared in a fubbly squiffle of green fuzzle wuzz. The woman at Greggs wasn’t too bothered because she likes Squibble Bobble a lot and also knows the man whose house he lives in who always covers the damages which is always one packet of crisps.

Goodbye.

Story time 2

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Squibble Bobble is a strange little alien. He struggles to make friends and is a little simple alien. He walked up to an old man and gave him a buttercup. “What is that strange little alien doing giving me a buttercup”. That was a pretty standard response to be fair and truthful, and very common on account of him so often giving buttercups. “If someone give me a buttercup why then I’d be their friend”. Yes but Squibble Bobble you are a peculiar alien. No one of sound mind would consider giving a little flower to a littler alien. “dooooooaaaaahhh”.

Squibble Bobble woke up and said “I want to make a friend today, where buttercups”. The old man from before said “genuinely get out of my bed you can not stay here”. Squibble Bobble ignored said man and set off out the window leaving his things in a neat pile on the old man’s pillow. The old man tutted and set about his work of accountancy from home. He realised that his work was boring as anything and that the little alien was, while most peculiar, at least of moderate interest in being so most peculiar. He peeped through the key hole and saw Squibble Bobble peeping back. “You decided to come”. He opened the door and saw that Squibble Bobbble had built him a pile of buttercups. “Thanks mate”. “Yessssssss”. They walked to McDonalds holding hands all the way. McDonalds did not accept buttercups as payment despite Squibble Bobble’s insistence that they were “good”. They went to bed hungry.

The end.

Story time

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“Mister” said a little alien. A simple little alien called squibble bobble. “who is it?”. “It’s squibble bobble mister”. “What want?”. “Grub”. He threw a mouldy old banana out the window for the simple little alien. Squibble bobble gobbled it and hiccuped. “Thanks mister” said squibble bobble who threw the banana skin back through the post box.

Goodbye.

The old bastard who went to a sweet shop

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The old bastard really knew how to walk into a sweet shop like a bastard. The misery guts walked in and said ‘I want the lot’. The owner, despite this becoming the best day of business in his life, was upset by this.

This misanthropic horror requested that all the sweets be put in a big pile in the middle of the street outside the shop. When they were all there he covered them in petrol and burnt every one of them. Then a little mouse who had been on his way to the sweet shop peeped out of the drain and saw this sick scene.

The mouse wept.

He went back and told his friends who conspired to seek revenge. They all stood on each others shoulders and got a nice Burberry mac to hide under. They walked up to the nasty old man and said:

“Listen you old bastard. We hate you. You have no sense of joy. You go around ruining fun for everyone and we are going to get you.”

Then the man looked up and saw a group of mice who had been collecting the molten candy that had dripped off from the fire. They had it in a massive bucket and dropped it all over his head. The man began to writhe and swear like an old bastard and the mice laughed at the horrible scene.

When the candy had solidified he himself had become a permanent and disfigured sweet. The mice were able to lick him a few times a day for a few months until his flesh started to rot and they had to throw him in a river.

Thanks for reading,