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At War with the Invisible: The Deadly Miasma

The Reverend Henry Whitehead said a short and mumbled prayer over the body of John James Morters and quickly re-covered his own nose and mouth with a scented hankie. He turned and nodded to the undertakers. They took the shrouded body and half threw it into the waiting cart. They didn’t want to hang around in a cholera house; neither did the Reverend. He had attended a few such deaths recently. He thought there were far too many deaths. He walked out into the stench filled air of Soho’s Broad Street, took a short breath and covered his face again. The undertaker coughed and forcefully spat out a gobbet of phlegm, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at the Reverend, ‘’Pologies Sir. It’ll be the stink what gets ‘em too Sir. Taken a few from round ‘ere.’ ‘I don’t subscribe to the theory of bad air my good man. It may stink but it carries no disease.’ ‘That’s as well as like Sir. But we seen ‘em all off. Usually from places such as this stinking hole.’ ‘Have you had m
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Christmas Gothic - The Sojourn of The Soul

As the man came in from work, he looked on the hall table as he did every night, ostensibly for any letters that had been delivered that day. There were none that day. There was, however, a small parcel wrapped in brown paper. The label on it was addressed to him, ‘To Harry, With Love’ it read. It looked like his wife had bought him a book, which was unusual for her to even go into a book shop let alone buy him a book. He picked it up and felt its weight it was quite a weighty tome. He unwrapped the book and looked at the title: A Goode Wyfe: The Sojourn Of The Soul. He noted the archaic spelling of the title; she had chosen well. It looked very interesting and was certainly very old, the leather binding and the gold lettering on the spine and cover gave that away. It was well thumbed too and the pages fell open on their own.   He looked at the imprint, last imprint 1818, first imprint 1313. He did a quick sum in his head, those two dates added together made 3131, a mirror image of t

The Great Barnsley Invasion

The Quest for Pluvium                   A fter 2.7 billion galactic years of warring with each other over vital minerals and the depleting supply of Pluvium in the unknown universe, the Venusians and Martians decided that they would join forces and invade a distant black hole called Cambria. Pluvium powered and defined all the civilisation of both the planets, without it both planets would die as their life support systems failed. One grain of Pluvium was as precious as a Venusian princess or prince. Martian prince’s and princesses were a different matter, they were worth a mine of Pluvium. No one knows why this difference persisted. Perhaps it was because Martian Prince's and Princesses had multiple breeding orifices unlike regular Martians who had to apply to the government to breed and install an orifice. The spoils of this grand invasion would be shared equally between the two planets. They hoped that the other would stick to this compact, though neither truly believed the

Lord Farage

In Chequers Lord Nigel Farage Sometime of Downe and Windsor Lit up yet another Rothman’s fag (He had another ten thousand in his diplomatic bag) Swigged on his great British pint And looked out on his bucolic view Then he loudly let out a ‘PHEW’ But what he was really thinking ‘Look where peculating has got you’ He fiddled with old school tie Striped black and royal blue Smugly smoothed it down Rested back in his dining chair Meshed his fingers across His beer filled belly Smiled a gleeful smile Then shook his head In total astonishment Leaning forward to the banquet table Laid out before him He jabbed a polished silver fork Into his great British Steak and kidney pie Bit on a hot salty chip Licked his upper lip Then jubilantly looked Back out at the view Taking another drag On his Rothman’s fag Stubbing it out Coughed a bit Then another fag he lit Musing on his British made pie Impaled a piece of steak With his silver fork Pushed the meat into his m

The telephone, the typewriter and the confused.

My life seems to be littered with conversations such as the one told below. If you look on my blog you’ll see ‘Hypo or Hyper’ and ‘The Blackbird in the Garden’ and the triumph that was ‘The Telephone’. All are based on the other person’s misunderstanding of a content of my life, or their life. I sometimes, in fact often, continue conversations purely for the humour that results from them.   # Ooooowh, what’s that noise? It’s just my phone. #Sounds like an old typewriter Yep, it is. It’s for my texts. #That must take a long time. What? #Typewriting texts. It doesn’t type them, it’s only a notification. #Mine is a ping, like a microwave. Mine was too. I changed it so I would know I have a text. #But you must have to wait a while for it to be typed. No, it’s just a notification noise. I downloaded it. #How does it send texts then if it uses a typewriter. It doesn’t use a typewriter, it’s only the notification sound. #Mine just pings and the message is t

Should I stay or should I go?

                                                                                              Charlie was standing at the bottom of the stairs in the hallway of his house staring intently into his phone screen. He was still in his dressing gown and was irritably pacing about. “Texted him again. Sends me one on Monday, bugger all since.” Charlie shouted to Carol who was still in bed. She could just about hear Charlie, she sat up and shouted, “Perhaps he’s in the shower.” Adding in sotto voce “Or having a wank.” “What was that last bit?” Charlie shouted. “Perhaps he’s gone to the bank.” Carol stifled a giggle and pulled the duvet up to her mouth. “At the weekend?  The bottle bank or having a Barclays.” Charlie shouted back. Carol really didn’t want to get up so early on a Saturday.  She swung her legs over the side of the bed and reached out for a pair of knickers that were on the floor. She pulled them on and walked over to the bedroom door and took a dressing gown from the hook.

The Roswell Returns

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” As those words echoed around Mission Control in Houston a round of spontaneous applause broke out across the site and in the control room. There were yelps and hollers of triumph echoing around the whole of NASA that momentous day in July 1969. In the Command Module Michael Collins was monitoring the vital controls that kept it orbiting the Moon. He flipped the carbon dioxide uptake switch, looked at the battery charge meters, oxygen levels and closely watched the radar screen. He sat back in his flight chair and watched the instrumentation flick and whirr. He daren’t relax, he didn’t relax at all. He paid great attention to the radar screen as he was commanded to. He had to monitor it for spooks, intruders or ghosts. He knew he was looking for Foo Fighters. They did show up on radar, aircrews had confirmed that as fact. It was how fast they appeared and disappeared that threw most pilots. There had been warnings by the