165: Spellcheck (Flashfic)

Andrew Leave a comment

One of the great practices awarded me by the Belfast Writers Group is that of having a go at flash fiction, 15 minute writing exercises. Last week I uploaded ‘Locked Doors’ which I will tell you nothing more about. No. Forbidden. I wrote this:

The boys rolled the wooden wheel twelve feet all of it speedier and somehow keeping pace another three in front carted grid pallettes: stacked half dozen. Another the same ahead of them. Muscled up and aged between eight and ten, some acted as guards, waving them along. Or maybe they were like startled pigeons or the car passengers which ran alongside.

And they’ll drop them off and get them in another factory and the adults will stack them tall in the field and then everything will burn. The lush green land of Antrim, burn! The blue skies of Down, burn, smoke and flame! Armagh, Fermanagh, Tyrone —

“IF YOU BURN IT, Will it grow again?”, I yelled.

The boy whirled to look at me, then pushed his wheel again. My distraction would not help it stop. The two teams of carters did the same and escaped narrowly their own wounding. An ox-man and four-boobs bleacher turned to look at me, her saggy plastic bag even, piercing the area with it’s haunting.

I selfishly expected not to make it home by desk.

That night, the freedom fighting guardians urinate: our country-men undressed to Scientologist pyjamas, Westboro Baptist night-gowns, number 20Q the woman-beater. As they slept or did not, I took my reprieve, and crept out into the darkness. Jay met me among the criss-cross of back alleys and the graffiti exhorting warfare. It hadn’t seen a spell-checker.

‘Cameron Go, Game of Thrones Style!’

Then the pair of us moved the brushes and sprays onto the next blank wall. There we painted a large iris overlooking a yellowed union flag underpants, that dripped down into a coffee cup on fire.

‘Radio 4 – For God and Ulster’

That was on the next street over already.

‘Daily Fail Wordsearch – Today: Indians’

We took our time there because Jo wanted to make it ‘Canadians’.

By 3am we’d become annoyed, so returned home to a flask. He wanted to expose the negligent junkie dad at 3 G.S.E, I thought it would be good for us to de-weed the bus stop.

“Yeah, we’ll be putting up a timetable next.”

Forty new pieces of cross-discipline graffiti went up that night and there was a spate of copycat acts later that month with old world maps re-created, and classical music notes on the Albertbridge. Inked hyperlinks adorned Knockbreda, a mosaic appeared one night on the Castlereagh Road. In Dee Street, a minimalist man, Chad Kilroy peered over a wall, and asked, “Where’s Banksy?”.

Only four of these were burned in the July 12th bonfires, painted on the walls by people’s homes. Within two years, literacy was up.

166: Comic – Mark Littlewood

Andrew Leave a comment

Today’s piece came out of this article by Mark Littlewood calls for a public domain register of benefit claimants.

They cannot be serious: but published, a right-wing agenda by a man with Westminster pull –  likely means some other mad kunter will try.

Thanks to @wheresbenefit and their peer group for bringing this to my attention, esp. @trialia and @latentexistence

More details on the ATOS incident alluded to in panel 4 here.

mark littlewood

PS Why not sign the petition calling for the sacking of Littlejohn after goading suicide Lucy Meadows? Go on.

168: Beano, Menace, Codswallop and Hand

Andrew Leave a comment

Every so often, on anniversaries, press releases and the final Dandy in print, there’s a chatter of codswallop that goes something like this, give or take some aspects:

The Beano/Dandy isn’t British anymore. They’ve changed it. He isn’t allowed to hit Walter, who has a girlfriend now. He’s all “rad, dudes!”, and he doesn’t look the same, and he does nice things. They’ve changed it, They’ve changed it, They’ve changed it!!!

Talk to teh hand, cos ze face, it ain’t lissenin.

dennis the menace

My FB feed seems to be a good place for rational discussion (heheheehe YEAH, YEAH) When these same ignorant generalisations came up a while back, I decided to post some ignorant generalisations of my own. Here’s the crib:

1. Social attitudes towards homosexuality in the 1950s when Walter was created was one of “the other”, or “the enemy”, disgusting and open for ridicule. A bit too cutting edge to make Walter gay, but they certainly went for camp and feminine. In the 1980s and 90s, Walter was shown engaged in a fair bit of transvestitism and shortly after they began to roll back from “the LGBT baddie in a kid’s comic”. Until this time, there is very little change in the set-up: which leads us onto my next point.

2. Why the Darria would kids of today want to read a comedy about a cool punk and his society holding 1950s values?

3. Journalistic/Reviewer integrity: If I’d a quid for every journalist who wrote, “I’ve cancelled my Beano/Dandy subscription because it’s not what it was”, I’d be doing okay. Double that where they hadn’t read those comics since they themselves were kids, and I’d be a rich man. Liars. They contribute to falling sales and less job security for brilliant cartoonists. (eg. Jamie Smart) Come on, where’s your evidence that you actually bought those comics recently or had them bought for you as gifts? Let’s get academic here. The entire debate glosses over ‘reader types’ anyway.

4. Dennis the Menace US and UK are two unlinked entities, both created in 1951, with the UK version published five days ahead. Have never read the comic or seen the film and can’t comment on the crappiness of either. I did see Beavis and Butthead do their rendition of the Brady Bunch theme tune and that was quite good.

169: Photos – Birthday Buffet Afters

Andrew 1 Comment

Today I wrote a blog post managing to include commentaries on the work ethic, the play ethic, and someone who pissed on my parade taking a knife to his own creative nose. I thought you might be better off with some photographs from a birthday gathering for my girlfriend Dawn,

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…Michael, and Julie…

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Yes, Julie has Tennant-cake.

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The noodles, I did not try. My previous encounter with a buffet left me in agony, tears and a difficulty walking. Whether it was the Yorkgate cook or my own inexperience with buffets, I could not say. Either way, it seemed safer to eat things I do find exciting about the experience: dry brown items, particularly sesame seed prawn toast. 

Michael and Dawn are both vegetarians and I think I’m right in saying, had a much better experience at the Chinese buffet in the Victoria Centre than at the other buffets in Belfast where a wick selection had them working mostly at the dessert end.

Dessert selection is atypical at these places, but there was a cut above here. I think this lass is eating prawn crackers and maple syrup.

 

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Okay, maybe not. But seriously, savoury and sweet will mix to win if vol-au-vents always make you happy.

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Victoria Square, China Buffet King: How people smile after dessert generally makes for a good review of a place.

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172: Locked Doors

Andrew 1 Comment

There were no electrics, just the feel for blood and fluffy spider’s homes, abandoned saucer, and a penny from another age. The echoes were gone, stopped after the door was sealed. A lopsided rotary telephone, pale green waste of the 1980s hung off the orange sponge. There was no room for ghosts, but the photo seeped in regardless, and the buttons, nuts, screws, washers and bolts. The key hung in the lock always then, black and thin, but it was enough. Too easy it turned. When us boys were of age the doorway saw it’s last influx – a surrealist inferno of snakes and ladders weeping through these Elysian fields. The Rubik cube chucked, Evil Kinevil came off his bike, the 1981 Sapphire and Steel annual was 2-D only.

The sports-men retirement didn’t seem so bad – twilight years reading editions of Valiant, and Lion. The Arsenal Subbuteo team counted among them a fatality, two cripples, and the comics attracted silverfish and held the damp. In time the dust fell upon Bond’s car clogging the engines, the plans of Thunderbirds International Rescue were of no use to anyone.

In happier times, I’d locked my brother in there.

I returned to the house to help them move but when I got to the cupboard, the key had been removed, just as it was when The Brother Wars were at their fiercest. It was locked. On the other side, Action Man and Buggy Boy, Streamline and Lego Tom Baker waited. In that keyhole chink of light they heard the compact digital that played only 80s music. It should have been a living hell but provided consistency and stability, like nursery rhymes. The glint of new neighbours illuminated the chequered red and white table-cloth, the shinier bits of the cutlery and the cleaner laminate. The curtains came off and the muddy old windows were exchanged for the 21st century. Children entered the house again. They regarded the keyhole with curious eyes. The middle class parents made them watch Blue Peter were sugar-drunk presenters raved about British Pathe, time capsules and the Wayback Machine.