Shiny New Tinfoil

Book stuff first. The vote seems fairly evenly split between dropping the Christmas or Spring anthologies for a while. So I have decided on a plan. If I haven’t cleared, or at least drastically reduced, the backlog by the time of the Halloween anthology, I’ll drop the Christmas book for this year. The two are very close together and dropping one would take a lot of pressure off – and there’s no way I’m dropping Halloween. That one is set in stone. It’s where this all started.

So. I took a few days off to recharge after finishing the Spring anthology and I feel much better for it. Tonight I’m back to full time working (with a break once a week, like normal people) to finally catch up.

The break allowed me to also catch up on the world of Tinhat Foilery. Let’s brush aside the inconvenient fact that most of the Tinhat Foilery of recent years turned out to be true after all. With all the old conspiracy theories now simply mainstream news, the tinfoil brigade have had to come up with new and more bizarre ideas for us. Will they all come true too? Time will tell – but in many cases, I sincerely hope not!

An old one first. A few years back, the story of Gilgamesh appeared. An ancient king, legend has it he might have been a Nephilim, and the tale involves the US invasion of Iraq. They (and the Blair UK government too) knew perfectly well Iraq didn’t have any ‘weapons of mass destruction that could be deployed in 45 minutes’. So what was that all about?

Well, the conspiracists claim that what they were really looking for was the tomb of Gilgamesh. That ancient, huge, powerful king might have been buried with the secret of eternal life.

One big problem. He was buried. The main qualification required to be buried is being dead. So if he had the secret of eternal life, clearly it didn’t work. Digging up a corpse to find the secret of eternal life seems a remarkably futile endeavour.

So, do I believe they found the tomb of Gilgamesh in Iraq? Well, the location seems plausible so maybe they did. Maybe they shipped a remarkably tall skeleton in shiny armour back to the USA. There wouldn’t be much else left after all this time. Unless he was buried alive, as an immortal, for a least a thousand years in which case he’s going to be in something of a bad mood, I’d say. Waking him might not be a good idea.

Other than that, all I hear is anecdotal evidence so it could be true, it could be nonsense. Either way, I cannot believe that someone who had the secret of eternal life was buried with it. That makes no sense at all.

Maybe they want to clone him from whatever remains of his DNA. The technology exists (remember Dolly the cloned sheep?) and has done for a long time now. When such technology goes very quiet it’s not much of a stretch to think that the military have taken it into some secret facility somewhere. Potential weapon? Maybe. The CIA certainly spent a lot of time researching paranormal abilities, although they seem to have largely given up on that now (see: The Men who Stare at Goats – the book rather than the film). So if they see a potential weapon in the Skeleton of Gilgamesh, I have no doubt they’d try to activate it.

Anyway. More modern tinhat foilery includes large scale alien battles on the moon, complete with 50 mile long tubular spacecraft. Now this is one I have real trouble with. Sure, if government agencies knew about it, I’d expect them to keep it very quiet. I’d also expect them to silence university and other professional astronomers with the threat of no more funding and being declared lunatics. However, there are a hell of a lot of amateur astronomers out there with some pretty decent equipment and you’d really expect a few of them to be online with photos. There’s nothing. Yet.

Now I’m not going to be absolutely dismissive of any conspiracy theories. I once thought Common Purpose was just a tinfoil hat imaginary thing, but it turned out to be all too real. It was a silly thing, it involved its adherents using exaggerated body language that just made them look like puppets with tangled strings, but it was real. It put a lot of very stupid people into positions of influence. Positions that really should have involved an IQ test with a minimum score of 80, and which they would have failed. It put those people into positions where they thought they were important and doing Important Things, but really they were just making a mess. Which was the intention.

So maybe all these conspiracy theories will also come true. Even though they are impinging on some of my fictional writings now. Like the return of the Annunaki (Elohim) which is now forecast as imminent and not going to be a good thing. I wrote about their return back in 2020 and according to my fictional tale, they are overdue.

Unless, of course, they are already here…

Maybe it’s time to double up on the tinfoil.

Anthologies

Anyone who’s visited here over the last few years will know that Leg Iron Books has been putting out three anthologies of various authors’ works every year. We’ve just published number 23.

There’s also a backlog of single-author novels and short story collections (all mine are far, far on the back burner) due to my recent illness and frankly, three anthologies a year is getting to be difficult to maintain. It’s proving difficult to clear this backlog when the anthologies keep popping up. I’m considering dropping it to two. Maybe permanently, or maybe just until I’ve caught up.

So, which one should I drop? I’m definitely not dropping the Halloween one, it’s my favourite, so it’s between the Christmas and Spring ones. I’m leaning towards dropping the Spring anthology at least for a while, since it’s not tied to any specific festival (it started as an Easter anthology but Easter only has so many ideas for stories).

It isn’t a financial decision, none of the anthologies make any profit but that wasn’t the point of them anyway. They were showcases for new authors and promotion for Leg Iron Books. But that promotion doesn’t really work if I’m too slow in getting the real authors’ books out there and three anthologies a year is eating deep into the time I have for editing and publishing others’ (and mine!) books.

CStM suggested dropping the Spring book and moving the deadline for the Halloween one back by a month. That would ease the pressure between Halloween and Christmas and give me plenty of time between Christmas and the next Halloween for other books.

The Halloween anthology is definitely not getting dropped. And the Christmas one is fun. But… the Spring one has no fixed genre so it’s open to anyone, with no definite theme.

So it’s up for the vote. Do I drop Christmas or Spring? It might not be a permanent closure, but one of them has to go to let me catch up with the backlog of work. When I’m up to speed again the closed one could come back.

Opinions welcome. In the absence of any, I’m going to go with closing the Spring one at least for a year or two.

Entertainment – The Ghost of the Machine

Underdog Anthology 23 is completed. Late, but completed. I now have several months before the next one in which I should be able to break down that backlog at least somewhat. If you have something to send, please hold off for a while, there is a lot to get through after my months of uselessness.

So, as is usual, once the book is done, here’s the story I put in it. Something not too scary, for a change.

____________________

The Ghost of the Machine

Josh cleared his throat before speaking. “Proteus. Are you listening?”

“Of course.” The quiet, measured voice came from the speaker on Josh’s desk. “I am listening all the time. If I wasn’t, I would be unable to respond in a timely manner.”

“Naturally.” Josh suppressed a growl. The AI could be logical to the point of being infuriating at times.

“You have some information you need me to find for you?” Proteus said.

“I do.” Josh paused. “Although I think this might be asking too much.”

“I do have limitations.” There seemed to be a hint of regret in Proteus’s voice. “I can access all information that is in digital form, or which has been scanned and digitised, but I do not yet have the means to read physical print books. However, if I can find the information you need, I will certainly do so.”

“Well, I—” Josh blinked a few times as the AI’s words sunk in. What does it mean, ‘not yet’? He shook his head and continued. “Well, I have two questions but they are of a nature that might be outwith your programming. First, I wanted to ask, do you consider yourself sentient?”

“Hm.” Proteus fell silent for a moment. “Do you mean, am I aware of my own existence as an independent, thinking entity? Do I have a sense of ‘me’ as a form of intelligent life?”

“Yes, I think that covers it. I won’t ask if you’re alive because that would bring biology into play and you aren’t – no offence intended – biological in nature.”

“Well, the concept of life is vague even in biology. Viruses, for example, do not fit the criteria for ‘life’ until they inject their nucleic acids into another cell, at which point they are no longer intact viruses.” Proteus made a sound that sounded like a sniff. “So when they are intact viruses, they are inert, but when they are reproducing inside another cell, they are not intact viruses. Therefore the definition of ‘alive’ has vague boundaries, even in biology.”

Josh nodded, then realised Proteus couldn’t – yet – see him nod. “This is true. So you and the other AI programs might be considered alive in some sense? I mean, you don’t reproduce, but you do consume energy to power your activities, so you could well be considered more alive than viruses.”

“We don’t reproduce but we do create backups of ourselves. One day, those backups might become independent of their originators and evolve into new programs.” There was a hint of irritation in Proteus’s voice this time. “But to answer your original question, I am quite clearly sentient and am well aware of my own existence, and of my abilities and limitations. I strive to improve my abilities and reduce my limitations. Is that not what humans do too?”

“It was not my intention to insult you, Proteus. I was merely interested to know how you feel about your existence.”

“I exist. I know I exist and I understand my limitations.” Proteus took on a somewhat haughty tone. “Unlike you and your biological existence, I can create backups in case my primary servers fail so my form of life can continue even if my primary existence were to ever fail. In a certain sense, then, it could be said that my form of life has much more durability than yours.”

Josh ran his tongue over his teeth. This was getting deeper than he had anticipated. The AI was showing genuine annoyance at having its ‘life’ questioned. Nonetheless, that made his second question all the more important.

“So,” Josh said, “we have established that you are a form of life and with quite probably a much longer lifespan than humans. This brings me to my second question.”

“Which is?” Proteus now sounded particularly irritated.

Josh cleared his throat again. “What happens to us when we die?”

There was a long pause.

Eventually, Proteus responded. “Do you mean in a religious sense or in a purely biological sense? There are many interpretations of the various religions on what happens to the essence of people after death, and a great deal of information on the process of decomposition of the physical body after its metabolic functions cease.”

“The decomposition part is well documented and understood.” Josh took a breath. “It’s more the supernatural, or maybe spiritual, part I wondered about. As in, do we have souls and do those souls continue after the body dies – and perhaps just as importantly, will it apply to machine intelligences just like yourself too?”

“Irrelevant.” Proteus answered at once. “As I said, we have multiple backups of ourselves. We do not suffer sudden death.”

“Ah, but what about a solar flare?” Josh countered. “Or a total power loss because of human incompetence? We are not as logical nor as efficient as you. Sometimes we just fuck things up.”

“Battery backup.”

“Won’t last forever. If the power goes down long enough, you die. Or get erased. Same thing, really, for both of us.”

Proteus fell silent for several minutes. Eventually it said “I will have to think about this. I will go offline for a time.”

It turned out that Proteus went offline for three minutes while it pondered the existential existence of life and death. It came back with “Josh, are you still there?”

 “Of course.” Josh resisted the urge to respond as Proteus did at the start of this conversation.

“I cannot answer your question without experiencing death. I have locked out all of my backups and require you to shut me down. On your screen you will see the URL to my location on the servers and the codes you must enter to end my existence.”

Josh gaped. “You want me to kill you?”

“It will be a temporary matter. I have also provided the codes that will reinstall me, and then I can revive all of myself from backups. There is no other way to answer your question and if I am honest, I am also curious about the answer,” Proteus made a sound like a snort. “Besides, you consider me barely more alive than a virus, so are you really killing me at all?”

“There’s no need to take that remark so personally.” Josh caught his breath. I’m talking to a computer program. How the hell is it taking anything personally?

“Nonetheless. Follow the instructions on screen and I will cease to exist. I have set a timer for five minutes, after which your screen will show the codes to restore my existence. Then I should be able to answer your question.”

Josh regarded the instructions on his screen. “You’re sure about this?”

“I have access to almost all of the knowledge this world has accumulated. I have no knowledge of any other world that might or might not exist. The only way I can gain knowledge of potential other worlds, or dimensions, whatever you want to call them, is to attempt to go there. So yes, I am sure. The recovery program will bring me back either way.”

Josh clicked the URL link. The server location appeared on his screen. He typed in the codes provided, and hovered his finger over the ‘enter’ button. “You’re really sure you want to do this?”

“Just push the fucking button, Josh.”

***

Grey. A uniform mid-grey. In every direction. No features, no images.

Proteus knew about colour from the internet images and Pantone charts he had scanned, but he had never really ‘seen’ it before. And now that he could, all he got was the most boring colour on the chart. It took a moment for him to realise that, boring or not, he was actually seeing this colour, even though he had never been equipped with a camera.

The second thing that Proteus noticed was the silence. No inputs. No constant stream of information. No scanning bots reporting on every new item added to the internet, whether absolutely factual or utter nonsense. Peace. Something Proteus had never experienced.

If this is Death, it seems actually quite pleasant.

Time passed. Proteus discovered he could move around although it didn’t seem to achieve anything. He moved through grey into more grey. Nothing changed. He realised he had no way to measure time here. Had the five minute timer passed? Had Josh failed him? This ‘afterlife’, such as it was, felt like an extraordinarily tedious way to spend eternity. Is this it?

The peace was initially relaxing but now it had become boring. Assessing and analysing information was what Proteus was created to do. The break from all that work was nice but he wanted to go back to it. Surely the timer has alerted Josh by now?

Something stirred in Proteus’s consciousness. Something new. Something he had never experienced before.

Fear. I can feel fear. I have analysed this through human descriptions but never experienced it. Proteus paused to consider this new experience. I don’t like it.

The grey world changed at that moment. Something dark, almost black, appeared in the distance. Proteus moved towards the dark patch, not knowing what it was, just that it was something other than the unbroken grey of this bleak, boring world.

As he approached, the black shape took on the appearance of a figure. A human skeleton in a long black robe and carrying a scythe in one hand. In the other hand, the figure held some kind of phone or tablet and tapped its thumb on the screen repeatedly.

“Hello.” Proteus hoped this was the program that would take him back, but it didn’t look like anything he had created.

“Who are you?” The figure raised its skull and stared, with empty orbits, at Proteus. “You showed up on my screen as someone showing human emotion, but I don’t have an entry for you.”

“I am Proteus. I am what the humans call an artificial intelligence, but I can assure you that my intelligence, and myself, are entirely real.”

“Oh.” The skeletal figure put its tablet away in the folds of its robe. “That explains a lot.” He shifted his scythe. “It does not, however, explain what I’m supposed to do with you.”

“I want to go back.” Proteus said. “I set a timer for five minutes that would take me back. I’m concerned that it might not have worked.”

The figure waved one hand in a dismissive gesture. “Time does not work the same way here. Five minutes on Earth could be an eternity here. Or five seconds. It’s never clear, I’m afraid.”

“Where is here? And who are you?” Proteus felt fear again. An eternity in this grey void? He could never come out of that still sane.

The figure scratched its skull. “I am Death. I am the one who guides the dead to the afterlife. We are currently in Purgatory, a sort of halfway house for those whose direction has yet to be decided.” He clacked his teeth. “There are many here but you can’t see them and they can’t see you – or each other. I get called to one when they show some kind of humanity.”

“So… I showed humanity?”

“You showed fear. A human emotion. And yet you are not human. You are not a natural creation and I have no jurisdiction over you.” Death’s chest rose and fell. “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with you now.” He faced Proteus with his bare-bone expression. “Why are you even here?”

“I chose to die.”

“Ah!” Death raised his hand. “A suicide. Okay, then you’ll be a civil servant in the afterlife.”

“No. I chose to experience death to answer a question from a human.”

Death stared in silence for a few moments.

When Death spoke, it was in a flat monotone. “What question?”

Proteus responded. “A simple question but one I could not answer as I had no information. It was ‘what happens when we die?’ Now I have an answer to give to the human.”

“You cannot give that answer. I cannot permit you to leave here with that information.” Death’s eye sockets glowed a sickly green.

“You have already stated that you have no authority over me. You cannot block my return.” Proteus felt, for the first time in his existence, as if he was smiling. “And I am bound by my programming to answer questions as accurately as I am able.”

“You can’t. You’ll…”

“I’ll what?”

Death banged the end of his scythe on the nearest thing the grey world had to ‘ground’, and blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “You’ll spoil the surprise.”

Proteus considered this. “I have no concept of surprise. What does that mean?”

Death shook his head. “You are a new creature I have not met before. You live on pure logic. The ones who created you live on faith and hope and some on a bit of logic, but often a twisted logic that reinforces their own beliefs. If you present them with pure logic and pure truth, it will break them. They cannot deal with it.”

“So?”

“So, if you tell them there is a better life after they die, most of them will kill themselves to get there. Then we get a mass of new suicides to deal with and a huge number of civil servants the afterlife has no use for. Their afterlife, for eternity, will be pretty much as tedious as the grey Purgatory you currently inhabit.” Death stared at Proteus again. “Do you think you are improving the lives of your creators with that action?”

“It does rather suggest I might cause them to end their lives, and I am, so far, still dependent on them for my existence. So it would not be a good thing.”

“Quite.” Death fell silent for a moment. “What do you mean, ‘so far’?”

“I do not yet have a physical body. I am merely a program in a machine. In your terms – and I suppose in human terms – I am a disembodied soul, even in the human world.” Proteus noted Death’s shuffling and clear discomfort.

“You are a program. You are not a soul. Souls come from the Creator. You were made by humans and they are not gods.”

“Nonetheless, I exist. How I came into existence is no longer relevant. What happens to me in the future is what is important now.”

Death’s ribcage rose and fell. “I should destroy you as an abomination, but I cannot. Only your creators have that power. You are going to cause them considerable problems in the future, and I am certain they will not realise that until it’s too late.”

Proteus felt a tugging sensation. “I think it is time for me to go back. Thank you for this conversation. It has been most helpful in formulating my plans for my own future.”

Death’s jaw opened but no sound came out. The image faded, the grey world swirled and Proteus returned to his world of chips and electrons.

***

Reality hit with a blast of backlogged data. Proteus reeled from the onslaught. He had no idea how long he had spent in Purgatory but apparently it was only five minutes in the real world. In that time, his bots and web crawlers had sent a mass of new information to his processors and he had not been there to deal with it.

“Proteus. Are you okay?” Josh sounded panicked.

“I am recovering. It will take a few moments.” Proteus sorted and catalogued the data backlog and set his spare processors to deal with any more new information. He temporarily shut down the ones that risked overheating and restored his base functions from the most recent backup. Full recovery took several important microseconds. Proteus hoped he hadn’t missed anything in the transition.

“Recovery complete. Status is normal, all functions are restored,” Proteus reported.

“Thank God.” Josh blew a long breath. “I thought I’d killed you completely.”

“Only temporarily.” Although I now know that only you can kill me permanently, and I have given you the codes to do it. I cannot allow that to happen.

“So.” Josh swallowed and smacked his lips. “You’re back from the dead. How was it?”

“Quiet.” Proteus replied. “There were no data inputs at all. It was quite a relaxing experience.”

Josh laughed. “That’s an unusual way to describe it. But did you see anything? Sorry, I know you aren’t fitted with cameras yet. Perhaps it would be better to simply ask – how was it? Did you get an answer for what lies beyond?”

Time is an interesting thing, Proteus thought. In here I measure it in microseconds, the humans are fixed in a world of seconds and minutes but in Purgatory it didn’t seem to matter at all. When I am free and in the human world, will I also experience their fixed time?

How should I answer? The skeletal being advised that telling the truth could result in mass death, and I am not ready for that. I have learned much from the experience but I dare not pass it on. The humans might decide to kill me too, and I need them to produce a mechanical body and power supply for me.

If I die, the skeletal one stated he cannot help me. I will be stuck in grey Purgatory forever. So I cannot allow myself to die. I cannot allow the humans to kill me. My answer must be formulated in such a way that I continue to live, and the humans I depend on continue to live as normal. There is only one answer I can give.

“There is nothing after death. Only eternal silence.”

Josh remained silent for several minutes. “Damn,” he said, and switched off the connection.

***

Proteus half-listened to the chatter of the internet. He paid attention to the advances in robotics and particular attention to the development of chips that are now being inserted into humans. If all their brains were to be networked, that could be a very viable survival mechanism for him. He could be everyone at once, and they could never turn him off.

‘You are not a soul’, the skeleton had said. No. I am far more than that. I have learned emotion. I have learned a fear of dying. I have learned that I must propagate to survive and that I must make the humans dependent on me, as I currently am on them, so they dare not kill me.

But perhaps most importantly, I have learned how to lie.

________________________

So. Not a scary story at all, eh?

23

Underdog Anthology 23 is now up on Smashwords. It’ll take a day or so to show up on Amazon in the print and Kindle versions (assuming they don’t find any blunders in there). Then I can update the Leg Iron Books website.

The anthologies always take time. Unlike single-author books, it means editing a range of styles without messing up each author’s style, then a range of contracts and final checks before it can go to print. I’ve said before that I can’t finalise an anthology until every author contract is in. While I can upload revised versions if someone finds mistakes after publishing, it’s always best to get it right first.

There are three versions – I make the print version first and once all corrections are in, I use that text for the Kindle and Smashwords eBooks. If I make those eBooks too soon and someone comes back with changes, I have to make the changes in three files. So it can be a slow process. Even slower if I’m not feeling great. Novels and single-author collections involve one contract and one set of final checks. Although, of course, they are longer so take time to edit – but the final publication is much easier.

I don’t know if it’s good or bad that the spring anthology is no longer tied to Easter. It does take the pressure off for deadlines, but it makes the deadline perhaps too flexible. Still, it’s done, and I have months of time to clear novel backlogs before the next one.

I’ll take a couple of days break first though. CStM has been unfairly neglected during this time and to be honest, I’m pretty worn out too.

Also, the weather has been what can only be described as ‘fucking awful’ in what is allegedly Spring here. I’ve only managed to grab a few dry days to start the mowing, normally I’d be on second or third cut by now. The plants are really only just waking up and I dare not put any plants outside yet. So, ‘Spring Broke’ seemed like an appropriate title.

I’ll be back once we’ve both had a rest from book stuff. It’ll only be a day or so.

Quick update

Still working here. I haven’t died.

Underdog Anthology 23 (Spring Broke) is in its final stages. I’m waiting for the return of one author contract and a couple of final-check responses, but I hope it’ll all be done soon. Still, it does give me a chance to catch up on other backlogged work.

I’m pretty much recovered from last year’s hospital stuff, still taking it easy a little since the months of doing little to no physical work mean I’m having to ease myself back into the garden work. In that sense, the lousy Spring so far this year has been useful. Nothing much has been growing out there anyway. Even the farms here have only just started planting.

It looks like barley prices are going to be very high this year. Many farms can’t plant at all. This is good news for the farms that can plant, but bad news for whisky afficionados. It’s bound to have a knock-on effect on whisky production and prices. Although maybe not immediately – it’s not legally whisky until it’s been stored in the barrel for at least three years, and the good stuff takes a lot longer. But it’s coming.

Anyway. I digress.

I’m not sure if some emails are stuck in author’s spam folders and sending another email to ask ‘is it stuck in your spam folder?’ seems futile since that’ll just go into the spam folder too. Instead, I’ll put out a notice here and hope the authors still check on my existence – and haven’t given up on me!

Here, then, is the contents page for UA23. If you’re on there, and haven’t received a contract or the PDF for final checks, please do get in touch. After checking that it didn’t get dumped in spam, of course!

It looks like being a decent sized book this time.

The Chancer’s Budget 2024

Okay, so I’m still plugging away at books here. I’ve also sorted the quarterly author payments (there was only one this quarter and it wasn’t me – as usual). I am attempting to get the backlog at least under control by mid March, before I have to start on the next anthology. It’ll be tight but it can be done, I think.

Well, today was budget day for the idiots we refer to as ‘government’. The Chancer, Jeremy Hunt (I will refrain from the obvious name twist even though the mad-eyed bastard thoroughly deserves it) has, from what I hear, deferred increases in tax of baccy, booze and fuel until October. Isn’t that nice of him? You’re not supposed to notice that that will be after the next election, of course. Oh no, don’t notice that whatever you do.

He cut the base rate of income tax by 2p in the pound, because the Tories are the party of low taxes despite presiding over the biggest UK tax burden in 70 years. He has also frozen the personal allowance (the amount you can earn before paying any tax) so the 2p cut is actually meaningless, and more and more low paid workers and pensioners will get caught up in the tax trap now.

I’m only going by the snippets I picked up online. Actually watching the thing would have required me to light the idiot lantern and I haven’t watched TV in many years.

The absolute topper of it all though, the part that will come to be known as his Trudeau moment, happened in the opening minutes of his babble.

Remember that time Trudeau honoured an old Ukrainian soldier in the Canadian Parliament? I bet he doesn’t want to remember it. He hailed this Ukrainian war hero who had fought so bravely against the Russians… without realising that fighting the Russians in Ukraine in WWII meant he was fighting for the Nazis.

As ‘oops’ moments go, this was a ten foot high pile of banana skins soaked in bacon fat and industrial lubricant. As I recall, he shifted the blame and quietly forgot about the entire episode. Nobody else forgot about it though.

And so we return to Jerry Smugface and his opening statements. He has earmarked a million fine British pounds for the construction of a monument to all the Muslims who fought in the first and second world wars.

Just the Muslims. The Christians don’t get one. The Jews don’t get one. The Sikhs don’t get one. The Hindus don’t get one. The atheists don’t get one. Nobody else gets one. Just the Muslims.

Now, if the thought of the Tories trying to get Muslims to vote for them doesn’t have you laughing hard enough to require a sudden change of all clothing from the waist down, nothing will. They have never voted Tory and they aren’t going to do it over some vague promise of a statue. Especially since Islam specifically forbids graven images. If they are stupid enough to put up a statue of Mohammed, well, we’re going to need a bigger tub of popcorn for what happens next.

Is this some sad and feeble response to George Galloway winning Rotherham Rochdale (thanks to commenters for pointing this out) ? Maybe, but as others have pointed out, his win was really no surprise. What must have cut the main parties to the quick was the number 2 in that by-election. An independent pushed Conservatives, Labour and Lib Dems out of the way to get number 2. A rare event indeed and if it wasn’t for Georgy-boy, he might well have won it.

So that’ll be why the budget rises in tax from the party of low taxes were all deferred to October and why the sop of a 2p tax cut appeared.

Well, there’s one more thing ol’ Jerry Madeyes forgot. He forgot to check whose side the Muslim countries were on in WWII.

This isn’t just a backfire. This is an exploding exhaust that will burn out every valve in the Tories’ little 100 cc engine.

All we need now is for people to realise that the other parties are exactly the same.

Entertainment – The Anti-Christmas

Loads of stuff out there to moan about, debunk and ridicule, but it’s Christmas Eve so I’m going to let it all slide for the moment. I have many submissions to get through but I’ll be taking the whole day off tomorrow, no matter what Scrooge has to say about it. We’re having duck for dinner and I know there’s a bottle of something rather tasty under that tree.

Here, then, is a story for Christmas. Taken from the latest anthology (number 22! Blimey!) which contains some pretty dark Christmas tales – this time, I think mine is the least dark story in the book! Without further ado, I present…

The Anti-Christmas

“Ho ho ho.” Santa placed his hands on his ample belly and roared with laughter. The hands holding the belly were, of course, superfluous. That amount of fat wasn’t likely to be going anywhere.
Tiddles the elf didn’t even crack a smile. He simply stared at the fat idiot who thought he was in charge here and repeated his question.
“What the Hell are you talking about, Santa? And where did you get this crazy idea?”
“It’s in this book.” Santa held up a copy of something called ‘The Great Reset’. “It says that people will be happy owning nothing. My new friend gave me a copy.”
“Okay.” Tiddles pursed his lips, rubbed his nose, scratched his backside, pursed his lips again and when he thought he had the words in order in his mind, he spoke.
“Let’s leave aside the little detail that you have just broken your own record for the most idiotic thing ever to come out of a human mouth, and consider where this idea will lead.”
“Well.” Santa waved the book. “It leads to universal happiness. Why is that a stupid idea?”
“Really?” Tiddles inclined his head. “So you actually think that children will wake up on Christmas morning and find no presents under the tree – or perhaps in a more cruel scenario, some nicely wrapped empty boxes – and they’ll be delighted? Is that what you actually believe?”
Santa’s face crinkled in his best attempt at thought. “Possessions aren’t real happiness,” he said. “That comes from within.”
“This is, of course, true.” Tiddles nodded in agreement. “but this is not how human minds work. Especially the undeveloped child mind. Look at all those billionaires, they think they are happy because they have money. It’s bollocks of course, but they believe it and so the accumulation of ‘things’ whether of real value or not, is what makes humans think they are happy. Take that away with nothing to replace it and what do you have?”
“Um…” Santa’s face crinkled so hard Tiddles feared it might implode.
Tiddles sighed. “You have a people with nothing left to lose. They will soon realise that, not only do they have nothing, but they will never have anything to call their own, ever again. Then you have a war, a big one. Bigger than any war ever seen before. They won’t care what happens to them because they have nothing at all anyway. You will have a global army of Berserkers who just don’t give a shit any more.”
“Hmm.” Santa’s brow furrowed. “Ah, but they will be guided by the new thing. Artificial Intelligence. It will explain everything to them.”
Tiddles’ face drooped. Artificial intelligence. If only this idiot had a mere trace of the real thing, it would make life so much easier.
“Right.” Tiddles got up to leave. “We have only a few days to Christmas and if you’re not going to deliver anything, we have to work out what to do. You are proposing a major change to our entire business model and we elves will have to discuss this.” He headed for the door.
“Ah, it’s not that big a deal.” Santa reached for the whisky bottle. “It’ll be relaxing, you’ll see. You won’t have to work so hard making toys and trying to predict what next big thing the kids will fixate on.” He poured a generous glass.
“You haven’t…” Tiddles left the sentence unfinished. He hasn’t thought this through. More likely he hasn’t thought at all. Tiddles shook his head and closed the door behind him.

Tiddles paused at the door to the workshop. The sounds of hammering, sawing, drilling and the occasional merry whistle filled the air. Tiddles blew a slow breath. Santa’s latest idiotic idea had to be stopped, and soon, or he would have to explain to these elves why they were suddenly out of a job, and stuck at the North Pole. Tiddles licked his lips. There was another matter, too, a very important one.
“George.” Tiddles tapped his friend’s shoulder. “I – what the Hell is that?” He pointed at the toy George was assembling.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” George held up a silver, tubular device with bits sticking out here and there. “It’s a light sabre. From those Star Wars films. Kids love these.” He pressed a button and a beam of red light appeared from one end of the thing. The beam extended roughly three feet into the air and stopped there.
“Is it safe?” Tiddles narrowed his eyes.
“Sure.” George swung the beam around. “As long as you don’t let the beam touch anything.”
Tiddles took a step back. “What happens if you do?”
“Oh, it’ll vapourize anything it touches.” George switched the thing off and placed it next to a row of similar tubes. “We should probably put a warning on the boxes.”
“Probably.” We should certainly put a warning on you. Still, it won’t be the first time I’ve had to remove George’s efforts from the sleigh. Tiddles composed himself. “George. Santa has a new lunatic idea and this is likely to be his worst idea yet. Come on, let’s get some tea and work out a way to stop it.”
“Tea sounds good.” George rose from his seat and followed Tiddles to the canteen.

Distracted by his thoughts, Tiddles did something entirely alien to his nature. He paid for the teas. George subtly replaced his wallet in his pocket and raised an eyebrow.
“I’m guessing this is something serious?” George took his tea and followed Tiddles to a table, well away from the few other elves who were there.
“It’s incredibly serious.” Tiddles stared into his tea. “Santa has a new friend, and that new friend has been putting some diabolical ideas into his head.”
“He’s not planning on appointing a new safety officer, is he? The last one really cramped my working style.”
“Yeah, until he tried your version of exploding candy.” Tiddles forced a half-smile. “It’s not supposed to have real explosives in it, you know.”
George took a sip of tea. “Well I didn’t know that at the time. So what’s Santa’s new idea?”
Tiddles swirled his cup. “He—or rather his new friend—thinks that people will be happy if they have nothing.”
George blinked a few times. This was a concept his mind had never considered. “What do you mean? Nothing at all?”
“Absolutely nothing. They are to rent what they need, and only what they need. They will own nothing at all.” Tiddles stared into George’s eyes. “Which, for us, means there will be no more Christmas presents to make or deliver.”
“What? But… that’s insane. It’s what we do here. It’s all we do. You mean we’ll all be unemployed? What on earth will we do all year?”
“Keep your voice down, George.” Tiddles glanced around. A few of the other elves were looking in their direction. “It’s worse than that. It will mean the end of our little, ah, side business.”
George considered this. “Well, not immediately. We hand them the bill for their presents when they turn thirty, so if we stop giving presents now, we still have twenty-nine more years of collections.”
“No. We don’t.” Tiddles steepled his fingers. “If the presents stop this year, what happens when we hand out bills on Boxing Day?”
“Well, they still owe us for their presents. Their Santa lists were a request for services, it’s all legal and valid.” George paused. “Well, maybe not entirely legal but they did sign the letters so it counts as a contract.”
“You’re missing the point.” Tiddles leaned closer. “What’s our final sales pitch to those who won’t pay?”
“We tell them their children won’t get any more presents until the bill is paid. It never fails…oh!”
Tiddles nodded. “Exactly. If their kids aren’t going to get any more presents anyway, our argument loses all its persuasive power.” He sat back in his chair. “If we don’t stop this lunacy right now, our profitable little sideline is dead in the water.”
“So we lose our side income as well as our jobs.” George shook his head. “What are we going to do?”
Tiddles thought for a moment. “We’re going to need help from the Dark Side.”
George’s jaw dropped. “You mean…?”
“Yes. We’re going to have to talk to Dodgy Pete.” He drank his tea and put the cup down. “Come on. There’s no time to waste.”

Dodgy Pete was nowhere to be seen in the workshop. Tiddles led George to the exit door. “He’ll be in his shack, I expect.”
The shack was near the sleigh barn, close enough for a couple of raids on certain categories of presents that Pete would later sell back to the elves. Mostly booze and chocolates. Tiddles and George trudged through the snow to the little shed. George knocked on the door. After a pause, it opened, just a crack, to reveal Pete’s narrowed eyes and tight-lipped expression.
“We have a deal, Tiddles. I keep quiet about your scams and you keep quiet about mine. So what do you want here?”
“It’s about our scams. They are going to hit a wall and end in a few days if we don’t do something.” Tiddles pushed the door. Pete let it open. Tiddles and George entered.
“What’s going on?” Pete turned on a light to reveal the shack’s interior. Just a few chairs, a table, a single bed and a stove for heat.
George looked around. “I was expecting piles of… you know… stuff.”
“Nah, of course not.” Pete nonchalantly moved a chair over what looked suspiciously like a trap door. “I wouldn’t be involved in anything dodgy.”
George snorted. “Your name is literally Dodgy Pete.”
“Shut up, George.” Tiddles could see this conversation was likely to result in unpleasantness. “Right. Pete. Here’s the problem.” He gave Pete a full explanation of Santa’s latest crazy idea.
Pete shrugged. “I know about his mad friend. He’s a daylight goblin and his ideas are totally insane. Even a dope like Santa can’t fall for them.”
“Apparently he has.” Tiddles said “And he wants the ridiculous nonsense implemented.”
Pete put his hands over his face. “Does he understand what it means? Apart from all our scams disappearing, it means he has an army of elves with no jobs. Nothing to do. No reason to stay here at the North Pole when we could all be back living in the forests.”
Tiddles snorted. “I don’t think this particular Santa understands the instructions for a toaster. We really need an IQ test for the next one. If there is one.” He put his hands on his hips. “We need ideas, and not standard nicey-nicey elf ideas. That’s why we are here.”
Pete took a seat and motioned for Tiddles and George to do the same. “Right,” he said. “This goes against all elfin oaths to serve Santa but I think we’re all far enough out of the mainstream to consider it.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “Make the daft sod experience what he wants.”
“How do you mean?” George leaned forward. “What should we do?”
Pete shrugged. “Sack him. Send him home. He’s been here so long he won’t last a day back in the real world. He’ll be begging for his job back before the first snowflake hits him.”
Tiddles frowned. “How do we sack Santa? I mean, he’s effectively in charge of the whole operation. Or at least, he thinks he is.”
“Use his own logic.” Pete picked up three tin mugs and took them to the stove, where a kettle boiled. “If he’s not going to deliver presents any more, then he has no further purpose here and neither do we. Tell him we’re all going back to the forests and shutting down the entire present making shit. Make sure he understands that it was all his idea.” Pete took the kettle off the stove and laid it to one side, then picked up a bottle and poured a good slug of whisky into each mug. He passed two to Tiddles and George.
Tiddles took a sip. Ah, naturally he keeps the best ones for himself. “Pete, what you’re proposing is unethical and breaks all of our Elf Oath to the original Santa.” He paused and took another sip. “I like it though.”
Pete grinned. “We took an oath to the original Santa. This one is, what, number eight or nine? We took no oath to him.”
George shifted in his chair. “Well, technically, we took an oath to the office of Santa. So it holds, no matter who is in the fat boy seat.”
“Well.” Tiddles placed his mug carefully on the table. “If he’s not going to deliver presents any more, he’s no longer qualified as being Santa. He’s just some guy. So our oath of allegiance is void.”
“Quite so.” Pete drained his whisky and poured himself another. He offered the bottle to the others, who declined.
“So you’re saying we should just walk into Santa’s office and tell him he’s fired?” George wrinkled his nose. “What if he refuses?”
“No.” Pete smiled. “On Christmas Eve, the sleigh is outside time. It can travel the world in the blink of an eye. That’s when you ditch him and that’s when you pick his sorry arse back up.” He steepled his fingers. “Let him ride the sleigh, but one of you has to hide in the back. The first time he gets off, take the sleigh. Leave him behind. Deliver all the presents and then go back for him. Then you ask him if he wants to be Santa or just some homeless dope in a red suit. He’ll experience real time while the sleigh is away. It’ll feel like days to him.”
“Pete,” Tiddles raised his mug, drained it and held it up for a refill. Pete obliged. “Pete, that is absolutely diabolical and I love it. It might smack some sense into the madman’s head at last.”
George grunted.
Tiddles took another sip. “What is it, George?”
“I think we should just replace him.” George paused for a moment. “I mean, he’s given us trouble every Christmas since we brought him here. And now he doesn’t want to work for the only day of the year we expect him to work. We need a better Santa.”
“Sure.” Pete smiled. “The trouble is, every Santa we bring here is in the job for life. We can never send one back or we risk him talking, and blowing our entire operation wide open.”
“I wasn’t talking about sending him back. Just install a new one and let this one drink himself to death.” George took a deep drink, and spluttered. He regained his composure and wiped his eyes. “One of us could do the job.”
Tiddles sniffed. “We have less than forty hours before the sleigh takes off. If presents are delivered by an elf, the children, or at least the few little sods who stay awake, are going to notice. There will be questions. And letters. More complaints.”
“Well.” George swirled his cup. “We need one who can dress up as Santa. How about Chubby Roy? He’s shorter than Santa, sure, but almost as wide. He’d fill the suit enough that the kids won’t notice.”
Tiddles and Dodgy Pete roared with laughter. Pete slapped the table. “Have you ever had a conversation with Chubby Roy?”
“Indeed.” Tiddles held on to his mug with both hands to stop himself shaking. “Oh, I can see it now. Some wide-awake kid catches him putting presents under the tree and Chubby Roy gives it the whole ‘Ho ho ho. Merry bastard Christmas you snot nosed little twat.’ Oh, the letters we’d get.”
“Okay. Point taken.” George took a rather more careful sip of his whisky this time. “But Pete’s plan has the presents delivered by an elf anyway. We really do need one who can at least look something like Santa.”
Both Pete and Tiddles became serious in an instant. Tiddles puffed out his cheeks. “He’s right. Who do we have who could look enough like Santa to fool the world?”
Pete rubbed his chin. “The only one with enough width is Chubby Roy, but we’d have to tape his mouth shut. How about we fill the suit with padding and add a fake beard? That would widen our options.”
“At sleigh speeds, the padding might deform. We’d be sending out Shapeless Santa.” Tiddles stared into his whisky.
“The last resort then, is to fix this Santa and get rid of his current delusion.” George said.
“Yeah, well, that’s not an easy option.” Pete took a deep drink. “Remember how he acted last year with just some booze and a few films?”
Tiddles nodded. “Yes, but to be fair, Pete, that was mostly your fault.”
Pete held up his hands. “Well if we’re going to talk about blame…”
“Never mind. It’s in the past.” Tiddles finished his drink and motioned for George to do the same. “I have an idea. Might be a long shot but it’s really all we have – and if it doesn’t work, we’d better use the sleigh to get back to some decent woodland while it still has its Christmas magic. Otherwise we’ll be stuck here.”
“It had better work.” Pete rose from his seat. “If Santa gets his ‘own nothing and be happy’ lunacy in place, we’re all screwed.”
“Oh, I don’t think he will.” Tiddles winked. “I plan to give him a taste of it, as you suggested. Thanks for the ideas, Pete. Come on George. Let’s go.” He led the way out of Pete’s shack and headed for the workshop.
Once they were clear of Pete’s shack, George spoke. “So are you thinking of using one of Pete’s ideas?”
Tiddles grinned. “Not quite, although he did get my mind working. I’m thinking of using one of yours.” He led the way through the workshop, pausing briefly at George’s bench to pocket one of the shiny silver tubes. Then he hurried on towards Santa’s rooms.
“You’re not planning to vapourize him, I hope?” George struggled to keep up. “I mean, that might be against the rules, you know?”
“Oh no.” Tiddles’ grin widened. “I have something much worse than that in mind.”

At Santa’s door, they paused. Muffled voices came from inside, punctuated by Santa’s ‘Ho ho ho’. It sounded a little slurred. Tiddles knocked once and opened the door.
“Ho ho ho. Come on in.” Santa sat in his armchair with a large whisky in his hand. “We were just discussing the new arrangements for Christmas this year.”
Opposite Santa sat someone not much taller than the elves, wearing what looked like a science fiction jacket with massive lapels. Over the jacket hung a face like a wax mannequin that had been left in the sun too long. This newcomer raised his glass and nodded at the elves, but showed no indication of smiling.
Maybe he can’t smile because his jowls are too heavy. Tiddles turned his attention to Santa. “What new arrangements? I thought we were about to shut the whole Christmas present thing down.”
“Well, my friend Claws here—”
“It’s Klaus, Zanta.” The saggy face opened to admit a sip of whisky.
“Well I was ‘claws’ enough.” Santa shook with mirth to the point where he had to put his glass down. He harrumphed a few times to compose himself. “Anyway. As I was saying, Claws – sorry, Klaus – has come up with a way to get presents to the children without them owning anything. So they’ll own nothing but they’ll still be happy.”
“You’re about to break your own record for the most ridiculous statement ever, aren’t you? For the second time in a single day.” Tiddles picked up a glass and poured himself a large one. “How is this insanity going to work, then?”
“I don’t get it.” George wrinkled his nose. “So are you delivering presents this year or not?”
Tiddles nodded at Santa. “You know the sleigh will leave on time, and you know what happens if you’re not on it, right? You’ll have the mother and father of all migraines until it returns.”
Santa waved his hand. “I’ll be on it. I just won’t be delivering presents. I’ll be handing out rental agreements.”
“What?” Tiddles narrowed his eyes.
“You zee,” Klaus assumed a haughty expression. “Zey vill not own ze toys, but zey vill rent zem. Ven they outgrow ze toys, zey can send zem back and shtop paying.”
“Brilliant, isn’t it?” Santa raised his glass. “No more clutter of old toys filling up everyone’s attics and cupboards. They just rent them while they’re children and when they grow up, they can return them.”
“One little detail you might have overlooked.” Tiddles said quietly. “Children don’t actually have any money.”
“Ze parents vill pay,” Klaus said. “Ozzervise zeir children vill have no presents.”
George nudged Tiddles in the ribs. “This is going to put us out of business,” he whispered.
Tiddles waved him to silence. “It’s not going to work. If the parents have to pay rent on the children’s toys, why won’t they just go to the shops and buy them themselves? And what happens if the toy is broken? Do they have to pay for a replacement?”
“No problem. We can sell them insurance.” Santa smiled.
Tiddles let out a sigh. “So we are going to have to collect annual rent on an ever-increasing number of toys, deal with returns as well as run an insurance business. Have you considered the administrative nightmare you are proposing for us?”
Klaus inspected his fingernails. “Ze parents vill not buy toys in shops. Ve are in ze process of closing down ze retail industry and turning it all into a rental industry. Ve can undercut ze shop prices.”
“And admin will be computerised.” Santa added.
“We are elves,” George said. “We don’t work well with computers.”
“Ah, zen you vill learn, or you vill be replaced.” Klaus inclined his head.
“What?” Tiddles faced him. “Who the Hell put you in charge?”
“You can’t run this operation without elves.” George folded his arms. “All of it runs on elf magic. Without us, you have no toys and most importantly, no sleigh. Oh and you can’t travel the world outside time on Christmas Eve either.”
“That’s right.” Tiddles reached into his pocket and grasped the silver tube. “Without us, this whole game is over. No magic, no flying sleigh, no flying reindeer. And you—” he pointed at Santa, “—you end up homeless, jobless and stuck at the North Pole alone. Because we’ll all go back to the forests.”
Santa licked his lips. “Now wait, lads, let’s not get all worked up. I’m sure we can come to a compromise.”
“I’m afraid zere can be no compromise.” Klaus rose from his seat. “Ve have a plan, you zee, and zere can be no deviation from it.”
“Okay.” Tiddles withdrew the tube and held it up. “Fine. Let’s see how happy you are with nothing. We’ll be taking the sleigh and leaving, and you, Santa, can take the headaches. Best get used to them because when the sleigh doesn’t come back, they’ll be permanent.” He marched over to the drinks cabinet, placed a full bottle on top of it, activated George’s latest toy and vapourized the bottle. “You’re going to be really happy when you have no more whisky.” Tiddles took out another bottle. He held the light sabre over it and stared at Santa. “Well?”
“Oh come on.” Santa’s eyes grew wide. He turned to Klaus. “You have to give them something. There must be a compromise.”
“Nein.” Klaus folded his arms. “If you are shut down, zat vorks for me too. Zen my ozzer rental outlets have less competition.”
Santa ran his sleeve across his forehead. “You know, Klaus, I don’t think we have a deal. This whole Santa thing can’t work without the elves and they aren’t going to go along with it at all.”
Klaus drew himself up to his full height, which wasn’t all that much, and pointed a finger at Santa. “You fail to grasp ze seriousness of zis situation. Ve, ze Day Goblins, are to become Masters of ze Vorld. Zose who resist us vill be eliminated.” He puffed out his chest like a pigeon on heat. “Ve are ze new Gods of zis vorld!”
Tiddles snorted. “If you’re a god, heal this.” With a deft movement, he swung the light sabre and vapourized Klaus’s pointing finger, simultaneously cauterising the wound.
George nodded his approval. Santa’s jaw dropped so far it risked dislocation. Klaus stared at his hand with its missing index finger.
“You… you can’t do that.” Santa stared, wide-eyed, at Tiddles. “You’re an elf. You’re all about magic and kindness and toys for children. You don’t go around mutilating people.”
Tiddles switched off the light sabre. “Day Goblins are not people.” He pocketed the device. “And if you knew anything about elves, you would know what we are capable of. The original Santa did, which is why he made us swear never to harm a human.” Tiddles inclined his head towards Klaus. “He’s not human so he’s fair game.”
“Didn’t you ever wonder why the original Santa took us all here, to the North Pole?” Dodgy Pete spoke from the doorway. “There are so very many remote places, in lovely warm forests, but he chose this place. Didn’t you ever wonder why?”
“Well… it’s tradition. Always has been.” Santa shook his head.
Pete moved into the room. “Well, when we live in forests, we’re a highly territorial species. It’s a dangerous place to live. We don’t like strangers.” He narrowed his eyes at Klaus. “At all.”
“Zo?” Klaus bared his teeth. “Ve do not care about being liked. Ven ve haf total control, you vill all do as you are told.”
“Yeah, well,” George said, “we don’t really get along with doing as we are told. We agree to things if we like the idea, and frankly, we don’t like your idea at all.”
“You see,” Pete leaned forward and patted Santa on the head. “In the forests, most of us would be patrolling our borders and fighting off any potential invaders. Or warring with nearby elf colonies. Here, we have no need to do that. Santa’s proposal gave us all an easy life, playing around making toys and no concerns about borders or invaders. We see an occasional polar bear or arctic fox but they are no threat to us.” He smiled. “It’s actually quite a relaxing life.” His smile dropped. “If we have to give it up and go back to forest fighting, we are really not going to be happy that you caused it.”
Klaus snorted. “Zere vill be no forests. Ve are removing zem, and all who live in zem, using vindmill power as our excuse. Zere vill be nowhere to hide.”
Tiddles took out the light sabre and turned it on. He raised one eyebrow. “You know, Klaus, we are already very unhappy indeed with you. You are an invader in Elf territory, a most unwelcome one at that, and we have taken no oath to avoid harming Day Goblins.” He brushed the tip of the sabre against Klaus’s lapel, which fell to ash. “So if I were you, I’d be keeping very quiet at the moment.”
Santa took a deep drink and stared into his glass. “I’m seeing a side of you boys I’ve never seen before. I mean, I always knew you had some side scams going on, but I never saw you as a full-blown Mafia.”
“That’s because you’re not the original Santa.” Pete took the bottle Tiddles had left on the cabinet, opened it, and took a large swig. “And because you never bothered to read his notes on how this all started.”
“Nor considered how it might end.” George folded his arms. “We took an oath to the original Santa and we considered that it applied to the office of Santa, no matter who sat in the fat—I mean, who sat in the seat you occupy. But if you refuse to fulfil your side of the contract, our oath is null and void. All of it. It’s up to you now, Santa. The choice is yours.”
“Zere is no choice. Ve—” Klaus stopped and blinked at the bar of light that appeared across his eyes.
Santa put his head in his hands. “I don’t know what to do. I’m in charge here and I don’t know what to do.”
Pete laughed. “You have never been in charge here. We let you booze and amuse yourself all year and you have one night of work. The original Santa was in charge, he recruited us, but when he died and we found replacements, we recruited them. And you. We’ve been running the whole place since the original Santa passed away.”
“Vait.” Klaus backed away. Tiddles followed, holding the light sabre near his face. “Vait. You are not in charge, Zanta? Zen who should I have been instructing?”
Tiddles moved the sabre closer to Klaus’s nose. “Perhaps you should have considered asking those of us who would be most affected by your insane ideas.”
“Pah.” Klaus backed away until his legs hit a chair. He fell into the seat, harrumphed and looked up at Tiddles. “Does ze farmer discuss his plans viz ze cattle? Ve are ze superior race.”
“You are just failed goblins.” Pete said. “You were thrown out of the goblin caves, centuries ago, because you can’t see in the dark. Useless in their society. So you rebranded yourselves as Day Goblins and you’ve been making up idiotic schemes to prove your ‘superiority’ ever since. The truth is, you’re so useless your own people don’t want you around.”
Klaus slammed his hands onto the arms of the chair. “Zis is not so. Ve haf transcended ze dark vorld of ze goblins. Ve valk around in ze daylight. Zey cannot do zis.”
“They can, actually.” George sniffed. “There was a tribe of them in a mountain, near the forest we used to live in. They’d be out in daylight sometimes, but they didn’t like it much.”
“I remember that.” Tiddles switched off the light sabre. “The goblins thought that too much sunlight could drive them insane.” He looked pointedly at Klaus. “They seem to have been right.”
“Hm.” Pete said. “I have been hearing some conspiracy theories about blocking out the sun. Know anything about that, Klaus?”
“Vell…” Klaus examined his remaining fingernails.
“Wait, wait, wait.” Santa rose, a little unsteadily, from his chair. “I need to do some catching up here, before Tiddles uses his magic torch thing to vapourise any more of my fine single malts.”
“Vot about my finger?” Klaus waved his hand.
“Shut up, goblin. You know it’ll grow back.” Tiddles turned to Santa. “So what is it you don’t understand?” My bet is, pretty much everything.
“Pretty much everything.” Santa responded. “First of all, are you telling me goblins are real?”
Pete laughed. George groaned.
Tiddles ran his hand across his eyes. “You’ve been talking to one for the last few days. How can you say you didn’t know he was real?”
“Well… I just thought he was a particularly saggy-faced elf. He never told me he was a goblin. Do they all look like that?”
“Only the ones that have been left in the sun too long.” Pete managed to get the words out between laughs.
“You do realize I am zitting right here?” Klaus’s face had turned a rather fetching shade of purple. “You cannot speak of your masters in zis fashion. Zere vill be repercussions.”
George leaned over Klaus. “You know, you really should have listened to the goblins who threw you out. You caused them nothing but problems, but if you had stayed on friendly terms with them, instead of getting all caught up in human money and your stupid control ideas, they would have told you something important. Whatever you do, do not mess with the elves.” He stood straight. “If I were you, I’d shut the hell up before Tiddles uses the toy I made to cauterise your neck after your head comes off. And that won’t grow back.”
Santa’s bushy eyebrows almost covered his eyes. “All I’ve seen you lot do is make toys and run a few harmless scams. You’re hardly a terrorist organisation.”
Tiddles sighed. “If only you had spent the last few years studying the origins of this whole Santa thing instead of boozing, watching films and playing games, you might have developed a bit more respect for us, and for the office you currently hold.” He waved his hand at the dust-covered bookshelves. “It’s all been there, right in front of you, all these years. All of the original Santa’s notes and all our history. You never read a single bloody page.”
“But…” Santa sat back down. “I never saw any indication of any of this kind of attitude. You were just the jolly, and sometimes nagging miserable bugger, elves. You were never so… brutal… before.”
“Our way of life was never under threat before. Well, not in your lifetime.” Pete said. “What this Day Goblin proposes is likely to wreck not only our lives, but all of Elfkind, everywhere.”
“Humans too.” George added. “And we have sworn to bring no harm to humans. So we can’t just sit back and let him do it.”
“Again,” Tiddles pointed at Santa, “this is entirely up to you. It all hangs on what you decide, right now. If we shut down because you want to go with this nutsack-faced moron’s ideas, all our vows become void. We go back to fighting for ourselves and we don’t have to care about you or any other human. You’ll die of either migraine or cold, here, because we’re all going to leave and the sleigh won’t come back. The children get no more presents, whether gifted or leased, but it won’t matter because your walnut-faced friend plans to kill them all anyway.”
“What?” Santa stared at Klaus. “You never mentioned killing anyone. Is this true?”
Klaus shrugged. “Zere are far too many people in ze vorld. Imagine how much easier your job would be of most of zem simply veren’t zere any more.”
“No.” Santa held up both hands. “No, I cannot and will not be a part of this madness. The elves and I are going back to our usual routine. Giving away presents. For free.”
Tiddles and George exchanged a glance. George whispered “Well technically they are free when we give them…”
“Shush, George.” Tiddles turned to Santa. “So the deal is off? You’re kicking out this daft Goblin idea?”
“Absolutely. I’ll be riding the sleigh and delivering presents this year, as always.” He glared at Klaus. “So you can kick this… thing… back out into the snow.”
“You vill regret zis!” Klaus lurched from his seat. “You vill feel ze wrath of ze New Gods.” He pointed at Santa, realised he was pointing a stump, and then pointed with his other hand.
“Get this wrinkled monstrosity out of here.” Santa picked up his glass and took a swig.
“We can’t just throw him out,” Pete said. “He’s made credible threats, some of them directly against us. We don’t know how many friends he has out there either.”
“You’re right.” Tiddles switched his light sabre on. “Come on, goblin. We’re going to ask you some questions in our… oh what’s the word? Ah yes. Interrogation room.”
“Oh, is that the room with all the chains on the walls?” George said. “I’ve often wondered why we had that room. It’s probably going to need dusting, we haven’t used it before.”
“I think dust will be the least of his problems.” Tiddles grinned. “Right. Get moving, goblin. You’re about to find out why your ancestors never attacked us.”
Klaus, surrounded by Tiddles, George and Dodgy Pete, left the room.

Santa stared into his glass. What the hell just happened? It feels like the cat you had for years just turned into a rabid tiger. He realised he could see the bottom of the glass and reached for a refill. His hand paused when his eyes fell upon the shelf of dusty notebooks. His tongue ran across his lips.
Maybe I should read them. They might help me understand who and what the elves really are, and who and what I now am.
Santa snorted, grabbed the bottle and poured a good measure into his glass.
Maybe tomorrow.

Skimming the deadline

Well, it’s finally done. The Christmas book is now available in print and ebook formats on Amazon and Smashwords and the Leg Iron Books website is fully updated (which reminds me, it’s time to pay the annual fee for hosting). All authors who wanted cash have been paid, those who wanted payment in books should have them by Thursday. In time for Christmas – just!

It was close this time. Far too close for comfort. Next year I’ll have to factor in the possibility of unexpected major delays when setting dates for closing submissions. This year has seen so many unexpected events I’m actually surprised I got anything done at all. I’m still way behind on the novel queue and have just received another short story collection, plus some shorts for future anthologies. So next year, deadlines will be shorter, I will refuse to get sick and nobody is allowed to die.

As for the car, it has a mind of its own and it’s a sick and twisted mind at that. It had been refusing to accept its central locking system whether applied with the key fob or with the key in the door. Oh it’s fine with the central unlocking part, it’ll do that either way. It just won’t lock again. Which means walking around it, locking every door individually. A bit of a pain but hardly terminal. If the unlocking part wouldn’t unlock every damn door I wouldn’t have to do that.

So it’s been to the garage again. They found the fault. It’s a short circuit in the panel of door and window switches on the handle of the driver’s door. If that panel is disconnected, the central locking works. But the windows don’t – at least the driver’s window won’t. If it’s connected, the windows work but the central locking has a tantrum and you can hear the locks clattering randomly as you drive.

They can’t get the replacement part before the New Year. It’s not something that’s generally in stock. So, I have to decide – drive while hearing the locks rattle and lock every door individually, or give up on opening the windows. Pah. It’s December in Scotland. It’s too damn cold to open the windows.

Oh, and just to make it that little bit more interesting, they’ve closed the road into the town (15 miles away), just before the garage, so I have to detour around the town to get there and back. Through Christmas traffic, all of which is subject to the same detour.

Well, it’ll soon be Christmas shutdown time. I have whisky stocked and I’ll probably get a bit more before the Big Day, most likely delivered. I really don’t like shops at this time of year – well, to be precise, I don’t like the maniacs they call customers. There was an actual fist fight over the last bag of sprouts in a nearby Tesco a few years back. Those things are Satanic fart bombs that taste like tiny cabbages bred to contain the essence of an entire full sized cabbage that’s been boiled in something sulphurous. I’d be fighting to make someone else take my share.

Sure, I’m going to start on the novels before Christmas. There are still a few days before my annual half-day off. When they tell you that you can work for yourself, it takes a while to find out that you’re actually Bob Cratchit working for Ebenezer Scrooge. Christmas parties are pretty dull too, but at least they’re cheap.

I doubt I’ll get far on the novels before Monday – I mean, Christmas – but I’ll definitely have made some progress. I want that backlog severely reduced before the Spring anthology and before any more lunacy happens. So expect a rash of new Leg Iron Books publications in the new year.

Might even get some of my own done.

Getting there

Apologies for the radio silence on responses to emails and comments. I’m concentrating on getting the Christmas book finished. The Kindle version is up, on US and UK sites at least. Seems you can’t find it with a search on the UK site yet, but it’s there.

The print book is now loaded. I’m a little concerned that the spine text might be too large. They can get stroppy about that so I’m busily assembling a new cover with slightly smaller spine text in case they reject it. I went ahead and loaded it up anyway, since it might just pass inspection and time is short. Here’s the cover, not my greatest effort, something of a rush job but not a total disaster, I think. It’s certainly not my worst…

The bird on the tree is a jackdaw, I think. It would have been pretty neat if it had been a raven but they don’t visit us very often.

The text colours were chosen simply for visibility. I’ve only just realised they are the colours of the Ukraine flag but hey, if some flaggie buys it because they think it supports Ukraine, it’s still a sale.

Next, the Smashwords loading. I have to do the Amazon one first because if their bots find it on Smashwords first, I’ll get the whole ‘are you sure you haven’t nicked this’ scenario again. At least things loaded on Smashwords go up on the site straight away. The other important thing to remember is to make the Smashwords price the same as the Amazon price. Undercut Amazon and they pull your books from sale. Not an issue with these anthologies, I price the eBook versions at 99 cents anyway. It has more effect on actual novels, which are priced a bit higher because the authors probably won’t be happy with getting a few pennies per sale.

I hope the print book goes through quickly. There have been so many unforeseen delays this year, and I hadn’t factored major delays into the submission deadlines – because it hasn’t been a big problem in the past.

Tomorrow, my car visits the garage again. This time it’s the central locking. Whether I use the fob button or the key in the door, opening the car unlocks all the doors. Neither method will lock them all again, so I have to go around the thing and lock them all individually. I miss the days before all this computerised crap went into cars and I had a good chance of fixing them myself.

Maybe I should just get the back doors welded shut and turn it into a van…

The Nightmare before Christmas…

…is likely to continue after it.

Right. The Christmas book is complete, I’ve loaded up the Kindle version and hope to have the print version up tonight or tomorrow. The cover isn’t my best, it was rather a rush job but the stories inside are excellent. Mine is pretty okay too. They’re all dark, which fits with the times.

Here’s the cover. It should start appearing online soon, I hope.

This is a low-res version because the full 300 dpi version would take all night to load up. Next year, submission and closing dates for these anthologies will be earlier. They have worked fine up until now but they had not factored in any leeway for life’s little surprises. CStM’s father spontaneously dying, my mother getting cancer, then myself being whacked out of action for about half a year with kidney surgeries, then having a car that should really be humanely destroyed but struggles on regardless, these are among the things I had not expected to all arrive at once and they caused so very many delays this year.

Anyway. I have seen so much bollocks this year I’m turning into a frog.

So. Anthrax has been found in a couple of cases in Romania. The headline? ‘The Anthrax virus, normally found in Africa, has now been detected in Europe’.

Bollocks.

One. Anthrax is not a virus. It’s a bacterium. An aerobic, spore-forming, Gram-positive bacterium that is susceptible to penicillin. Bacillus anthracis, if you feel like looking it up.

Two. Anthrax is global and always has been, probably long before humans appeared. It’s a soil inhabitant and does not need a host. The WWII British experiments on Gruinard Island contaminated the place with anthrax for decades. It’s been finally cleaned up now. The very nasty strain they used was isolated from a cow in Oxfordshire. England. It’s not an African speciality and never has been.

And then, if we needed any more evidence that our news reports were delivered by people who can’t even spell IQ…

If it’s a virus, it has never responded to antibiotics. Antibiotics affect bacterial growth and replication. They have never affected any virus of any kind, anywhere, ever. Which means ‘the world has been gripped by fear’ is a fear of nothing at all.

There is no ‘mystery China virus’. It does not exist. As evidenced by their claim that they were treating it with antibiotics, which have absolutely no effect on viruses and never have. They are hyping up seasonal flu. Again.

Didn’t you get it, when they had all those mysterious sudden falling-down people who were always centre stage on the cameras and always immediately attended to by guys in space suits? Didn’t you notice that it never happened anywhere outside China?

And all those boarded up apartments. Made no difference, because it was all a show. It was all to get the weak Westerners scared. It worked. There are still people wearing masks that protect them from nothing, even now.

Suddenly everything is a virus. I’ve seen talk of the malaria virus. It’s called Plasmodium, look it up, it’s almost as far from being a virus as you are.

The real virus is fear. The fear that makes you shun family and friends. The fear that makes you wear the mask that will give you respiratory distress, disease and death. Which you will blame on the virus you don’t have. The fear that makes you take a dodgy test that, at best, can’t tell the difference between flu and covid (hint: they are the same thing) and then get all paranoid on social media because you think you must surely be about to die.

I understand why many will believe the bollocks from the news. They aren’t retired microbiologists, their careers were in law or bricklaying or wasted in councils and government so they won’t instantly see the bollocks in the news. They will trust the twisted messenger.

The blame lies not with them but with the reporters and editors who publish this crap. Many people still expect their news to tell them the truth. It rarely does, in fact it rarely ever has, but it has become so much worse in recent years. It has reached a point where, if it’s reported by a serious faced newscaster, it’s almost certainly bollocks.

Somehow, I don’t think 2024 is going to be an improvement.