I logged onto the site today, 31/8/26.

initial attempt to log on told me there was an error.  But offered me an option to sign up.  So I clicked that, scrolled down to the bottom of the blurb where it once again offered me a box to 'log on', and this time it let me enter my usual password and I was in.

Gyppo

For fiction writers.

Empathy  for writers - The two edged sword

Written years ago for the late Skip Slocum at The Writers' Circle.

He was having a few problems getting into the head of his character, a fourteen year old warrior boy.  He was still writing a hell of a book though.  This is the advice I sent him.

======================================================

Hi Skip.

This is where it gets painful for we writers.

Have you ever been in situation yourself where you were completely overwhelmed by the hopelessness of your situation?  Even if you knew it was probably only temporary.  If so you need to revisit that dark time in your head and tune into the recall of how it felt.  It won't be easy, but the worse it was the better you'll be able to understand how Matt would be feeling, faced with imprisonment and no obvious way of escape.

Add in the bugger factor of him being young.  He may be a hardy little warrior, but he's not yet lived long enough to know that most bad things will pass, given time.  He's going to feel it even more so because he's not long since set up house with his Megan, so all those flowering emotions and plans are going to be cut off short as well.  Stir it all together and apply it thick and heavy.

If it doesn't make you weep or howl with frustration why should it make the readers feel that way?

This is not the sort of thing you can write in cold blood, like assembling a Lego tower from blocks.  It's more like digging a hole in sand and watching the sides keep falling in and refilling the bottom as you work.  You just have to keep digging.

As Wolfe said in another thread, make your character face your greatest fear(s), and survive.  It won't be easy writing, but the result will probably be pure gold.

=====

If you have reached the grand old age of nearly fifty without suffering any traumatic  and hopelessness inducing events - which some lucky souls have - then you'll need to take a slightly different route to get to that motherlode of feelings and raw emotions.  Think of someone else you know who went through hell, and how you felt when you had to watch it but couldn't help.  My guess is that you're quite big on empathy, so tune into how it felt, and what you felt for them at the time.

=====

Be warned that either of these methods may turn you into a grumpy irritable and thoroughly 'out of sorts' person for a while.  There's a good reason why our minds lay a protective callous over some memories, and you're about to rip off the scab and prod the still bleeding/festering wound.

Neither of these approaches need to exactly mirror Matt's situation, but there are common themes in all human suffering.

Desolation at the realisation you will never see a particular individual again.  (You know Matt will get home eventually and find Megan waiting, but he doesn't.  He's not been with her long enough to have the certainty which comes with the years of living together.  He'll wonder if she'll forget him and find another.  After all, he's already had mad moments of jealousy, hasn't he?)

Isolation:  This one will really get to him. Through his Keening he's always been able to tune into his Mother, Grandad etc, so he's never truly been alone.  If I recall one of your earlier drafts correctly he gets taken 'out of range'.

You can add an extra layer to his torture and beatings here.  He'll probably know in advance what they're planning to do to him.  He may be able to turn off this knowledge to some extent, but then he'd fear he was losing the gift which would otherwise give him an advantage if he ever thinks there's a chance to escape.  A real dilemma there, and one which he can only solve for himself, alone.

The physical beatings he'll probably be able to endure moderately well, being a hardy little soul, but it will still wear him down and make him easy prey for the mental torments of his own mind.  A couple of cracked ribs and bruised lungs from a thorough kicking may make him feel as if he's going to die.  Once he's lived though it the first time and survived he'll still dread the pain, but a little part of him will have toughened and know it's not necessarily the end. 

The dirt and vermin of imprisonment will also wear him down.  In many memoirs of trench warfare old soldiers say that the one thing which really got to them, which made them feel so far away from all they knew and loved, was the dirt and the perpetual lice.

Habit:  Once again, in an earlier draft you had him imprisoned in a pit, being forced to fight others and being used as a 'training aid'.  After a few months of this it will begin to become a habit, willing or otherwise.  He will look forward to these moments of violence with a wolf-like relish as relief from the otherwise crushing boredom of imprisonment.  His memories of his previous life will dim, and there will be times he doubts if they are real, wonders if it was all just a sweet fantasy.

Like others in this position he may decide it's best not to think too often about the past, that to live in the present, however brutal, is better than the mental torture of remembering.  This is how some soldiers survive the unspeakable, by totally immersing themselves in what they have to do.  The ones who can't get back out afterwards are the PTSD victims.

Summary:  It's not going to be easy for you.  Accept this.  Writing it is going to be the easiest part, compared to living the anguish alongside Matt.  The other snag is you really like your character, don't you?  He's become real to you.  But you're going to have to cross the line and think of him as his enemies would.  You're going to have to think evil.  Put yourself into that pit.  What is the worst thing they could do to you.  Apply it to Matt.

This is likely to be rough writing.  Don't even think about editing it until a), you've finished those parts, and b) you've calmed down enough to be Skip The Editor again.   When you've finished go out into the countryside or wherever with your Bunny and find yourself again before you edit.

If what you find on the page shocks, sickens, and angers you then you've got it right.  Don't be tempted to reject it as too horrible.  Remember it was Skip The Writer who wrote it, not gentle PawPaw who plays with his grandchildren ;-)

Welcome to the Gates Of Hell.  Arm yourself, and enter.

Best wishes,

Gyppo

My eldest has a blog post about these mystical sea creatures on her 'witchy' website.

I'm rather pleased how she writes.  This is the child who used to drag a blanket into my 'office' and fall asleep curled up by my chair listening to the patter of a typewriter.  Too young to read at that age she referred to it a 'Dad's music'.

If you're curious enough to have a look this link will take you straight there.

https://www.ajscottage.com/post/whispers-waves-the-folklore-of-sea-singers-ocean-winds

Gyppo

   Writers' Life Lessons

   Your pencil will only break if you don't have a sharpener or knife handy.  If you write notes in pencil you have a perfectly legitimate reason for carrying a small but sharp knife at all times.

   Your pen will only run out of ink if you don't have a spare.  Two is good, three is better.  More than three probably means you also have a slide rule and a pocket protector.   Geek ;-)

   Paper notebooks aren't inherently waterproof, you need to keep them in a bag or cover because writing on soggy paper with your unbroken pencil isn't easy.

   Its a good idea to have a permanent ink pen so that notes written on dry paper don't run and become illegible when you drop them in a puddle, or the bath, or leave them out in the rain after working in the garden on a sunny day.

   If  you have a wireless mouse or keyboard the spare batteries you have will inevitably be the wrong size.
   
   Licking the ends of  a dying battery to reduce the resistance before putting it back in may help the device to draw that last little bit of current and let you finish a sentence.  Do not do this with a 9 volt battery with both terminals on the same end.

   Tired batteries can be temporarily revived by warming them up on a low heat or a radiator.  Do not think of trying this with a microwave oven.  If you have a an old surplus microwave oven and an extension lead plug it in out in the garden and 'nuke' a battery to find out why ;-)

   Being able to touch type at 120 wpm doesn't necessarily make you a writer, just a fast typist.

   Learning shorthand won't, in itself, make you a journalist.  But it will really piss off ill-mannered people who try to read over your shoulder ;-)

   Develop a good short term memory.  It's probably best not to make notes at the time when people watching in a cafe.  Some people get upset  when they see you staring at them and writing things down.  Paranoid types like this can often turn abusive, and sometimes even violent.

   If interviewing someone don't rely on your hand-held recorder.  Jot down the salient points as well.  The wrong battery law mentioned earlier also applies to recording equipment.

   Sitting conspicuously in Costa or Starbucks with your laptop won't magically turn you into a writer.  Drinking overpriced coffee won't give you a career like J K Rowling unless you have the talent and the stickability.

         ===

There are indeed some evil old bags - and young ones for that matter - who really delight in telling the horror stories to innocent young Mums.  And the really hard core 'Spreaders Of Gloom' will start on the Dads if there's no cringing first time Mum to torture.

I was in the Dads room at Treliske Hospital, Cornwall, along with three other soon-to-be-Dads.  One of them was a hardened old veteran of four births, we other three were first-timers.

Enter one evil old hag who would have been at home sat knitting at the base of the Guillotine, "Knit one, Purl one..." and screaming out ecstatically "Drop one!" every time a head thudded into the basket.  I will spare you the horror stories, because they truly were but I'll swear it was a well-rehearsed routine.

Her grand-daughter was in to have a child and the prognosis wasn't good.  The hardened old father of four tried to divert her as the tales grew darker by pointing out that things weren't necessarily as dark as she painted them, that his missus had produced four children as easily as 'shelling peas'.

"Life's like that..." she pounced, "just when everything's going well, suddenly it all goes horribly wrong."

With one emergency caesarean (my missus), and another younger lad quietly cacking enough bricks to build a wall because his offspring was coming early at about 7 months and wouldn't be stopped, the last thing we needed was the Evil One.

She'd got to the "Course, it's all right for you men.  All you have to do is pop another one in there, it's us women who feel the loss when things go wrong." 

A nurse came in and bustled her away, looking apologetically back over her shoulder.  Ten minutes later the same nurse returned with a tray of much appreciated coffees and a few biscuits.  One of us asked how the old ladies grand-daughter was doing, and had that been why they whisked her away so quickly?

It turned out she was a crazy old woman with no children or grandchildren, who had gone a bit loopy years before, and was visiting a friend with a hernia.  But she had a habit of creeping up to the maternity wing just to share the gloom of her own long-ago disaster.  More to be pitied than reviled, but it was far easier to see that in retrospect.

In our little cluster the premature baby was fine, (unbelievably tiny, but fine), my Missus presented me with a huge baby girl, the Dad-of-five took Missus and latest home within a few short hours of the birth (She walked into the Dad's room to show him off, telling it was as easy as shelling peas.)  And the other one was pretty non-eventful too.

One of these days I might write an item about the Dad's room.  It's a funny place...

Gyppo

We used to have an 'answer a question with a question' game.

I found this little snippet when looking for something else.

=====

In the question game...

NOIZCHILD:  Why do we dream?

SPELLCHICK:  Is it because Shakespeare said we could?

FIREFLY:  Did we need his permission?

NOIZCHILD:  What if I said yes?

GYPPO:  We'd probably ignore you, wouldn't we?  Dost not know, Fair and Mysterious Maiden from a far distant shore, Shakespeare is long in his grave, (although probably a little shorter than he was in the full flower of his living manhood), and well out of copyright, so to parody or misquote the Immortal bard is well within our enfeebled modern grasp, and therefore no grasping lawyer upon this Celestial Globe we fondly refer to as home, no matter how pernicious, sly, and avariciously fond of unearned Shekels from his own creatively written Billable Hours, holds any dominion over our use or even misuse of the hallowed words?

I thought it was lost for good, on a disc of a different format from several computers ago.  I've been thinking about the characters...

Today, rooting through some old stuff I found a hefty taped up bundle in an old typing paper box.  The old quarto sized stuff.

There it was, 60,000 words of it, and when I looked at it I realised why I couldn't find a disc, or a thumb drive with it, or even a file copied from one computer to another.

From 1980.  It was pre-computer, done on a real typewriter.  The font looks strange.  Not weird strange, just unfamiliar after decades of Time New Roman in various sizes..

I shall look at it again tomorrow, in proper daylight.

It was my entry for - I believe I've got this right - The TSB Peninsula Prize.  Open to natives of Cornwall, or people living there.  Apart from a reasonable cash prize there was also a publication contract for the winner.  I didn't win it.

But the dream was there. And my wife was already learning that sometimes when the words called, she'd lose me for a few hours at a time.

Ah well...  I'm glad it's not truly lost.

Gyppo

PS:  It followed one of the golden rules for a thriller.  Body on the first page  ;-).   

Gyppo

Three days ago I checked at the right time and I realised the sun during the eclipse would be viewable from the front of my bungalow.  All I had to do was pray the drought wouldn't break (yet) so the sky wouldn't be full of clouds.

Between 6-30 and 7-30 we sat out there in camping chairs, and were joined by my neighbour and her grandson.  He was a bit shy about meeting a batch of strangers but we assured him he was welcome and found a stool for him to sit on.  He's autistic and although we didn't tell him we were all on the same wavelength, to varying degrees, I think he soon felt comfortable with us.

It was quiet fun and we had about 95% totality.

We all had the proper glasses to watch it safely.  My neighbour Linda had also made an old-school 'pinhole viewer' where you stand with your back to the sun, look through a different hole, and see the sun reflected on the inside of the box without all the glare. It looks like a very Heath-Robinson bodge, but it works.  Just as early 'pinhole' camera works.

Linda's daughter and her friends had also gone for the box bodge, seeing as they'd left it too late to get eclipse glasses and a group of them were stood on the common about six miles away.

There was some joking about the best kind and size of box.

Linda told her she could use a cat food box.

"We couldn't possibly do that, Mum.  We're Vegans."

It was a thoroughly enjoyable hour or so.  As I told my Grandaughter, "This is real science.  Not just a book or a video."

Seeing as I will be 130 years old when we next get to see a total eclipse in this part of the world the statistics are against me.  But, if I'm still around I'll turn out for it.

We also had fun seeing the birds get confused, fly up to roost, sing their evening song, and then come down again pecking away at the rock-hard ground looking for breakfast.

A 'darkish' kid from further up the road came along and politely asked what we were doing.  So we explained and invited him to have a look through the glasses, and the box, and he was fascinated.

"Wow!  That's really cool.  How often does this happen.?"  When we told him how long until the next one he was over the moon that he'd been willing to ask what we were doing.  We thought it was great that were still kids willing to ask questions.  That's what we used to do.

Gyppo

No Parking or Turning

As a kid I used to wonder
about those little signs,
'No parking or turning!'
some people had in their driveways.

I could understand the no parking,
but what harm was there if,
frustrated by a narrow lane,
someone briefly nosed in
to turn around.

Today, stood at the kitchen window,
I saw someone back into my space,
just to turn their car around,
and heard myself say out loud
"Piss off."

I guess it comes with age ;-)

Gyppo

When I finally treated myself to my rather expensive Fisher 'Space Pen' a few years back I tested all the claims made for it.

Yes, it writes underwater.
Yes it writes on various greasy surfaces.
Yes it writes upside down.
Yes, it writes on wet paper.  (Truly useful if your writer's notebook gets damp.)

I tried all these things and more, but I could never bring myself to deliberately put it through the washing machine.  I wondered if it could survive.  I said at the time this test would probably happen sooner or later in the natural order of things.

Yesterday it did, and I didn't even notice until I was pegging out the laundry and realised the tiny pen was securely in my shirt pocket.

No leaks, no problems, no damage.  And unasked for proof that the clip  holds well despite washing and spinning.

The only outstanding 'normal' question is would it survive a 90 degree 'boil wash'.  I think it would, but, once again, I can't bring myself to do it deliberately,  But if it happens, I'll let you know.

I must admit I'm tempted to fire it from a crossbow, just to see what happens.  Even the makers never tried that ;-)

Gyppo

    Student teacher loses the entire class in one wrong move.

    Some student teachers accept the fact that a new class is going to test them.  Some try to head it off at the pass before it happens.  Some succeed and some fail gloriously.

    One of the most successful was a science teacher called Mr Death.  He watched us all traipse in and sit down with varying degrees of enthusiasm and check out his tweed jacket and leather elbow patches.  First point in his favour, for looking like a proper science teacher.

    "Before I do the register, are you all here, or are we expecting anyone to come in late?"

    We looked around and agreed that we were all present.

    He turned his back and wrote on the blackboard, My name is Mister Death.

    That got our attention, and he turned and allowed us to settle.

    "It is pronounced De Ath."

     I wondered why it didn't have an apostrophe, like some French names,  or even a hyphen, but kept my thoughts to myself.  After all, this was a science class, not English.

    "Under the circumstances I'm perfectly happy just to be addressed as Sir."  A short pause followed and then, "You can have a few minutes to laugh or smirk if you want, and then I'll do the register and put faces to names."

    The approach worked well.

    =====

    The other example was a student teacher of English, who, despite not looking much older than most of us fifteen and sixteen year olds, which made us automatically suspicious of him, presented the persona of an older and irascible man..

    We were all in class before he arrived, throwing the door open, and strode in ordering us to be silent.

    "I've been warned about you lot."  I've since wondered if this was true, or if it was just a rehearsed opener.  "So let's establish the rules.  I expect discipline and respect.  Anyone who steps out of line will be sent straight to the Headmaster's office.

    "Do not expect kindness.  I am a sadist."

    Derek, who was normally quiet, but occasionally went where others feared to tread, asked, "What's a sadist, Sir?"

    "This is an English class, you've got a dictionary.  Look it up, Boy."

    Many dictionaries were consulted.  Many young faces cracked and then froze into the deliberate blank look which teachers must dread.

    "What does it say, Boy?"

    "I'd rather not say, Sir."

    "Nonsense.  Come here to the front and read it out to everyone, so they can all hear it."

    Derek came forward reluctantly, looking like a deer caught in a poachers lamp, then settled and read it with slow deliberate relish.  A clear case of 'if I'm going to be in trouble, let's make it worthwhile'.

    "Sadist.  One who derives sexual pleasure from inflicting pain upon another."  Pause.  "Sir."

    The student teacher raised his hand as if to strike Derek, then lowered it, clearly trapped.

    "That can't be right."

    Several other open school dictionaries were thrust toward him, fingers pointing at the entry.  After a few frozen seconds he slammed back out of the room and stomped down the corridor.  Derek went back to his desk.  Those who hadn't looked it up gathered around those who had and read the damning words.

    After about five minutes of giggles and noisy hysterical laughter the teacher from the next class along came in and shut us up, and asked what had happened.

    "Oh dear," he said, face twitching.  "Just read, or talk quietly amongst yourselves.  I expect something will be arranged soon."  His shoulders were heaving as he walked back to his own class.

    After about quarter of an hour another teacher came along, took over the class with the quiet kind of authority we expected, and got us settled down.

    We never saw the student teacher again, and for that term he wasn't replaced.  I bet he's never forgotten us either.

    Gyppo

    The snag with setting up a new household, as I did several years ago, is all the equipment starts to wear out at around the same time.  Eventually they'll get 'out of sync', but not just yet.  So a few days back I bought a new fridge.  More on that later.

    My stand mixer - which takes quite a beating making bread maybe three times week - is serving notice.  It's leaking black oil down  into the bowl, so I can safely assume a bearing is dying, or a seal is buggered. (If it was a truly expensive machine, like a Kenwood Chef or similar, it would be worth getting it repaired. ) I may have a look inside later before I throw it out.

    Perhaps it's a union appliance and it's 'coming out in sympathy' with the fridge  ;-)  It's the same make and model as the previous one and they've both lasted nearly three years. So they've cost me around 50 Pence a week.   (Can't really grumble at that.)  So I'm looking to replace it, hankering for one with a slightly bigger bowl and, in the adverts,  I'm finding all sorts of garbage 'features' on newer models which I truly don't need.

    Such as twelve speeds, or glass bowls.  Six speeds are more than ample, and even four would do just fine as long as one was really fast for mixing meringues or whipping the hell out of cream.  The advertising claims it gives 'greater control', especially when used with the' built in timer'.  Speaking as a real world baker I know that real control comes from;  a) knowing what you're doing, b) standing by the mixer to make sure your whipped cream doesn't suddenly turn into a bowl of butter, and just learning how long things take, (which can vary according to the weather),  and not mindlessly adhering to some 'one size fits all' timing in  a recipe book.

    Glass bowls:  Make no sense to me.  They are inherently fragile and much heavier than the equivalent size of time-tested stainless steel.

    They let you see when the beater hasn't picked up from the bottom or sides, but realistically you can always assume that anyway, unless the beater is scraping itself away against the inside of the bowl.  So just stop it and give a scrape around anyway.  That's what plastic bakery scrapers are for.  As well as cleaning frost off windscreens and quickly spreading buttercream on the sides of cakes.  (It feels more natural than a palette knife held vertically.)

    Apparently a glass bowl also lets you see if there are lumps in your buttercream.  There wouldn't be any if you ran the icing sugar through a sieve first, but that takes time.  (Important if you're going to be piping traditional Royal Icing through a fine nozzle. )   But people skip that step, save a  few minutes, and then lose them again later, and get pissed off,  having to bash the icing around more in the hope of breaking down the lumps.

    Like almost everything in life, if you do it properly right from the start it's quicker than 'saving time'.

    The other reason people use glass bowls is they can cover the top and then watch the dough rising.  If you've got time to watch it rising you're probably the sort of person who sets their washing machine for the fastest possible wash cycle, and then stands there mesmerised as the clothes and bubbles circle around behind the glass door.

    My digital kitchen scales had a 'funny five recently as well.   My bread dough was far stiffer than usual, and when I checked there was four extra ounces there.  I'll look into that later.  Maybe I just read the display incorrectly.  If not there's another thing which can no longer be trusted.

    =====

    Son in law helped me get the new freezer onto the stack, so all is well in that department.  Once it's settled overnight and come to working temperature I'll transfer everything from the old one , sling that out into the back garden using my sack truck, and have my kitchen back to normal again.  It'll be nice not to have to shimmy like a belly dancer - I know, it's a hideous vision - just to get to the sink and fill a kettle.  Fifty years ago I'd have described it as 'swerving like a bullfighter'  ;-)

    Gyppo

Written towards the end of the last century.  Doesn't seem that long ago, but...  About 1100 words.

Gyppo

      Swings & Things   

   I'm just the man who looks after the swings and things.

        I spotted him almost as soon as he started to hang around.  You get an instinct for a wrong-un.  Twenty years as a Redcap (Military Police) and another fifteen as a civvy copper doesn't leave much room for the 'benefit of the doubt'.

        Now I just keep on eye on the park and look after the swings and things.  Well, it gives me a uniform to wear for the last ten years or so of my working life, and nice regular hours.  A man gets into certain habits.

        Sometimes I get to bellow at teenage vandals and intimidate the thugs.  Believe me, it's not every 'Parkie' who has a real Sergeant's bellow like mine...  Or a subtle prod with a thumb or protruding knuckle which can really hurt without leaving any marks.  But the little kids all love me, and a lot of the young Mums who bring them have a soft spot for 'Old Ron'.

        Mind you, that's all it is, just a soft spot.  No hanky panky.  I've a Missus at home for that kind of nonsense and she takes care of all my needs very nicely, thank you very much.  And no-one cooks a Sunday roast as well as my Missus.

        Over the last few years I've earned a sort of 'Honorary Grandad' status, and although it's not part of the job I'll gladly keep an eye on the kids if their Mum has to go to the Ladies, or nip across the road to the shops for picnic stuff.  Sometimes they even share a sandwich or two with me.

        But, back to the wrong-un.  He didn't look like a kiddy fiddler...  Well, not the popular image of one, but I've seen his type before.  About thirty years old, neat and tidy, almost dapper one might say.  Some of the Mums thought he was after them, I heard them joking about it.  Which would have been fair enough, because some of them are right little crackers.  If I wasn't a happily married man...

        So I kept an eye on him when he came to the park, about three times a week at lunchtimes, to feed the ducks in the river and take pictures of them.  Well, that's what he said the camera was for when one of the more militant Mums challenged him about it.

        Kids being kids a lot of them wanted their picture taken but he nearly always said no, claiming the memory card was nearly full.  Sometimes they would be climbing all over the bench to see when he showed them pictures of the ducks, their little bodies pressed close as he clicked through the images in the playback screen.  It made my flesh crawl, but you can't hang a man just on suspicion, can you?

        The first exception to the 'ducks only' rule were some pictures he took of little Ebony and her Mum, Jackie.  'Jax' to her friends.  Ebony is a sweet little thing with big brown eyes who looks like a startled fawn, and Jackie has hair like a dandelion clock, which changes colour nearly every week.

        Jackie let him take some pictures in return for a copy, which he produced the next time he came, offering her a CD with the pics on it.  Seems like he made a good job, because I heard her telling some of the others.

        So it was no surprise when a few others asked him to do the same.  He and Jackie seemed to hit it off, and with her being a single Mum there was no obvious harm in that.  She seemed so happy that for a while I began to doubt my own assessment of him.

        But thirty-five years of Coppering kept me watching him as I went about my daily work.

        Eventually he made a mistake - they always do, you know - and left his camera with Jackie while he went for ice creams.

        "Any more good pics of little Ebony?"  I casually picked it up and thumbed through the digital pics before she had a chance to protest.  Not that she was likely to, after all, 'Old Ron' wasn't going to steal it, was he?

        "Probably not.  He deletes most of them, says they're not good enough."

        I turned the camera back off and put it down.  "He's better with ducks than kids."  I said casually, before moving away and savagely beheading a few weeds with my litter picking tool.

        Legs and knickers...  Far too many legs and knickers...  Photographing girls on swings you're bound to get some, but not that many...  Not with that degree of close-up.  I could picture his neat little fingers probing where the camera had been before...  For the first time in years I struggled to do justice to the dinner my Missus had waiting when I got home.

        The only question now was how to handle it.  It took a week or two to find out where he lived and his daily routine.

        ****

       I made sure it was me who found his body, early one morning before the kids arrived.  Before even the most energetic of joggers thudded past on the dewy grass.  I was there early to untangle the swing chains, something that usually happened after the local youths had been on the beer.  Just an everyday part of my job, nothing suspicious.

        As a responsible ex-Copper I called the local nick, and then they took over.  There he was, hanging on a bit of his own clothesline, from the central swing of the set of three.

        They checked his flat, which was when they found the rest of the cut clothesline.  But a burglar had been in and there was nothing photographic left to point any fingers in his direction. 

        It made the local news but once the blue and white incident tape was removed  it didn't stop the kids from coming to play.  Jackie stopped bringing Ebony for a while, but life goes on and she was soon back.  She'd lost some of her sparkle though, which was a pity.  Maybe she really had cared for him.  Women can be funny like that sometimes.

        But you can't have a man like that hanging around a park, pun not intended.  Once a park gets a name for perverts people stop using it, and the Council eventually remove the equipment.  It happens every time.  And if they did that where would I be?

        After all, I'm just the man who looks after the swings and things.

        ***

  Spreading a little cheer

    The receptionist at the dentist, a cheery and competent little dark-haired wench, was very patient with the slightly confused old bugger who couldn't get the card reader to work when it was time to pay.  It didn't have a proper number pad and was some more hi-tech touch screen thing.  Apart from my Kindle touch-screens and my fingers have always had a somewhat fractious relationship.

    Often they simply don't work for me.  Other times they'll work even when I'm wearing rubber gloves, which should interfere with the necessary conductivity.

    It took far too long to enter the details and the poor lass was up and down like a yo yo to see what I was doing - or not doing - on the raised counter, which discretely protects the staff from stroppy customers.   But she stuck with it like a trouper, smiling gently.  In between she was really struggling to remove a staple so she could feed two sheets of paper through the scanner. 

    Making as much of a cock-up as I was with the card reader.

    Eventually we both prevailed, I paid for the treatment and left with an idea in my mind.

    Two days later when it had cooled down a bit, I went back.  One of the male staff asked what he could do for me, and I said I wanted to talk to the young lady.  There were two men there and both looked a bit amused.

    "I've just dropped back in to say thank you for being so patient on Wednesday when I was struggling with the card reader."
 
    "Thank you, Sir.  But it's just part of my job."

    "I also watched you struggling to remove a staple, at great risk to your nails, so as a little gift I've brought you a handy staple remover."

    She flushed and blustered a bit.

    "Sorry, but I can't..."  The men were highly amused at this point.  I got the impression she was usually very much 'Little Miss Cool'.

    "Please don't offend me by refusing.  It's not expensive and I have several.  They're really useful."

    She looked at one of the men and he gave her a nod.

    I handed over the gadget and she thanked me.  Face returning to it's normal colour.     

    It's a lighter weight version of the one I use for upholstery staples, not one of those hideous 'claw things' which rarely work properly.  Plus it captures the staple instead of sending it flying across the room.  Sits nicely in the  'pen pot' too.

    Left click if you feel an urge to enlarge the picture at the bottom.

    "Have you ever used one?"

    "No."

    "Then allow me to demonstrate."  Gyppo back in tutor mode for a few seconds.  I had a folded bit of paper in my pocket with two staples already in place.

    I showed her how easy it was.

    "Oh, that's neat."

    "Yeah.  Painless.  Now it's your turn."  I handed over the paper and the tool.  The two men were fascinated by it too.

    She popped her staple with no problem.

    "Like magic."

    "You're welcome.  Try not to lose it or let anyone borrow it."

    And off I went, leaving three smiling faces.

    Gyppo

   It's too damned hot to do anything energetic today.  So...  at 9-30 this morning I had a dentist appointment.  Those who know me well enough will be looking puzzled now, knowing I had all my teeth taken out when I was eighteen.   Coming up for 60 years ago. This was due to nerve damage from a blow to the back of my head, which basically killed them all off.

   The dentist at the time cheerfully told me this was common in boxers, who had 'hit the canvas too often', or street fighters who had 'hit a kerb or a park bench at an unfortunate angle'.

   I adjusted well to plastic teeth and am on my fourth set of NHS plastic now.  Never truly got on with the bottom set though, and have developed lower gums like iron and can eat almost anything anyway.

   But...  And there's always a but in life.  ;-)

   About twenty years ago I unexpectedly grew one new tooth, right at the back.  Probably a solitary rebellious wisdom tooth which was determined to have it's moment of glory.  I vaguely remember using teething gel on it for a while, like a baby, then forgot all about it.

   It never caused me any real problems, but over the last year it's become painful, so I arranged to have it taken out this morning.  The dentist, a brisk and friendly chap,  was initially quite happy to do this. He checked if I was on any medication so I showed him the list.

   He told his assistant to stop writing notes and said he couldn't do it.  He cheerfully informed me that with one of my pills there was a danger I 'wouldn't stop bleeding until I was empty'.

   This left me with a potential four week wait for an NHS hospital appointment, which I would have gone for in this damned heat wave if it wasn't hurting.

   Or...   a private  appointment with a dental surgeon, who was properly trained and equipped to deal with 'problem patients' like me.

   "How soon?"

   "Five PM today.  Here at this practice."

   "Let's do it."

   Turned out they had a cancellation, so I'm back there again at two-thirty.

   Quote:  "My colleague is very good at this kind of thing.  He's been doing it for years.  If he can't get it out nobody can."

   There'll be an X-Ray, so he knows exactly what he's doing before he starts, and then I can go home with painkillers and antibiotics, and go back to grumbling about the heat.

   Taxi is booked , so I'll set the alarm and have a nap first.

   Gyppo

   The Way It Was...

   When Dad was a civil engineering foreman he had one standard first question for  anyone who came looking for a 'casual' labouring job.

   "Show me your hands."  If they looked too soft, no matter how willing the man might be, he'd be politely declined.  Leathery calloused palms, scarred knuckles, and 'decent' forearms even if the  biceps weren't as impressive as the bowling ball size of some of his 'Big Irish Buck Navvies'.

   "I probably passed over a few good men, but for a day labourer I needed someone who could do a day's work."

   "Work or walk."  His standard response if someone thought he was expecting too much, and started whittering on about union rules.

   "I never expect anyone to do something I can't.  Except for specialised skills, like the digger drivers. '   A true 'working foreman'.

   The work gang often referred to him as 'That little red headed Hitler', but the same men kept coming back to work with him, sometimes walking out on another job to be in 'Ginger's gang'.

   It was always 'job and finish', and he always made sure they got paid.  Some foremen worked for the boss and would kick a bloke off the site before the job was done and then not pay up.   Some would pocket the man's wages for themselves.

   Dad always taught me and Sis that 'the labourer is worthy of his hire', and if not you pay him for what he'd done so far and 'give him his cards.' Then  the others would take up the slack and get a cash bonus for still finishing on time.

   As a child I always thought these massive men, some of them a foot taller than Dad, were his friends.  Over the years I realised that only a few of them were.  I leaned that you can work with people without having to like them.  That lesson stood me in good stead at many places.

   "There's times, Son, when I feel more like a bloody Lion Tamer than a foreman.  And some of them are such thieves they'd sell their tools for a bottle of booze, then grumble on Monday that someone had stolen their pick or shovel.'  There were always a few spares to cover genuine breakages, but they were counted up at the end of a job.

   The best workers had their own tools, and woe betide anyone who picked up another's personal pickaxe.  In all  fairness some of the taller chaps had longer handled tools to suit their physical stature.  Just as the odd shorter but wiry little sod would take two inches out his shovel handle to make it more ergonomic for him.  Comfort counts when you're doing the same thing for hours on end.

   Looking back I realise that some of this mixed crew of Scots, Irish, Gypsies, Londoners, and the occasional Aussie wanderer 'working his passage', were probably functional alcoholics, working their arses off to pay for a 'lost weekend'.  But come Monday they'd be back again.  Not too sociable for the first few hours, but reliable.

   I asked Dad once if  he'd ever employed a black man.  I knew he had a sailor's tolerance for 'others'

   "No."  He thought for a bit longer.  "If he'd passed the hand test I'd have given him a start though.  But I never had one ask."

   "What about a woman?"

   "Never happened.  But if she could do the job I'd have given her a start too.  Even if the rest of the gang had their doubts."  He had a funny little smile on his face.

   Then he mentioned a few 'strapping great women' he'd met whilst in Australia with the Royal Navy.  One of them was a crane driver at the docks, a fierce man-hating lesbian who felt she could out-work any man, and challenged 'The Little Pom' to a drinking contest, convinced she could 'drink any bloody matelot under the table'.  Many shots of rum later, urged on by an audience from both sides, she suggested they call it a draw, because they both had to work the next day.

   I asked him if he could have beaten her.  "i]Probably[/i], but we'd likely both have ended up in hospital having our stomachs pumped."

   Cautionary tales like this probably tempered some of my own wilder temptations later in life.

   But he did tell a joke about employing a lady hod carrier for a few weeks.  Said she was half as fast again as most of the men, and would slide back down the ladder to speed things up.  I saw Dad do this once, and my Uncle Jack, sliding down the rails on the insteps of his welly boots, braked by his palms.  Health and Safety would have messed their pants to see it.  Dad said sailors did it on the shorter ladder of companionways between decks.  Despite being told not to.

   Back to the joke.  Dad said he was showing a new man around the building site, when the woman came sliding down and her jeans split wide open across the crotch, revealing all.


   The new man said "F*** this.  I'm off.  You've worked the balls off that poor bastard."

   Different world.

   Gyppo



   
   

Someone sent me this and I can't resist sharing it.  If I liked t-shirts I'd have it printed.

'Hold my halo.
I'm about to do unto others what they've done unto me.'

I have just spent twenty minutes - twenty minutes I will never get back - watching the slowest starting film it's ever been my misfortune to encounter.

Twenty minutes as it jumped around from one cut to another, presumably introducing all the key players. Plenty of shootings and beatings, but all without any real context. I switched it off

If a novel took that long to get to the meat of the story it would never get into print.  I suspect even the writer would walk away from his keyboard and blow his own brains out to avoid the tedium of writing another 'action' scene.

There seems to be a school of thought in film-making which says as long as someone is getting shot or beaten up, or doing almost physically impossible things with a vehicle, that's enough to tell the story.

It's not.  Stories tell a cohesive thread, no matter how convoluted.  Cheap action movies are often described as under-rated.  Click-bait blurbs say 'You have never seen a movie like this before!'

The reason it's under-rated is that's totally un-rated.  No-one has ever had the endurance to watch to the end  and still have the energy left to say just how mind-numbingly poor it is.

I suspect it is the kind of film people fall asleep watching and then - quite rightly - grumble about their being nothing on TV.

I won't tell you its name.  Just in case you're tempted to see how bad it is.  I wouldn't wish it on my own worst enemy,

Gyppo

Only the other day I said to my daughter "I've not had any scam or spammy phone calls for ages.  Obviously the telephone preference service works after a few weeks to settle in."

Today, just to make me a liar, I received an automated call on my non-directory number telling me a) the immigration authorities had been trying to contact me, b) it was important, and c) I needed to make sure they had the right number so they wouldn't miss me again.  It then asked me to choose between English and Chinese.

Obviously some sort of scam 'come-on', although I've no idea what happens to the poor sods who fall for it.

So I swore at them in Romanes (Romany language) and hung up  ;-)

Grandaughter leaned back in through the door and asked, "Was that the immigration scam?  We both had a call from them today."

So presumably one of those very widespread come-ons.

Gyppo