Monthly archives: November 2008


Manchester Christmas Markets are back

Much the same stuff as usual, but I love them nonetheless. I may have spotted a few presents on my first wander around them.


NaNoWriMo first draft – Christian Soldiers

Notes I know Sachs’ accent is poor. I’ll fix it when I write this stuff up properly.

Sachs was my first deserter.

He’d walked into town the night before and handed himself in at the Mayor’s office. It took a lot of guts to do that. After the actions of the lost army its members were as likely to be killed on the spot as allowed to live.

Few in the town liked to admit to knowing anything but perfunctory English, so they had called on me to debrief Sachs. Officials would be sent to escort him into custody, possibly protective depending upon how cooperative he was, but they could take weeks to arrive. It would look good if the town could send back some intelligence on its own initiative.

There were two cliched farmers at the door, cradling shotguns, sucking on their Gaulloise and scowling at me as I approached. My rough French got me past them and into the quiet building, where there was no-one to meet me. There are offices on the ground floor. I tried a few handles and they were all locked so I went up a flight of stairs to the function room and Mayor’s office. The office door was open, the jolly official sitting at his desk. He smiled and waved me in.

Sachs was sitting in one of the leather chairs across the desk from the mayor, tucking into a breakfast of bread and cheese. I must have done a double take and looked around for more security, because the mayor shook his head and waved me in again. I took the other leather chair and studied Sachs.

He was unshaven, with perhaps a week’s growth of beard, and looked like he’d slept in his clothes for the last few nights. He noticed me and stopped eating. He extended a hand, “Pleased to meet you, sir.”

I shook the grimy hand. He had a firm grip, but didn’t try to test mine. Formality over, he went back to eating.

My French was good enough that I understood enough of the Mayor’s explanation. “Monsieur Sachs, I think, wants to get away from his army and tells us all about it. We thought it better if a native English speaker interrogated him.” I nodded understanding. “You understand you cannot blog this?”

“I understand. I shall save it for my memoirs.”

The Mayor chortled and passed a dictaphone and tapes across the desk. “Would you like some coffee?”

Against my better judgement I said yes. It was nasty and bitter, like too many I’d tasted recently. I pretended to be engrossed in cueing up the recorder so I don’t have to drink any more. “I’m ready to begin when you are.” Sachs says around his breakfast.

“When you sign up to serve you are pledging your life to your country. And you expect your country to not waste your life or risk it for anything trivial. Really, too often, you’re just following those orders without questioning them because you’ve decided that your leaders can’t possibly be wrong.” Sachs had finished the bread and cheese, and two mugs of the awful coffee, and now he had the energy to tell his tale.

“I’ve been unhappy with orders since before the President died. It got worse after the mad woman took over, when she started talking about how we were doing God’s work. That got the Jesus freaks all fired up They’ve been going on about it being a christian army for years. If mostly you’re fighting the ragheads…. er, I mean the muslims, it comes natural to react against them. But it was all other religions that were wrong, and all anyone who wasn’t their type of christian too.

“Now I was raised christian, but I was brought up to let people be. Other folks find God their own way, or don’t even need to. But the fundies in the army can’t live and let live.”

“Let me tell you what happened just before the break out. The orders had come down and we were all thinking about them. Most of the guys, me too, were confused. Some of us were going to follow the orders because they were orders. Some were too scared not too. The true believers were full up for it, and shouted down anyone else’s doubts. And then there were the others. The ones who said no and refused to follow the orders.”

Sachs took a look at his coffee, drank the dregs, grimaced and carried on. “There were them, and there were ten Muslims on the base. Well, some of them were Nation of Islam, I’m not sure how they count, but it didn’t make a difference. And there were thirty or so Jews. They… They disappeared, just before the break out. I heard they were crucified. That was the fundies trying to be ironic, I guess. It was supposed to be an example to the rest of us. Something to scare us into carrying on with the madness. It inspired some guys to cut out before the event, or start planning to escape as soon as possible. I was one of the ones who got out as soon as they could.”

“I dropped to the back of a patrol one day. We were in a forest and our commanders thought there were hostiles close by. I took the risk of that. I had some civvies with me and a few days rations. I dumped all the rest of my kit but my sidearm and ran. I avoided contact with anyone for as long as possible, using the forest tracks to head in the opposite direction to my unit Then I stole a car and drove west. It’s chaos out there. I wasn’t stopped at all on the road. When I got here I figured I was far enough away from the fighting to be safe. That’s why I gave myself up.”

“We’ll need to know everything about your unit. Where they were when you left them. Where they were headed. How many soldiers and what equipment. All of that stuff.” I pointed out.

“I’ll tell you as much as I can.”


NaNoWriMo first draft – The Tank Graveyard

Notes Productivity has suffered in the last few days as I’ve been flu-struck. I’m certainly not going to hit the NaNoWriMo target of 50,000 words, but I’ll keep going until the end of the month then take what I’ve got and use it as notes for the full novel.

We smelt the bodies and the smoke long before we spotted the tanks. It came to us on the wind wafting down the valley. We checked our guns and cut away from the road toward higher ground.
We’d been following the ripped up road and other damage that a column of tanks leaves behind ever since seeing what they had done to a village nearly fifty miles away. They’d skirted the farmhouse near the bottom of the valley. The farmer had heard them go past and, later, the distinctive rocket roar and explosions of a missile attack. We didn’t have a plan for what we would do if we caught up with them, but it sounded like someone had done what we would have wanted to.

As we climbed up the hillside and headed up river the tree line came down to meet us. Up ahead the valley narrowed so that the floor was only the width of the road and river and trees came down to the edge of the tarmac. I lifted my hunting rifle and stared through the scope. A ridge line still obscured some of the valley floor and smoke haze broke up the shapes, but as I scanned left to right I could see the shape of a tank. It was as if the sharp geometric shapes resolved from the soft curving ones of the trees.

The wrecked tank blocked the road at the valley’s narrowest point, its gun drooping and hatches open. The top half of a body was sprawled out of the turret hatch. Another tank had tried going around the destroyed tank, only to slide down the bank into the river and become stranded.

As we climbed the ridge more and more incapacitated vehicles came into view. There were seven tanks, three armoured personnel carriers and a number of soft skinned vehicles. The soft skins had been torn apart with heavy gunfire whilst the tracked vehicles had all been hit by one or more missiles. Bodies fanned out across the valley away from the choke point, cut down as they ran.
We crouched, and eventually crawled, to keep from being too conspicuous atop the ridge. We used sights and binoculars to survey the carnage, looking out for movement. “What do you think?” I asked Jean Luc, leader of our little band.

“I think they met someone with far better weapons than we have. I did not know the army was operating in this area. Start checking in the trees to see if there is movement up there.
I did a sweep of the tree line from the pinch point along the valley towards us. It wasn’t until I swept back that I saw the soldier sat on a tree stump staring through binoculars. He was wearing a French uniform, so I was merely creeped out when he waved at me. I pointed him out to Jean Luc, who studied the apparition through his glassses. “We shall go and talk with him.” Jean Luc announced.

“All of us?”

“You and I, I think.”

“Me?”

“It will give you something to blog about, will it not?”

We slung our guns over our shoulders and climbed to the top of the ridge. This was when our trust would be most tested, when we presented a full target to any lurking snipers.

We weren’t shot when we stood up, which was nice, so we walked along the contours toward the figure at the tree line. “It would not be beyond the Americans to steal a uniform to lure us out.” Jean Luc opined.

“You say the most cheerful things.” I spoke a mish mash of English and French with the rest of the squad, but Jean Luc liked to practice his English with me.

“I am trying to be more like you. Considering all the possibiliies.”

“I think too much?”

“Peut etre. Francais, oui.”

As we neared the French soldier I decided to keep quiet completely rather than try to convince him of my Frenchness through speaking his mother tongue. Jean Luc raised a hand in greeting as we got closer. The soldier nodded and went back to opening the American rations he had requisitioned.

“Hello Captain.”

“Good afternoon. I take it you are local militia.”

“Not so local any more. We were following those murderers. I take it you were as well.”

The French captain nodded, “We had been tracking them by satellite and set up the ambush. We thought we would hang around and see who you were as well.” He eyed me for a while then, pointing with his knife, asked, “So. Who are you?”

“Robert Jones.”

“English?”

“Yes.”

The captain waved and there was movement back amongst the trees. “We have an English man! Robert Jones!”

Jean Luc and I exchanged a look. This was an interesting development. The captain went back to his meal and we waited.

After a couple of minutes another figure emerged from the tree line. He too was wearing the uniform of a French Army captain, though he looked a little out of place, a bit larger than some of the other soldiers, maybe a little tougher. He saluted the captain and looked from Jean Luc to me. “Robert Jones?” The accent was pure Midlands.

“Yes.”

“I have some information for you. Come with me.”

We headed into the trees, where the air was cooler and sat on a downed trunk. “Are you SAS?” I asked.

“Yes, I am. I do a very convincing French accent when I’m speaking the language.” he had dropped into French for the answer. I had hardly even noticed, I’d been in the country so long. He returned to English, with accent, to carry on, “I also have a photographic memory, so everything I need to tell you is in my head.”

“I wouldn’t have thought I was important enough to have messages sent to me.”

“You’d be surprised. There are a few dozen Brits at large in Europe that we have messages for as well as our main missions You’re important because a lot of people read what you post. You’ve become a trusted source on whats going on over here. One of the messages I have for you is that the British government supports you. Your site has been subject to dedicated denial of service attacks and other attempts to take it down. The government has, shall we say, taken you under their wing. You now have more bandwidth and upgraded security.”

“I’m not sure I want to be a propaganda tool for the British government.”

“That’s almost exactly what the briefing said you would say. I was told to let you know they’re not censoring or editing you and you keep all rights, if you stay alive long enough for that to matter. What you’re doing is quite useful. The message is- keep it up.”

“Oh. Right Somehow I don’t think they sent an SAS officer to France so they could tell me ‘Jolly good show, keep up the good work.’ You’re working with the French, obviously. I thought Britain was neutral.”

“Of course it is. That keeps the Americans from sending their troops through us to the continent. And it keeps a lot of them in Britain whilst their government decides whether to ship them back to the States or pull the same stunt with us.”

“Is that likely? They must be pretty stretched.”

“If you’re not with us you’re against us. Remember that? And the rest of the world is not with them. Most of their own population isn’t with them. This is the lunatics taking over the asylum in the worst way possible. So the British government is helping ship weapons to the Europeans and helping wipe out the Yanks in any way they can. All the satellite data this lot use came through me.”

“All of this, of course, is not for blog.”

“Absolutely. They told me you’re good at compartmentalising- their word- and said to mention Sachs.”

“They know more than I thought. Is there anything left down there to scavenge?” I nodded in the direction of the valley.

“Let’s go and have a look.”


NaNoWriMo first draft- Scar

I remember looking down at some point and noting that I was doing twent five miles an hour on my bike, on the flat. I only know what happened next because I kept asking until someone would tell me.

The driver pulled out of a side road right in front of me. He probably didn’t look, and he didn’t have anywhere to go. I remember the Rusholme traffic being bumper to bumper, the idiot was just using the cycle lane as a little extra space to nudge out.

I flew. Only ten feet or so, and I was brought to an abrupt halt by a parked car. The collision cracked ribs down my right side and I slid up the windscreen and ended up on the roof.

My helmet saved me from brain damage, but they had to cut open my chest to fix the damage. I was in hospital for six weeks. I read lots of books- and felt very sorry for myself for the first few weeks- until I came up with a plan. I was going to take some time to enjoy the life I’d nearly lost.

Two months after leaving hospital I was off around Europe on an interrail ticket. Three weeks later I was in the middle of a war


Tweets today

00:26 Blog: Tweets today tinyurl.com/5ekgyj #

01:15 In case anyone’s hacked my facespace account, I’d just like to say FELCH! #

02:43 Epic! #

03:46 Trousers and jacket are now covered in beer after I broke a bottle running for the bus. #

11:51 I feel grim. BAstard ulcer! #

17:27 Blog: tinyurl.com/5tm4b4 #

18:29 Blog: NaNoWriMo first draft- Dinner Date tinyurl.com/6xylno #

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NaNoWriMo first draft- Dinner Date

“Please tell me you’re not vegetarian.”

“If you’ve got meat I will eat it.” Sally replies. She’s wearing the paint spattered one piece again, wiping her hands on a rag. She’s had to rush all the way down the stairs from the top room.

I brandish the bag of squirrel and rabbit and she smiles. “Bugs and Nutkin.” I announce, “I thought I might do a stew.” I wheel the bike into the back room and lean it next to hers. She follows me and picks up a bag from the mantelpiece.

“I’ve got something for you as well.” she holds out a pair of keys, “Front door and back door.”

“Cool.” We stand there for a few moments, searching for something to say. Eventually I hold up the bag, “I’ll get on this, then.”

“Cool. I’m going to make the most of the light before it goes completely. I’ll be back down in a while.”

None of Sally’s knives is sharp enough to fillet the carcasses, but a bit of searching finds a sharpening stone. I get distracted from cooking by putting an edge onto all the knives, to the extent that when Sally runs out of light and comes down I still haven’t started making the meal. I look around to see her leaning against the door frame watching me. “I’ve been meaning to do that for ages. Do you need any help?”

“Could you start on the veg.”

Sally eyes the knife I give her with some trepidation, as if the newly sharpened blade might twist around and slice her palm through the handle. She lays it carefully on the chopping board and goes to wash carrots and potatoes. My knife slides through the onion that I’ve picked and then makes filleting the rabbit and squirrel simple. They all go into the pot with a little oil to sizzle.

Sally slices her first potato at arm’s length, but quickly becomes confident with her chopping abilities. Within a few minutes she has a board full of vegetable chunks for the pot. I stir everything up and she goes under the sink to produce a bottle of cloudy cider. “What do you think? Will it work with rabbit?”

“There’s only one way to find out isn’t there.” We pour in equal amounts of water and cider, put the lid on and leave it to simmer. Sally pours the rest of the cider into glasses.

We take our booze through to the living room. There’s only the one seat, a large sofa across from the fireplace. We sit at either end, almost facing each other.

There’s a strange piece of furniture in the corner of the room. “You have a television?”

“Yeah. But there’s never anything on.”

“Literally? Or in the old way?”

By way of answer Sally gets up and tuns the television on. She hands me the remote. “Apart from the news, there’s not a lot of new stuff on. The BBC keeps promising new material, but I haven’t seen any yet. Since the internet’s been back I’ve been getting most of my news from there.”

She’s partly right. A lot of this stuff is old, but not all of it. And I’ve spent most of the last five years with little or no television, let alone English language television. So I could watch this stuff for a day or three. But there is an attractive woman on the sofa with me, and I’m conscious that she’s sitting closer to me since turning the television on.

The scrumpy is very strong and I’m soon feeling light headed. “Where did you get this stuff?”

“It’s from the tree in the garden. There’s a group that brings a press around and sets up in schools or halls and presses any apples or pears you take them. I set up demi johns in the basement and brewed this stuff. This is the last of last years. You don’t drink it often, so it lasts for a while.” She curls her feet under her and leans over to take the remote. “Actually, there should be some news on now. Let’s see what’s going on in the world.”

The first piece is about the first people to make it back from the continent in the last few years. They’ve been doing it for years, of course, people shuttling back and forth across the Channel for various reasons. I was tracked down a couple of times with messages and care packages. Of course, when you’re in a war zone and more involved than you ought to be, care packages don’t tend to contain cake and new socks.

Sally looks askance at me. “So how come you aren’t in this report?” she asks, with a smile.

“I bribed a few people.”

“Really?”

“No. I just managed to avoid the news crews.” And I called in a few favours and somebody else bribed a few people on my behalf. I’m not sure she believes me, but I’m also sure she doesn’t seem to care.

Next up is a piece on speculation over who has control of the former United States’ nuclear arsenal. There are subs still not accounted for, and no-one really knows what happened to the intercontinental ballistic missiles in their various bunkers. Thinking about what that means, my balls crawl up into my body and I’ve got that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“Are you okay?”

I motion at the television, “All the time I was in Europe. Everything I saw. Everything I did. I never once thought about all the nukes that could have been dropped on us. It’s like it was all for nothing. Some fucking idiot could still wipe out most life on Earth. And we know there are people that stupid and dangerous out there.

“I never thought of it.”

Sally is looking at me, nodding. “I have been thinking about it too much. With everything that went on, and then Keith dying I sort of pulled back from people. It wasn’t Keith’s friends who stopped talking to me, it was me who stopped talking to them. When every day could be your last you don’t want to form any long term relationships.”

“Yeah.”

“That is so fucking dumb. I have wasted years.”

“You’re thinking you should treat each day as a blessing rather than a potential ending?”

“Something like that. It’s time to start thinking about the long term and start making relationships again. Did Keith ever tell you I wanted to fuck you?”

“No.”

“That’s probably because I never told him.” With that she leans in and takes my glass. When it’s on the coffee table beside hers she kisses me. Just a gentle peck on the lips at first, but she likes the taste and dives straight back in. She’s keen, and I’m certainly willing, but she’s taken me by surprise and I freeze. She pulls back, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…”

Now it’s my turn to lean in and kiss her, “I just wasn’t expecting it.”

She has grabbed the front of my T-shirt and bunched it up. “I’ve got so many condoms and I thought I wasn’t going to use them before they went out of date.” She tugs the T-shirt over my head and then stops. “Oh.”

The scar is an upside down L. It runs from my right shoulder most of the way across to my left, and all the way down my ribcage on the right side. Sally runs a finger along the top scar. “I’d forgotten about this. I never saw it before.”

“Five years in a war zone and my only scar is the one I took with me.”

“I don’t have any interesting scars.” She’s fascinated by the scar, tracing it with a finger of each hand.

“I’ll have to check that.”

“Okay.” She stands up, unzips the one piece and shrugs out of it. “How long till the stew is done?”

“A half hour or so.”

“Time enough for a quickie Come on.” She offers me her hand and leads me upstairs.


We’ll be searching for the people that never never went to war

Submarines in the harbour
incognito
Submarines of your dreams
not mine
The red red sky
must take the price
For giving to the people
who never never go to war

We’re glad it’s all over
We’re glad it’s all over
We’re glad it’s all over
We’re glad it’s all over

Hidden tunnels
secret items
guarded fences
Planet earth
resting ground
right now
The blue blue moon
knows that soon
We’ll be searching for the people
that never never went to war

We’re glad it’s all over
We’re glad it’s all over

The red red sky
must take the price
The red red sky
is giving to the people
that never never go to war

We’re glad it’s all over
We’re glad it´s all over
We’re glad it’´s all over…

Captain Sensible – Glad It’s All Over

The NRDC Archive of Nuclear Data


Tweets today

23:53 Chesney fucking Hawkes again!!! #

00:26 Blog: Tweets today tinyurl.com/6cofwq #

00:59 If I can make it there I can make it anywhere. #

07:41 What sort of unsavoury hour is this to be up on a Saturday? #

07:56 Pro congestion charge poster on the bus promises "Cleaner air quality" Is that even proper English? #

09:23 Ah, St Helens in the rain. Lovely. #

23:26 Blog: Meet Dike tinyurl.com/5cznwh #

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Tweets today

23:58 Quorn is people! Bland, tasteless people, but people nonetheless. #

01:26 Blog: Butcombe Gold tinyurl.com/65fozf #

08:26 Blog: Another new Watchmen trailer for you tinyurl.com/6j7m6n #

14:21 must step away from the jigsaw and get some writing done. #

20:24 Beer! #

21:10 Inspiration is lacking tonight. #

21:45 Dug the Barbie Girl/Bat Out Of Hell mashup, though the beat matching was a little off. #

22:26 Blog: He’s Spartacus tinyurl.com/6lgo3d #

22:26 Blog: Hobgoblin tinyurl.com/6g6lr7 #

23:01 Is it ironic or deeply optimistic to ask the red headed barmaid for a Russet? #

23:04 Where’s my fucking pizza? #

23:05 Oh, my pizza’s here. #

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Hobgoblin


Hobgoblin, originally uploaded by spinneyhead.

An internet search reminded me that the hobgoblin was a spider-man villain. Where’s the cute comic loving barmaid from last night?