Sucker.

Since I might not be posting on here for a little while, here's a nice little story for you to enjoy while I'm gone...

SUCKER

“You’re fat. You do nothing but eat, drink, defecate and inflate,” she said.

Harry flinched at the down-the-nose oh-so-superior voice. He stopped whipping up the mash with his fork and stared at what he could see of his reflection in the kitchen window. Observing a face hanging like a bag of melted butter, he then turned to study her.

She was leaning on the counter sipping at her fifth gin of the evening. How dare she call him fat? Her thighs rocked when she walked and her breasts sat like boulders on the mountain of her stomach. He felt the anger roil in his gut and claw its way up into his chest. He’d really had enough.

“And you’re a snotty-nosed bitch,” he said, breaking out in a sweat at his temerity. He waited then, hardly daring to imagine how she might react, but even more angered at his own fright. She laughed a dry hacking laugh and gazed at him as if he was something she’d just stepped in.

“You are a corpulent slug, darling.”

It was the darling that did it. She’d called him that when they’d first been lovers. Over the years the word had changed from a term of endearment to one of contempt. He stepped towards her but she was too drunk to notice. She noticed when he stuck the fork in her eye, though.

The fork still in her eye, dripping mashed potato and other fluids, she staggered into the sitting room. Harry opened a draw and made his selection. The Ken Hom cleaver was a favourite of his, as was the filleting knife he’d honed down to razorlike sliver of metal. He listened to her nasal squealing for a moment before following her in.

All over the carpet – all over her lovely cream thirty-three pounds a yard carpet. The eye liquor had all run out and now it was blood dripping from the handle of the fork. He must have jammed the tines right into skull behind as the implement showed no signs of falling out. Harry moved in and thought about the conger eels he’d gutted in his boat-trip days. The thing to do was to cut them into pieces small enough to bag and put in the chest freezer. Each piece a meal in itself. He was humming to himself by the time she finally stopped screaming. The doorbell rang when he was getting really artistic with the filleting knife. He wiped his face on a towel and went to the door, opened it, and stuck only his head round.

“Good morning, sir! I’m here to demonstrate the Tyson Supervac 2000,” said the little man on the step.

“Don’t want none,” said Harry, closing the door.

“But, sir. The lady of this household specifically requested a demonstration. We don’t force our wares on people who don’t want them, I assure you.”

As the little man spoke he leant against the door. There was something manic in his expression. Here was a salesman who had been put off once too often. Harry felt that dull roil of anger again. Spending his money. That damned carpet, a mortgage he could hardly afford, the fucking useless ornaments that ate tenners then gathered dust, and now a vacuum cleaner they didn’t need. Before he fully understood what he was doing he had opened the door and let the interloper in.

Dragging his large wheeled-case behind him the salesman shot past Harry into the hall, grinning widely at this unprecedented success. Harry closed the front door and turned. The salesman’s grin fell away when he saw the blood, and the cleaver clutched in Harry’s right hand.

“Go on then, demonstrate,” said Harry.

“W - w - where would you like me to demonstrate, sir?”

Harry pointed with the cleaver to the sitting room. “In there.”

The salesman was frightened, but his expression hopped to an utterly new level of fear and horror when he dragged his case into the sitting room. “Oh my god. Oh my god.”

He turned, searching for somewhere to run, but there was no way round Harry. Harry used his huge gore-spattered belly to barge the salesman into the room.

“I’ll go away. I’ll go away. I didn’t see anything!”

“Demonstrate,” said Harry.

The salesman stared at him in disbelief, then turned and gaped at what had been spread across the white carpet.

“No ... no ... you can’t mean ...”

“Demonstrate!” Harry shouted, swiping his cleaver at the salesman. The salesman ducked back, dragging his case with him. He stepped in a stack of fingers, stumbled, and sat down in a pool of intestines. His expression twisted, there was horror there, sickness. For a moment it seemed he might cry. Harry picked up his filleting knife and stepped closer, then something clicked.

“The Tyson Supervac 2000 is at the ... cutting edge of house-cleaning technology.” The salesman stood and looked around himself. “Not only can it be used to vacuum carpets, but it can also be used, with boost control, to clear leaves, and even blockages in drains.”

With this the salesman opened his case and removed from it a brushed aluminium vacuum cleaner with a transparent plastic dust compartment. In the sides of the case were various hoses and attachments. He selected a transparent hose and connected it in place. On the end of the hose he fitted a plastic nozzle.

“The Tyson Supervac comes with its own rechargeable power pack, but for the removal of heavy soil we recommend you plug into the house power supply.”

He held up a three pin plug. The expression on his face was sick and his hands were shaking. Harry nodded to the power point. The salesman went over and plugged in, then returned to his cleaner.

“The Tyson Supervac has adjustable power setting. The lowest power setting is for conventional carpet cleaning. Drain cleaning and leaf clearing come at the upper end of the scale.” He pointed at a slide-switch and pushed it halfway over.

“The 2000, unlike the earlier 1500, has a silent running mode. For heavy soil though we recommend you don’t use this as there may be some loss of power.” After this little speech the salesman stared at the mess for a long time. He then pressed a button and the vacuum cleaner roared into life. With a look of distaste he lowered the nozzle to the carpet.

Harry was impressed. This was certainly a very efficient cleaner. Two kidneys, one after the other, went up the pipe with a sound like someone spitting pips. A length of intestine disappeared with a sound like air being blown through the neck of a burst balloon. Of course it didn’t take long for the transparent dust compartment to fill.

“You’ll find the Tyson Supervac 2000’s dust compartment clean and easy to use. See: just detach it from the cleaner and take it to your dustbin.”

The salesman stood holding the dust compartment. He had a piece of liver stuck on his cheek and his suit was spattered with blood. His right eye was twitching. Harry gestured with his cleaver then walked behind the man with the filleting knife at the back of his neck. The contents of the dust compartment slithered into the dustbin. On the fourth emptying the salesman was walking a little unsteadily and breaking into the occasional giggle.

“The Supervac 2000 can be bought on extended credit. You can own a Tyson Supervac 2000 for six months without paying a penny! That’s six months of superior cleaning for nothing. You’ll never want to part with your Supervac!”

The fingers rattled as they shot into the dust compartment. Squares of skin went in with a dull popping. Her hair jammed in the pipe for a moment until the salesman hit boost, then it shot inside. But even the Tyson Supervac 2000 couldn’t suck up the skinned skull with its dinner fork still in place. It stuck on the end of the nozzle and only dropped off when the cleaner had been turned off and wound down to a stop. It dropped on the floor with a leaden thud.

“Should you encounter any problems with this item we recommend you contact us on our helpful and friendly customer services line.”

The salesman stared at the skull, then at the skinned ribcage and some of the larger lumps. “Never pick them up. Not no way,” he said, and giggled.

Harry held out a roll of bin bags for him, then followed him as he made three trips to the dustbin.

“Now the carpet,” said Harry.

“The Supervac ... “ The salesman stared at the blood soaking and clotting the carpet. “... has this handy wash-vax attachment which can be used to clean heavily soiled carpets and even upholstery ...” He stared at the sofa on which, until only moments before, two blubbery breasts had sat like huge blancmanges. “ ... all you need is the Supervac recommended carpet cleaner, which can be obtained at concessionary prices by registered owners.”

The salesman got himself into motion. He lifted the pipe he had been using, removed the plastic nozzle and fitted a long stainless steel attachment. He turned the cleaner on.

“But before I demonstrate the wash-vax!” He turned towards Harry with a deranged expression on his face. “Let me demonstrate the power of The Supervac 2000 for drain cleaning!” He turned the vacuum cleaner on and pushed the power setting to its highest.

“I don’t want –” Harry managed before the stainless steel pipe was in his eye. He yelled and dropped his knives. There was a sucking thump and a ghastly sensation. With his right eye he watched in horror as his left eye shot up the transparent pipe.

“Feel the power of Supervac!”

Harry grabbed at the pipe, stumbled, slipped on blood-slick carpet, and felt the pipe ripping away from his face. He felt it tear a strip of skin from the bottom of his eye down to his chest. He bellowed as he went flat on his face. The pain hit then and he bellowed again.

“With turbo boost!”

Harry struggled to get up, felt the back of his trousers rip and something cold intrude between his buttocks.

“Supervac 2000! Will remove even the most stubborn blockage!”

Harry deflated.

ENDS.

Richard Morgan

Interesting rant here from Richard Morgan, which I generally agree with. Of course I found it while doing an ego search with my name...

Teaching Maths

The horrible truth from the Archbishop Cranmer's blog, via Devil's Kitchen:


1. Teaching Maths In 1970:

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for £100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

2. Teaching Maths In 1980:

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for £100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or £80. What is his profit?

3. Teaching Maths In 1990:

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for £100. His cost of production is £80. Did he make a profit?

4. Teaching Maths In 2000:

A logger sells a truckload of lumber for £100. His cost of production is £80 and his profit is £20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

5. Teaching Maths In 2008:

A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. He does this so he can make a profit of £20. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down their homes? (There are no wrong answers. )

6. Teaching Maths 2018:

أ المسجل تبيع حموله شاحنة من الخشب من اجل 100 دولار. صاحب تكلفة الانتاج من الثمن. ما هو الربح ل

And NUTs want to be paid more for this.

Writing News

Righto, I've cleared 100,000 words of Orbus, which is always a bit a of a milestone, and the endgame progresses nicely what with a planet getting blown to smithereens and some seriously huge dreadnoughts knocking the shite out of each other.

Nice reviews appearing here there and everywhere for Line War. There's the previously mentioned one in SFX 169 (May), a good one from Anthony Brown in Starburst 362 and others elsewhere. I particularly like this one I found on Sarcade's Weblog. I also like it that no one has yet accused me of the Space Opera sins of anticlimax or deus ex machina.

Had a photo shoot on Wednesday: professional photographer all the way down from Bristol to take shots of me posing in the pissing rain before Maldon mudflats and trying to look cool in a scrapyard. This is for an SFX profile which should be coming out at round about the time my short story collection gets released.

Oh yeah, and not long until Shadow of the Scorpion is available.

And I note that David Gunn's next book is out to hopefully cause Maximum Offense!

Article 15: Re-Write

This is an old one, with some bits I no longer agree with, but I'll give it to you as it was:

RE-WRITE.

When do you cease to re-write work? Simple answer: when you are no longer improving as a writer, when you feel you have nothing more to learn, when you have achieved perfection. It is an unfortunate fact that some writers do believe this of themselves. They are normally the ones who have achieved success, and are drunk on the adulation of those who think a past participle is something you'll find in a linear accelerator.

For me revision of a story partially ceases when I feel I have achieved a required effect, might well attain publication, and have more interest in the next project. But while it remains in my processor it is still subject to a critical eye. I don't believe there is such a thing as too much re-writing. You just reach the stage where you can't go any further with a piece and move on to the next. In the process you jettison the bad and keep the good. You decide, and you base your decision on what you are after. Publication? Re-write for the market acting on feedback from editors and readers. Personal satisfaction? Don't kid yourself. For my novella for Club 199 I took a thirty thousand word story and extended it by ten thousand words to fit it within their parameters, and felt perfectly justified in doing so. As far as I am concerned good writers are successful writers (though successful writers often degenerate into bad writers).

There is no quick-fix formula. It is obvious such a formula is profoundly wished for, as the sales of the 'How To' books attest. When the questions are posed as to the extent and method of re-writing the real question being asked is: how do I write well? The first step on the road for ninety percent of would-be-famous novelists is to learn how to use the English language. Get hold of books like 'Fowlers Modern English Usage', 'Roget's Thesaurus', and perhaps a plain old 'Mastering The English Language -S.H. Burton'. For many people the re-write required is the one to turn their masterpiece into something intelligible. It was not until I joined some postal workshops that I found out just how bad it was possible for some writing to be. I also learnt that those writers who really try to get a handle on the language are also the ones who tell the best stories. Understanding the structure is all. You're not going to build a suspension bridge if you don't know how nuts and bolts go together. The rest is badly written soap-opera.

So now you know how the English language works, have put a story together, and are looking at doing a re-write. You have looked at the story objectively and made sure that the bunch of flowers is beautiful rather than are beautiful and your hero still has the same colour hair all the way through. How does it look subjectively? Where, for example, can you break the rules to the greatest effect? The best of writers are the ones who know how to do this. Steven Donaldson once managed a one word sentence that had the skin on my back crawling (Of course I'm aware that it is not pc to like Donaldson; he's too successful). The word was 'Kevin'. No, not the spotty dickhead down the road. Kevin Landwaster who performed the Ritual of Desecration and whose spectre has just stepped through a door from the underworld. I'm afraid no English book is going to tell you how to achieve the same (though 'The Critical Sense' by James Reeves comes mighty close). The only way to learn is through hard work, reading, and listening to criticism, though for the latter you must judge what is relevant. There are no substitutes for these, just as there is no substitute for talent. When you re-write you must see the images and feel the effects of every word. You have to decide what to discard and what to keep. There are many sources you can tap to help you make these decisions. But in the end they are your own.

The Inconvenient Truth about Gore's Film

Okay, going on from Dave's comment on my last post here, let's take a look at the bullshit a British court found in Al Gore's film, this is taken from News Busters :

• The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government's expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.
• The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.
• The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that it was "not possible" to attribute one-off events to global warming.
• The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that this was not the case.
• The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.
• The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimant's evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.
• The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.
• The film suggests that the Greenland ice covering could melt causing sea levels to rise dangerously. The evidence is that Greenland will not melt for millennia.
• The film suggests that the Antarctic ice covering is melting, the evidence was that it is in fact increasing.
• The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.
• The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.

We can also add to this that even the picture on the DVD box is propaganda, since it shows hurricanes (I've linked here to just one article on this subject). Also, this bullshit about Polar bears ... their population has doubled since the 50s and 60s, as I have noted before. You also have to wonder at the idiocy of environmentalist who think that a lack of ice will lead to Polar bears drowning. You know, their environment is sea and ice and they can swim. But now let's look at the court's conclusion about this propaganda film:

In order for the film to be shown, the Government must first amend their Guidance Notes to Teachers to make clear that 1.) The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument. 2.) If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination. 3.) Eleven inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.

Of course, the sainted Gore doesn't want to debate this.

Spineless Harrabin, Lying BBC.

I first heard about this on Bishop Hill and Devil's Kitchen. Nice to know how the BBC makes every effort to bring us the TRUTH.

Update: Of course calling Harrabin spineless is wrong. More likely the changes he made to the article were ones he really wanted to make. Here's a little bit about this slimebag from last year over on Bishop Hill.

10p Tax Rate

It’s really enjoyable watching Brown and Darling squirming over this 10p tax rate furore and you have to ask yourself how Brown, lauded as a wonderful chancellor, managed to fuck up so badly. Well Brown started fucking up the moment he stepped into that job when he sold off a lump of our gold reserves to finance ideological change. He’s presided over a massive expansion of bureaucracy, pissed billions up the wall, overcomplicated the tax system and gone low-profile when any shit has been heading towards the fan. Don’t expect him to do any different now he is in the Mugabe-like unelected position of head honcho.

The Labour Party, once the champion of the working classes now doesn’t give a fuck about them. It is concerned with trying to push bankrupt ideology of the kind that classifies lazy welfare scroungers and criminals as victims, and anyone working and generating income as a cash cow. But the main concern of those presently in power is staying in power and gathering more power to themselves. Okay, so at a certain wage level some are paying £200 more each year, but they can get it back in tax credits! This is about making the citizens of this country clients of the state: we’ll take money off you but if you ask us nicely and do precisely what we say, we might give you a little back.

Then again, maybe not, since they’ve thrown a 100 billon at Northern Rock, 50 billion at other banks, and will be throwing over 20 billion at the Olympics. And that’s on top of all this lot (note the large pink chunk better named the 'feckless fund'):

(oh, as an aside, who thinks of Black Adder upon hearing the Chancellor’s name, and who else doesn’t think some of these Labour MPs appropriately named what with the man of straw and Ed Balls-up?)

Post Office Shite.

First weigh your books, add for excessive packaging, then add a bit more on top because it is never right, then find out on the Royal Mail website that the cost for signed-for parcel post is £31 (signed-for because you’ve already lost parcels in some postal black hole), tell your recipient this price plus £5 packaging, plus the price of the books. He pays the postage cost but wants one book less, which is fine, you’ll refund any difference.

If you are sending hardback books by post, which are expensive enough items as it is, first put the books in plastic bags to prevent the dust jackets being damaged when you insert the books into padded envelopes. Tape the envelopes shut, then pack them in a stiff cardboard box with spacing around to insert more packing. And hope that this will be sufficient when the jolly boys down at the sorting office use your parcel to take rugby conversions over a Royal Mail truck. The postage cost for your parcel at 5 kilos is £36; however, it now weights only 4.3 kilos.

Next take your parcel down to the post office and learn that they no longer do signed-for delivery for that size of parcel and that the cost is calculated on both weight and size. Standard parcel post for it is now £41. Oh dear, the website is wrong, what a surprise. The changes of course are nothing to do with efficiency, but because, as usual, Britain bends over and takes it up the rear from the EU.

The growing cost of everything we can also nail down to this so-called credit crunch but mainly to Brown’s bureaucratic behemoth sucking up every scrap of wealth in this country. For example, everything we buy has to be transported, so what would the price be if the government wasn’t taxing fuel at about 80%? And our crappy post office I think we can pin on the kind of managerial pricks who know by heart little sayings like, “There’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’” but give us examples of British excellence like Terminal Five.

Anyone out there know of a good and reasonably-priced parcel service? Does such a thing exist any more?