The Hags of Teeb & Sir Terry Pratchett

Two nights ago I was a little taken aback by a question. It was, “Where is Teeb? Is it a fictional place?”

How to respond?

Eventually I said that Teeb isn’t a place at all. It is a notion—an abstract notion.

The question came from someone who has read my story “The Hags of Teeb” but, although they said they enjoyed the tale—they said it was funny so that was a success, they clearly have no understanding of the British leaning towards word-play

Suppose you were a young lady in the market for a pair of shoes. You might, possibly, buy some shoes of Jimmy Choo, or, more likely, you would buy ‘Jimmy Choo Shoes’.

Thus it is with ‘The Hags of Teeb’.

It would be commonplace to say they are ‘The Teeb Hags’ and that, dear reader, is why the illustration has labels coming out from under their apparel.

This means that we may now address the idea of the ‘Herds of Dollib’ who appear in the story. They are, quite naturally, the ‘Dollib Herds’, hence their focus on make-up and hair styling.

The British are racially inclined towards word-play. It may be the ever popular pun, for example:

“Why did the Scotsman play golf in the fog – a mistery?”

Or it could be a spoonerism:

“I’m not the pheasant plucker I’m the pheasant plucker’s son. I’m only plucking pheasants ‘til the pheasant plucker comes,” here in the shape of a ‘tongue–twister’.

We do like to play with words. As a writer it can be a useful tool to incorporate into a story providing it fits with the general mien of the tale.

Sir Terry Pratchett was a master at this in his ‘Discworld’ series that were a beautifully crafted dose of humour throughout. Even the titles were superbly created—two of them, for example, were:

‘Carpe Jugulum’, and

‘The Fifth Elephant’

Should you be unfamiliar with Sir Terry Pratchett’s novels I should, perhaps, explain these.

‘Carpe’ means ‘seize’ and is popularly used in the expression ‘carpe diem’, which translates as ‘seize the day’. Here it is combined with ‘jugulum’ or ‘throat’! Brilliant. I am in awe of such thinking.

‘The Fifth Elephant’ is a little more complex.

Sir Terry’s ‘Discworld’ is a place that is shaped like a huge plate. It rests on the backs of, apparently, four elephants that, in turn, stand resolutely on the back of a giant turtle that swims through space forever.

There was, at some stage, a discovery on that world that there was another elephant underneath them. This appeared shortly after a film called the ‘The Fifth Element’ made the cinematic rounds.

The man was a genius. His contribution to the humour banks of the written word are monumental and additions to that fund will be sorely missed.

"MNIAN"

Just a brief 'infomercial'!

I am informed, by the publisher, that there could well be a hard copy (physical book) version of "My Name Is A Number" around June of this year.

It has been decided that the postage to the United States and the United Kingdom makes it uneconomical to sell through 'Amazon' but it could well be available directly from the publisher.

At the moment I have no price for this but it will, of course, be +post & packing.

Once the date and price is confirmed then I will post the necessary information.

The possibility is that the hard copy books will be followed up by books 1 & 2 of MNIAN:
"My Name Is A Number - Three Fingers"
and 
"My Name Is A Number - Bowden"

Thank you for your wonderful support of the e-book and the glowing reviews on 'Amazon' from some of you great people.

Can You Judge A Book By Its Cover?

Back in 1974 a chap called M John Harrison wrote a story called ‘The Centauri Device’. 

The thrust of the tale was woven around a chap called John Truck who wanted to steal this device because… well… because everyone else wanted it. Also, he was, it seems, the only person who could use it; so everybody else was after him.

He had a beaten up old freighter, as I recall, named ‘The Green Carnation’ and that, in itself, was a chuckle for me because there was a scandalous book, written by Robert Hichens (but first published anonymously in 1894), called ‘The Green Carnation’. It was partly due to this book that Oscar Wilde spent time in prison even though he was, in this case, entirely innocent.

This is the one I remember.

(Peter Jones’ cover for the 1975 edition)

(Fred Gambino’s cover for the 1986 edition)

(Paul Lehr’s cover for the 1980 edition)

(Chris Moore’s cover for the 2000 edition)

(I love this one)

(Stephane Martinière’s cover for the 2006 German edition)

(uncredited - sorry)

This was the dawn of the age of the ‘anti-hero’. M. John Harrison has been bemused by the idea that what he considers to be his best works are now out of print yet ‘The Centauri Device’ lingers on.

It is a superb story beautifully written and is the tale that cemented my brain into the idea of writing science fiction myself. 

To get some idea of the decadence involved in this story—and, make no bones about it, it is severely decadent, and for the curious, the complete list of spaceship names: Driftwood of Decadence. New English Art Club. Liverpool Medici.  Gold Scab. Whistler.  Seventeenth Susan.  Solomon.  Nasser.  Strange Great Sins.  Maupin.  Trilby.  Green Carnation.  Les Fleurs du Mal.  Madame Bovary.  Imagination Portraits.  Syringa. White Jonquil.  Forsaken Garden.  Let Us Go Hence.  Melancholia that Transcends All Wit.  My Ella Speed. Fastidious.  La Vie de Bohème.  Atalanta in Calydon.

‘Atalanta in Calydon’! Genius.

Yet look at the different covers. Each for a different year or a different national audience. There were a couple of others and, sadly, I do not have the accreditation for them nor do I have access to some of them.

But it gives you an idea of what the variety of thinking was (is?) for the representation of that story.

Do any of the covers give any clue as to what the story is about?

No. Not really.

They are designed to intrigue and attract a would-be reader into buying the book.

If you want to know about the story then ‘Google’ the title and go to ‘Wikipaedia’ or ‘Science Fiction Ruminations’.

What of the stories from other people?

The artwork for the cover of Ray Owen’s book, ‘The Hole’ is beautifully done and, now that I have read the story, I can relate to the thinking behind it. 

Similarly, the covers for RB Clague’s ‘Whitefella Dreaming; Robin Gregory’s ‘The Improbable Wonders of Moojie Littleman’ and even my own stories do not describe what is told within the pages. Possibly only Michelle Sellman’s children’s books give a definitive clue as to what is going on inside.

Michelle Sellman's 'BFF Crew'

Thus it is with all books.

Look up your favourites, as I have peered at the covers for Isaac Asimov’s stories, and tried to ascribe a script to those tales. 

What, I asked myself, is the similarity between the story and the cover.

Usually, a space opera has a delightful picture—beautifully worked, of a space ship; murder mysteries invariably have a gun or a semi-naked woman on the cover.

Can you judge the worth of a book by its cover?

 No. 

Are you able to decide if a book is worth purchasing by its cover?

No.

Only by reading the reviews can you get an idea of what a book is about and whether to buy it or not.

And that, dear readers, is why all authors need your help. If you read a book then please, we beg you, write a review.

We are happy if it is good and we are pleased if it is bad because then we can use constructive criticism to move forward in our craft.

To all of you that do write reviews—thank you.

From the very bottom of my heart.

Dishwashers.

Do you remember when we washed the dishes by hand? No. Me, neither.

It does appear that there are still some people who do that. Perhaps they live in a primitive agrarian or hunter/gatherer social system where there is little electricity or where the cost of such necessities is beyond their meagre means.

“Let them eat cake.”

This statement was ascribed to Marie Antoinette but it is unlikely that her lips ever formed such words. Maybe she might have said, "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche." Since ‘brioche’ is a luxury bread enriched with butter and eggs the quote would represent the lovely lady’s disregard for the peasantry. The quote is more likely to have been from Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s book “Confessions” comprised of several volumes much of which was written when Marie Antoinette was only approaching nine years old.

Brioche

Dishwashers.

How we have come to accept as ‘normal’ that which, a few years ago, would have been outrageously luxurious if, indeed, it had been available at all.

How we seize upon the latest mobile telephone or tablet. These are ‘must have’ items and to hell with the environment and those who die digging up the rare earths needed in the manufacture of these desirable possessions.

In six months or a year, when the manufacturer’s Bell Curve of sales are on the declining slope, we shall be encouraged to purchase another ‘latest’ thing. The resale value of electronics that are a year old is infinitesimally small. 

Who wants yesterday’s papers—with apologies to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards?

Time to dig up more rare earths.

The landfills are bursting with ‘old’ technology; technology that was, only a short while previously, immensely desirable.

We seek new things almost by the day. Our focus and concentration is sorely limited. Even TV shows have to have an ‘incident’—be it a jest, death or stroke of drama, every minute, or so, to keep us interested.

If the show fails to do this we will change to another channel. The ratings go down and the show is axed—no matter how good it is.

We need new things. All the time. Our attention span is down to microscopic levels.

Fish are said to have a five second memory. They meet new friends all the time.

We are headed that way.

Kissing Gouramis (Helostoma Temincki)

Our minds are in the ‘phones or the tablet. We are focussed on someone far away, on events far away. The internet is the be-all and end-all of our existence.

We need to look up and view reality.

Listen. Do not just ‘hear’ but ‘listen’ to what is around us.

Look. Do not just ‘see’ but ‘look’ at what is around us.

News is not what is happening in Iraq or Syria. We can do nothing about that. News is what is happening to the old lady who lives alone down the road. Has anyone visited her to see if she is well? Does she need anything?

News is around us. All the time.

We need to raise our heads and see the beauty that is the World we live in and not the World that is injected into our heads electronically.

Donald Trump, et al, may be vaguely interesting but how do they impinge on our daily lives. They do not. If you are American then they are is a small chance that their election might affect you but it will not affect me—an Englishman abroad.

The girl next door has just had an accident; the baby down the road has a fever.  Do the families need, or want, help?

There is no need to have a mobile ‘phone to discover these things.

Shall we go to work in an environmentally unfriendly ‘Hybrid’ car?

Prepare our lunch in a modified radar system called a microwave?

Watch the latest show on our flat-screen 52” LED TV’s? If we are really up to date then perhaps the TV has Internet capability and a recording system so that we miss nothing of the very latest episodes of our favourite shows.

Turn the dishwasher on. Let it wash the dishes while we go out and examine the world; while we paint something glorious; while we write a magnum opus or compose the next fabulous ‘hit’ for the Diva of the day.

Lift up your eyes; lift up your hearts; lift up your spirits. Socialise with real friends—those around you. 

Go and buy a dishwasher.

“I was a whore,” she told me

I was, in point of fact, minding my own business doing what Sergeants tend to do in times of total idleness and that is—make careful plans to induce as much misery into the lives of the lowest ranks as is humanly possible. Filled with the lust for absolute power I was ill prepared for the young lady that stepped into my office with a tale of utter woe.

What could I do but listen?

Suppressing the urge to make stupid, possibly puerile, comments I focussed my attention on what she had to say.

It went rather like this.

“My Mum was a really good mother until, somehow, she started taking drugs. I never knew my Dad. Mum said she had been raped and the result was me.

“That was why we lived in a disreputable part of a bad neighbourhood in a council house on the edge of a large city in England.”

She looked grief-stricken so I held my tongue to see where this was leading.

A tragic tale unfolded in which her Mum turned to prostitution for money to buy drugs. No money was being spent on food, clothing or ‘incidentals’ and so, seeing no other option, the girl also started to sell her body.

Mum was unhappy because she believed her daughter, just turned twelve years old, was taking away her ‘client list’ but daughter needed cash for survival. She knew nothing of child welfare or social security—nobody explained this to her.

When the school asked for her parent’s signature on a form she signed it herself. Nobody asked. Nobody queried. Nobody worried.

The gang who supplied the drugs killed her Mum—possibly for non-payment, possibly to make a point to others? Who knows? They dumped her body in the trash behind a public house. The police did a cursory search but, really, who cares about one more junkie?

For slightly more than three and a half years she plied her trade but, ultimately, she fell pregnant.

She told her local gang boss to sort it out. 

“I didn’t care if he solved it by killing me. I should have no life with a baby anyway,” she shrugged her shoulders at the memory.

A back-street abortionist fashioned a tool out of a bent wire coat hanger and used it to scrape out the foetus. It was, she assured me, agony. I didn’t really have to be told that, I could have reasoned it out for myself.

Inevitably an infection set in. There was very little recollection of events as the fever got worse. She woke up after two weeks in a coma to find that her reproductive system had been ‘trimmed’. They had given her a hysterectomy.

At first it meant very little to her but now, ten years later at the age of almost twenty-five, it had become a matter of concern.

Her choices had been removed.

She said that she would, very likely, choose not to have children but that choice had gone. There was no possibility of having children even if she could bring herself to find a man to have children with!

As she was leaving the hospital one of the nurses asked her what she was going to do. She told the nurse that she would be a better whore, a more careful one. It was the conversation with that nurse that led to her enlisting in the Royal Air Force; an option that she had not considered.

I was not required to give a decision or offer advice. She had just arrived at a point in her life where she was due to leave the Royal Air Force and found that her future was uncertain. What to do? She could, she thought, go back to her previous life since she was fit and healthy and it was a trade she felt comfortable pursuing. Safety? Irrelevant, to her.

My job was to just listen and let her unburden herself. Her decisions would be her own. Any advice I could give would be based on my needs, my experiences and not hers.

All over the World there are people, I was thinking in terms of children, really, who suffer the hardships and terror of warfare. They live in constant fear of injury or death from bullets, blast or shrapnel. This is all they know. It is all they see in their future. Small children dash out for supplies for the family because they are harder to hit than adults and they can hide in smaller holes. It is all they know. They have no choices.

There are people, children, who have nothing to eat or drink. They may, if they are lucky, drink water from a puddle. What else is in the water doesn’t matter because the bulk of it is water and that is what is important. They will die of disease, malnutrition or dehydration. That is their world. It is all they know. They have no choices.

The girl who told me of her life was only extending what she knew. She could not see choices because her view of the world was formed in her head from her previous experience. That is why she told the nurse that she would be a ‘better whore’.

When you see a homeless person lying on the pavement remember that they are not there by choice. This is their world. It is what their world has become. No doubt they would like a home, a family to love and be loved by, to have friends to chat with but they have not.

We do not know why they are on the pavement. We do not know what devils are in their heads or what terrors drove them into this state. 

We should not condemn these people because they, too, are human beings.

The CEO of a large Corporation is also a human being. They also have their own devils driving them on—different devils to the homeless man but by no means less relentless.

We are all human. Next time you think to look down on someone or be patronising remember that it could be you.

We do not know what is in other people’s heads. Perhaps we do not want to know.

A wide-eyed, innocent-looking young lady came to me and poured her heart out—a decent, respected young lady.

“I was a whore,” she told me.

And so a story was born.