Champ

Three times world champion power walker John Davidson has managed to get himself stuck in his own bedroom wardrobe.  The details surrounding the event are unclear but the 44-year old was last seen at his mother’s dinner table on Friday night after enjoying a slap-up meal consisting of Findus Crispy Pancakes, broccoli and a gravy of undisclosed flavour.  His mother, who was present during the entire meal, said “he finished his dinner as normal and then went upstairs.  I had given him one of my pancakes as I wasn’t really hungry.  They were the chicken and bacon ones which are his favourite and I was still a bit full from the corned beef roll I had for lunch.  It made sense to let him have it rather than let it go to waste.”

The alarm was first raised when his mother realised that he hadn’t come back downstairs for after half an hour.  ”It was raspberry trifle for pudding and there is no way he would normally stay away for that long.  I went upstairs and heard some banging.  It was then that I realised he was stuck inside his wardrobe.  He must have taken a wrong turning by accident.  I could hear him trying to walk around inside and he sounded delirious.”

Cramp

After an hour or so everything went silent inside the wardrobe and John’s worried mother called the fire brigade.  Firefighter chief Andrew Barlow said “I can confirm that we received an emergency call out regarding a 44-year old male who had become trapped inside a bedroom wardrobe.  We suspect that his condition is deteriorating due to the fumes from the mothballs.  We are still awaiting a response from IKEA so we can determine their potency.”

The firefighters thought they had made a breakthrough when they managed to unscrew the mirror on the front of the wardrobe, but behind it lay another impenetrable wooden panel.

“He has been in there for three days now and he still hasn’t had his trifle yet.  I am worried sick.  I hate to see good food go to waste.”

John is not a very nice man.  He works for the government.  So who has tied him to a chair and what do they want?  James is a British soldier during WWII.  Tom is a young boy with a terrible secret.

Three stories.  Three very different people.  All of them battling to survive.

It is a collection of three short stories and Kindle owners can purchase it directly from the Amazon Kindle store (US link and UK link.)   Owners of other ereaders can buy it from Smashwords.  My other books are available for free on Smashwords.  They are all DRM free so can be shared around without any problems.

If anyone is willing to post a review on their blog or even on somewhere like Amazon and Goodreads then you can use the code below to get yourself a free copy from Smashwords.  This offer is open to anyone so if you know any other readers who would be interested in reviewing it then please do tell them!  As a bonus the review will also entitle you to free digital copies of my future books as well.

Code - QH83T

I have the following people to thank for taking the time to read things before they were finished – No Blog Intended, Random Female Blog and April Trice.

The following people have tagged and/or passed on a blog award to me recently – Addie, A Gripping Life, Jbmumofone and Laplumenoire so my thanks to those kind people as well.

Dear Nurse Ratched

My iPhone screen has cracked but the people in the Apple store won’t repair it as I didn’t take out the extended warranty.  What should I do?

First of all let’s be clear; every single person who works in an Apple shop is, without exception, a complete shit gibbon.  Normally I would laugh at your plight but in this instance I can understand.  Please note that I am not actually sympathising with you; I just hate Apple store employees more than I hate pathetic creatures like yourself.  First of all gather up some mud and put it in a display case.  Then stand outside the Apple store and announce that you have some of Steve Job’s pre-cardiac arrest shoe scrapings.  Make sure you record all this as I want to hear the sound of bones snapping when the stampede starts.  This leaves you free to pop into the shop and acquire a brand new iPhone.  Make sure you burn the place down as well.  If that doesn’t work you should kill yourself.

Dear Nurse Ratched

In the office people keep using the same spoon for the sugar and the coffee.  This means the sugar bowl gets clogged up with bits of dried coffee all the time.  What should I do?

Quite frankly the people who do that sort of thing should be flayed every single day for the rest of their miserable lives.  Now, have you seen the film Die Hard with a Vengeance?  The bad guy makes bombs by combining two chemicals that are explosive when mixed together.  I have no idea what they are or where you can get them from.  Perhaps you could ask Bruce Willis as he seems the sort of level-headed chap who knows what is what.  He managed to dump that skinny Demi Moore wife-bitch of his so he is no doubt an expert on this kind of thing.  Replace the sugar and the coffee with these two chemicals and the moment anyone tries to use the same spoon in each bowl the entire kitchen will be blown to smithereens.  If that doesn’t work you should kill yourself.

Pisces, Taurus, Gemini

There is going to be locust storm in your area soon.  I recommend putting bin liners up in the trees to try and slow them down.  You might want to cover yourself in double-sided sticky tape as well in case the swarming starts when you are out getting some milk or whatever it is you buy in that shifty-looking shop on the corner.  Seriously, why does everyone always walk out of there holding a brown paper bag?  Doesn’t make sense.

Cancer, Leo, Scorpio

How often do you eat a banana?  One a day?  More than one a day?  You beast!  No wonder my local Tesco keeps running out of them.  Cut back so the rest of us get a chance to enjoy this potassium-rich treat.  I don’t like kiwi fruits so have one of those instead.  You can even use the skin as a fake beard if you are that way inclined.

Capricorn, Aquarius, Libra

“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” so the saying goes.  Yeah?  Well my niece was sick all over me at the weekend and it would have been better if she had done it in a bush.  It’s one rule for the 17th century philosophers and another rule for the rest.

Virgo, Sagittarius, Aries

Mickey Mouse?  Bloody Bastard more like.  I had to wear a costume for a kid’s party once and after about 30 minutes I passed out due to the heat.  How come Mickey himself never had this problem?  Disney must have had the squeaky-voiced twat jacked up on drugs or something.  It would explain the smile that was permanently etched on his face.

Shock

George Lucas’ legal team was on a PR offensive last night when news leaked out that the multi-millionaire Star Wars franchise owner might be an anteater.  A witness has claimed that she saw him acting strangely in a London restaurant at the weekend.  ”I was sat at my table when out of the corner of my eye I saw Lucas bend down and a long, thin tongue started protruding from his mouth.  At first I thought it might just be a loose bit of spaghetti but then it started moving around on the floor as if it was looking for some small insects.”

Restaurant owner Marvin Marv confirmed that his establishment were aware of the rumour and he wanted to reassure patrons that they don’t allow any animals in the dining area.  When asked if it was true that Lucas had been seen scratching and grooming himself at his table he responded saying “I cannot confirm or deny that at this time.”

Chew

Regular movie-goer Fran Rogers stated that it is a well-kept secret that something isn’t quite right with George Lucas.  ”For instance have you ever seen him eat an apple?  Or even a pear?  If you look at the mouth of an anteater there is no way something like that would fit in it’s snout so it makes sense that Lucas wouldn’t try to eat one.  And what about a satsuma?  No way would an anteater be able to peel one of those.”

A spokesman for Rentokil stated that they received an emergency callout request from a London eatery at the weekend but they are still awaiting test results before being able to confirm anything.  ”I can state that we cordoned off an area once we discovered evidence of claw marks on the floor and on one of the tables.”

“We recovered a long, thin ivory-coloured object that could be either a claw or a beansprout.”

Dear Gordon

I have noticed that the world economy seems to be in dire straits and some people predict the collapse of the entire Euro zone.  What are your thoughts on this matter?

I recently came back from a trip in Europe.  Quite frankly those French border guards are utter wankers, they wouldn’t let me bring back my collection of erotic videos.  Those Gallic perverts practically invented pornography so why are they are so prudish at the border?  Anyway.  The economy is a bit like a cake; you need to let it bake for just long enough but not too long otherwise you are in the shit.  Imagine that the eggs are the banks, the grains of flour are the people and the mixing bowl is where your mean old bastard granddad buried his money before he died.  Yeah, everything is easier with an analogy.  Right, so the banks are fragile like the eggs.  Actually, did you know that you can spin an egg to see if it has gone bad or not?  No word of a lie.  So yeah, spin the banks and if they wobble around too much it means they are bad.  I get all my eggs fresh from the farm so maybe you should do the same.

Dear Gordon

I keep reading articles in the newspaper about carbon tax this and carbon tax that.  As an owner of a petrol-powered lawnmower is it something I should be concerned with?

A fair question.  Back in my younger days I used to open all my tins by hand using my Swiss army penknife.  I managed to build up quite an impressive bit of muscle in my foreman but after a while I got fed up with it.  These days I tend to use electric tin openers and, like you, I became worried about my carbon tax bill.  For all I know this tin opener of mine could have been petrol-powered.  Out on the oil rigs they generate their electricity using gas so it stands to reason that some clever dick figured out how to use petrol to generate electricity in top-end tin openers.  I actually popped down to my local hardware store to enquire about this.  The pervert behind the counter – he has a beard, he must be a pervert – said he didn’t know.  In the end I threw the tin opener away and now I just buy frozen sweetcorn instead of the tinned stuff.

Watchful

56-year old James Worthington has decided to retire after 25 years of diligent neighbourhood watching in his neighbourhood.  He has described his time as a crime fighter as “the most exciting time of my life to date.  Quite simply, nothing can compare to the things I have seen and experienced over the years.  This one time I was up a ladder peering in at number 45 when I saw Mr Graham eating a toffee apple.  Since when has a toffee apple been something you eat indoors?  I found it most irregular and recorded it in my notebook.  It wasn’t even Halloween either.”

“I knocked on his window to ask what the bloody hell he was playing at and he became very evasive and defensive.  He claimed it was just a snack as he was hungry.  I said to him ‘pull the other one mate, it’s got bells on it’.  A standalone apple and a caramel chocolate bar would have made more economical sense.  I never, ever got to the bottom of that one despite draining his fish pond and sleeping in his shed for a week.”

Safe

James’ efforts put a strain on his marriage over the years that “often left me sleeping downstairs on the sofa”.  He said “when my good lady came back from the shops I would pore over the details of the receipt.  If those sods at Tesco think they are outside of my zone of control then they have another think coming.  I know how crafty they can be, sneaking an extra packet of Twiglets into your basket when you aren’t looking.  They must think I was born yesterday.”

Local residents had been calling for him to retire for quite some time and it was an event last week that led to James calling it a day.  ”I saw the lad from down the road buy some barrier contraceptives from the chemist.  I thought he might be using them as gloves to stop his fingerprints from showing up.  When I got up on that ladder and peered into his room I couldn’t believe what I saw.  It was disgusting!”

“I still need to check if his parents know that he is courting”.

Oh Mr Sampson what happened?  I am more than familiar with your usual tastes.  Did you think this would fool me?  Why, only last week I was hiding under the table as you ate dinner with your family.  No, you didn’t see me because that’s the Avon way.  I had a spot of bother with your dog but I was forewarned by the catalogue being face up.  As I peered and sniffed around under the table I couldn’t help but notice that you had used the purple Homer Simpson cheese grater for the cheese salad.  I shed a tear of joy.

Yes, I remember the day you ordered it way back in 2008.  I took a photocopy of the order form for prosperity’s sake.  Order number AV1389-0A.  Look, it’s tattooed onto my hand.  That’s the Avon way.  Last month I was watching you as you sat on your own in the pub.  You ordered Guinness and once again you failed to chastise the barman for not pouring it correctly.  I wept for you.  When you went to the toilet I turned over your beer mat.  I made it face up as you did not have your dog with you.  Then I realised that you are still a dog owner and turned it back over again.  I battled with my inner self for days afterwards.  Such is the emotional price of having a philosophy.

Oh Mr Sampson how I adore thee.

Sausages

A dachshund dog called Max has, after 4 years of excessive barking, decided to pack it in.  The decisive moment came when he was standing next to the lion enclosure during an impromptu visit to the local zoo.  ”There I was, looking at the big cats whilst my owners ate some ice cream, when I noticed a lion approaching me from behind the glass.  He didn’t look like much so I just stared him out for bit.  Then he opened his mouth and roared.  I was so shocked.  I almost shit my pitty-pants.”

Max went on to say “now normally I am a barky type of guy.  And hey, why not?  If I saw a bin I would bark at it.  Just because.  Same with a lampost.  It’s just the way it is.  My mother always told me that if something looks out of place you should bark at it.  If everything looks fine bark anyway, just in case.  It’s better to be safe than sorry.  Mark it and bark it as they say.”

Control

Max’s brush with death has prompted him to “re-evaluate my priorities a bit”.  He says “Right after that lion got in my face it made me think.  Is that how I look when I go on one of my barking rounds?  Is that how people perceive me to be?  Just a loud mouth?  Do I want my kids growing up being scared of me?  Uh-huh.”

“It kinda reminded me of that Monsters Inc. film.  You know, where that big gay blue bear thing finally sees how much he scares children.  I have seen that film maybe a dozen times but it’s only now that I see the wisdom behind that scene.  Big blue guy, I respect you.”

“Talking of having kids, I wonder if the vet will let me have my testicles back.”

In the film there is a ghastly little rabbit called ‘Thumper’.  One quickly realises that he is not a character to be taken literally as he is clearly an allegory for a particularly naughty corgi dog that one once owned.  On many an occasion my servant would feed some gin to this dog and it would run around as crazy as a ferret.  One found this jolly amusing at first but it quickly became tiresome.  One can only imagine that Thumper would make horrendous company if one ever had to share a horse-drawn carriage or a chariot with him.  When the film had finished it was pointed out to me that Thumper is an animal just like Bambi and Mickey Mouse are.  One has to consider what was going on in the head of Disney at this time.

There was a bit in the film where Bambi’s father turns around and leaves him.  One was immediately struck by the similarity of the time I was in France and some French berk of a waiter ignored me when I asked for another plate of olives.  Clearly Disney is familiar with the peculiar French arrogance and one has to admire his attempt at immortalising it on the big screen.  Whilst on the subject of France one feels it is pertinent to point out that Nicholas Sarkozy has a wonky face.  When one is in his company it is most unsettling as one is constantly under the impression that he is about to sneeze.  He once tried to make a joke about whether one had ever considered wearing one’s crown backwards.

It has to be said that one was not amused.