Giving a Bull Stawberries

LESS THAN A WEEK TO GO TO LAUNCH DATE!

This is the cover for the new collection of stories, which is due to be released (I use the term advisedly) on an unsuspecting public on 28th March, 2015 at the ridiculous price of just 99p/99c

NOW AVAILABLE TO PRE-ORDER - BEAT THE RUSH AND RESERVE YOUR COPY NOW!

Giving a Bull Strawberries

JUST FOLLOW THE LINK ABOVE

The fourth book in the ever popular 'nostalgedy' series of books. However, you don't need to start at Book 1 and work through to Book 4, or even start at Chapter 1 etc., you can dip in and out at will, and it will all make sense. 

Yet another collection of tales from yesterday and today, designed to bring a smile to your lips (although I can't think of anywhere else you would want a smile) and a warm glow of recollection…wherever you fancy having a warm glow, I suppose. 

Here you will find a whole bunch of 'nostalgedy' stories. For those of you new to the concept of 'nostlagedy', it's a word I've coined to describe nostalgic articles where the accent is on comedy. I thought about 'comalgia' but I decided it sounded like something you would need to rub with liniment. 

They say that strategy is something that is only obvious in hindsight (I don't know who this 'they' is, but they seem to say a lot of things) but it is certainly true of this compilation. I was casting about for an overall theme for the stories when I realised that, one way or the other, the majority are about transport. Of course, I've now decided that this was my intention all along! 

Armed with an overarching theme, the structure for the book just had to be after the style of the old Highway Code, which I remember poring over, first for my Cycling Proficiency Test and later for my Driving Test (and have never looked at it again since). Do you remember the old Highway Code? It used to have separate sections for the different road users, such as The Road User On Foot, The Road User On Two Wheels and so on. Well, if it was good enough for the Highway Code, it's definitely good enough for me. Hence this compilation is split into sections covering The Author on the Road, The Author on Rails, The Author at Sea and, finally, The Author at Large, which is a catch-all description of everything that I couldn't shoe-horn into the other three sections. 

In these sections you will experience, amongst other things; the dubious delights of flat, warm beer at 08.30 in the morning as you set off by train for Blackpool, the horrifying sight of three less than agile people crossing the M5 on foot, the three-year slog of endeavouring to learn to drive and the trials of trying to find a working cash machine in Malaga in the wee small hours. All of these stories, and many more besides, are yours for the reading. 

The Price is Right!

If you're an avid reader of e-books, as I am, then you may have noticed today that an awful lot of these have suddenly become a lot more expensive.  This is because of one of those EU initiatives designed to remove a tax loophole whilst, simultaneously, placing a huge burden on the businesses and individuals that pay those taxes.  Basically, VAT can no longer be based on the country in which the retailer is based when selling across the EU.  This loophole had been the reason why so many were, ostensibly, based in Luxembourg so as to take advantage of the 3% VAT rate there.  Now you have to charge the VAT rate prevalent in the country of each consumer.  This means, in the U.K., that the tax charged on e-books (and don't get me started on why e-books attract VAT but print books don't) has jumped from 3% to 20% overnight.  Authors can therefore either leave things alone and let their readers pay the higher prices, or reduce their 'cut' accordingly (because nobody else, such as the publisher, is going to) and keep prices the same.

'Nostlagedy' fans will be delighted to learn that the granny, the duck and the pantry door will be staying at their 2014 prices even whilst their author is heading for the soup kitchen ;-)

Steady Past Your Granny's

still only 99p

Crutches for Ducks

still only £1.99

A Kick at the Pantry Door

still only £1.49

Decking the Halls

Have you done your Christmas decorations yet?  We’re normally amongst the last in our vicinity to do this, but this year we’re somewhat ahead of the game.  We’ve discovered that leaving it to the last weekend before Christmas is not acceptable when you have a 3 year old (going on 4) grandson making regular visits.  A bit more enthusiasm is, apparently, required.

The outcome of all this was that last Sunday I was attempting to do practical things.  This is never a good idea where I’m concerned.  I’m excused all things practical.  Nevertheless, on a bitterly cold afternoon, with the grey light fading rapidly, I could be found teetering on the top of a three-step stepladder, attempting to fix some lights to our car port in what might be laughingly called, an artistic fashion.  When I had dropped a cable clip for the twelfth time and had climbed down to pick it up again, the air surrounding me had changed to subtle shade of blue.  Little expletives, like ‘oh heck’, had matured and grown into something considerably more robust and Anglo-Saxon.  Essentially, my demeanour was that of someone being placed under considerable strain by some malign force.  I kept asking why, whatever it was, was choosing to do this to me.

In this respect, I realise that I’ve become very like my dad.  Father had little or no patience for any practical activity.  If he was nagged into doing something, we all shrank back and waited for the growing volume of put-upon expletives and the inevitable outburst of temper and frustration.  Dad, like me, had no proper tools of any sort, largely because neither I nor he would have had any clue as to what to do with them and so we’re marginally safer without.  What we did have were a motley collection of screwdrivers , along with a bunch of assorted spanners mostly emanating from bicycles past and present.  Anything that didn’t fit with any of these would be tackled with the nearest equivalent from the cutlery drawer.

Father’s wail of anguish would usually begin with an ‘Oh God!’, often before he had actually attempted anything and was merely in the contemplative stage.  This would then be repeated at regular intervals in a rising crescendo of frustration.  “I’m chokker” (which I imagine had it origins in choc-a-bloc, but basically means ‘I’m fed up’) would be a constant chorus, usually leading to a final outburst of “Oh for….” which usually closely preceded everything being thrown down and dad heading off to the pub in high dudgeon.

I wonder if the origins of all this might be found in an incident that took place before I was born?  Apparently, as they approached their first Christmas as a married couple, mother suggested to father that he might make himself useful by putting up the Christmas decorations.  This was in the days when it was the done thing to have paper streamers draped across the room.  Mum had apparently been delayed at a pre-Christmas drinks thing at the Depot where she worked on Burton Road, Branston and, unusually for her, had perhaps indulged a little too freely.  Therefore, when she got home, full of the joys of Christmas, she encountered my dad teetering on a chair (they never had a set of steps in their married life) attempting to attach a paper streamer to a wall and not in the best of humours.  It was just at this point that the drawing pin he was using must have come into contact with a barely concealed mains electric wire.  Apparently there was a flash and a bang, and dad was dumped on his derriere on the other side of the room.  All of which would have been bad enough but one of mum’s most endearing characteristics, which stayed with her all of her life, was that if she found something funny she would abandon herself to laughter, which she did on this occasion.  So, as father checked his limbs and extremities to ensure he still had the requisite amount, mum could be found dissolved into a heap of hysterical laughter on the sofa.

Whenever this story was recounted over the years (which was many), mum still found the incident hysterically funny and dad usually glowered and muttered darkly about the dangers he had braved without being appreciated.

Apparently (and I’m sorry about this) their first Christmas began with a bang and not with a streamer!

Fabulous Friday!

Had a really great Friday, 28th November, 2014 because the Derby Telegraph published not one, but two of my pieces.  If you missed these, there is my usual monthly Bygones article:

Pub coach outing still has me waking and screaming

about a family who decided upon an original method of returning to the motorway car park

and a Christmas short story, which you might well enjoy:

You'd Better Watch Out!

about Wayne, the Anti-Santa!

As always, any comments, shares, tweets or screams of delight would be very much appreciated

;-)

Autumn

I was walking my daughter's chocolate labrador yesterday morning and it occurred to me that this was a perfect autumn day. Water dripping from every branch and twig, wood smoke hanging in the air, the squelch of leaves and long-collected conker cases under your feet and a weak and indifferent sun nuzzling at the clouds. That's all. Normal curmudgeonliness will be resumed as soon as possible 

Abroad Thoughts From Home

When it comes to writing, I'm afraid that I tend toward lethargy.  I have plenty of good ideas, but putting these down on paper is invariably a job for tomorrow.  One way I have found to overcome this procrastination problem is to write something, anything, and see what happens.

Clearing out my office today (I promised my wife that I would do this now I've retired), I came across this example of 'writing and seeing what happens' from 2007.

It is half past two, November 17th, 2007.  We're chasing the sun around the pool next to my aunt and uncle's villa in Marxaquera, Spain.  The blue water of the pool ripples invitingly as the pump mechanism cleans and filters the water, but it is far too cold to risk a swim.  Up in the villa, my aunt and uncle, now old hands at this 'Spanish winter' thing, having been here for over 20 years, sit in front of a roaring log fire and watch English T.V.  Whereas we, grateful for the chance to break free from the eternal greyness of the U.K., resolutely squeeze every drop of sunshine from the day in a way that would never occur to us back in England, even in the height of summer.  Right now we too would be huddled in front of a roaring central heating system, as likely as not watching T.V.

Today we are reading.  This is something that we're always threatening to do at home but never seem to find the time.  In the same way that the sophisticated keyboard, bought for my birthday some years ago, languishes in the wardrobe and will be played (I tell myself)when we have some time (by which point either it, or I, will probably be defunct).

Last night we 'went for a Chinese', which seems a peculiar thing to do in Spain but, on reflection, Chinese cuisine has become an international guarantor of certain standards of quality, reliability and edibility.  I have eaten and enjoyed Chinese(ish) food in New York, Amsterdam and Moscow, so why not Spain?  In any case, I had a good idea of what I was going to get, and I was not disappointed.  Chinese food has the same comforting quality of a well-known international brand, like McDonalds' I suppose, although I wouldn't seek out a Big Mac anywhere unless I was truly desperate. 

The interesting (arguably) thing about the visit to a Chinese was that, although we were there from 9 p.m. to midnight, the restaurant was filled with families and groups of young people just having their evening meal quietly and without fuss.  There was no invasion of drunks from the nearest pub, no atmosphere of intimidation and no yobbish behaviour.  In other words, there were no British, apart from ourselves.

Contrast this with our flight here from Manchester.  All around us were a group of twelve middle-aged men on a long weekend trip to Benidorm.  A few rows forward were a similar group of ladies, presumably bound for a vacation of fairly identical content.  I had seen these groups when I entered the airport, dug in at the nearest bar buying gargantuan rounds of drinks and talking loudly.  By the time of the flight, their volume had increased in direct proportion to their alcoholic intake.  Although they were, by no means, belligerent, they dominated the atmosphere of the 'plane.  In many ways it was like being transported back to school.  Suddenly, farting had become a source of constant amusement as had visits to the toilet and slightly risqué lyrics to popular songs.  Eventually, and not unexpectedly, they had to be 'told off' by the flight attendant for not adhering to the 'Fasten Your Seatbelt' sign.  Somehow, there was a sense of completion to all this, as if boundaries had been tested to the limit and now, having been established, the competition was over.

How the heck we ever ended up with an empire, I'll never know!

You can find a lot more stuff, usually better prepared than this, at Phil Whiteland's Amazon Author Page

Bring Out Your Dead - a Josiah and Archibald tale

I'm currently drafting a longer story about my two hapless undertakers.  As I draft each section, I'm posting them on Wattpad and inviting comments.  I would be really interested to hear what you think.  If I don't lose heart (or inspiration) this might turn into a novel :-)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3