The best reads of the year.

Two great novels stand-out for me this year -- stand-out amidst the tsunami of so-called celebrity authors, a cat named Bob or Charles or whatever and an avalanche of soppy, teenage "stories" about first love and disastrous parenting.
If someone out there can please send me the true definition of a "celebrity" please, please do.

My choice:

....to all those readers of this Blog, I wish you a great time over the festive Season and may 2015 be a bright light on your horizon.

Best Wishes.

Emergency Data Law

Now that the UK parliament has passed the Emergency Data Law does that mean they have the right to read and check my letters?
If so, maybe they can make sense of my electricity bill +EDF Energy or the umpteen pages of crap relating to lounge suites, car insurance and window glazing that keep the postman busy.
Grumpy. Time to shake out the old Olivetti typewriter but I did recently hear that during the Cold War, the Russians implanted some gizmo in the golf-ball typewriters (remember them?) that were being used by the Americans in their Embassy. The gizmo calculated the rotations of the ball and the letters it was using -- how on earth they used that info is beyond my ageing brain -- all sounds like nonsense but it was something I heard -- just saying nowhere is safe. Carrier pigeon??????

Buying toothpaste - brain decay.

Read TWO FEET to realise how shopping was in those "good old days". There's a quick chapter about how we used to buy the week's needs. Enjoy!

...many full moons ago I posted a Blog about buying hair shampoo (I've attached below to rekindle your memories) which was well supported. But, I ask, what about toothpaste? Here, the mind boggles and the dentures clench. With shopping cart or basket in hand, you will soon discover yourself rooted to the supermarket floor as you ponder dental cleansing as if you have just happened upon the answer to the Meaning Of Life and do not have an effing clue what it means. Understandably so. ( If, per chance, you do KNOW the answer, please, please comment.)
Okay -- teeth are important -- give a rusty, denture crooked smile and all could be misconstrued, but give us a break Colgate and the rest of you --
Ultra shine -- sounds good to me...but now I'm brushing laboriously and  I'm frothing at the mouth with something akin to that of a distressed Praying Mantis's shit -- and in BLUE -- it's everywhere. Staining the basin, staining the towel. What's with the blue? I'm after white...and now there are frothy bubbles, as if I'm popping cheap, fake caviar...my hand on the brush is now swamped in froth and I'm seriously wondering if my teeth are receiving any of this paste.
Sensitive teeth, non-sensitive,capped or uncapped,smile or glum,mint and apple freshness,triple coloured like a barber's pole, halitosis friendly(?),your dentist's favourite,herbal topped (what the heck does that mean?I'm brushing with Jasmine?)...48 hour lasting freshness (that's not what we were taught at school)...kills all plaque (why do I need a dentist?)...Ultra Ultra shine which I gather means that after a few years brushing with this stuff I'm going ivory...or maybe I should just take a quick visit to the herb garden and chew on a few roots? Not a problem I'm thinking -- chomp a bit of basil, floss with some lavender and maybe stick a mint leaf or two under the tongue --
And the flavours? Mint..okay...but what the F is zesty Mint ?? Chemically induced? Zesty Mint -- sounds like a teenage pop group still looking for a garage to rehearse in.
I just want to brush my teeth -- pure and simple.
I remember squatting at many a fireside in Africa and remembering the folk I was with simply sticking their fingers into the grey of the charcoal and finger brushing their teeth...and believe me, their teeth stood out like corn on a cob. And there was nothing wrong with their smile.
....and talking about brushing and tooth brushes?
When did you last buy a toothbrush and have a clear idea of what you wanted, and what you ended up buying???????????
I don't even want to go there for the moment, anyway!!!


THERE'S A SALAD ON MY HEAD.

Had a quiet chuckle a few days ago. Stumbled into the local supermarket come pharmacy to purchase a bottle of shampoo. Soap in a bottle it used to be. Not any more -- surveyed line upon line of misshaped bottles -- green, yellow, amber, gold, dark...upright and not upright. Bulbous and lean. Started reading the ingredients and that's when I chuckled.
Avocado and passion fruit, honey and almond, wild herbs and strawberry, lemon zing with a dash of grapefruit (natural no less!), raspberry with mint and selected herbs from India, (mint??) rose petal and, wait for it, tea. Give me/us a break here -- we are talking about washing our hair, not dumping the veggie garden on our head, are we??
So maybe this doesn't surprise you. Does me -- as a farm kid I grew up with all those ingredients so imagine if I'd wandered off into the orchard, into the fields, mashed up a few strawberries, squashed an avocado or two, and dumped them on my scalp? Then rinsed.
It would have been straight jacket time, I tell you. Or I'd be quickly associated to smoking the same green stuff the tractor driver was hourly participating in -- Back in those days, a bar of Lux soap did just fine even though it may have just been used to clean one of the mutts. I'm still showing a full crop of hair just in case you are wondering.
P.S. I bought the green one -- I think it is lime something or other. Not sure, but it seems to goad well with the bees out in the garden -- I'm a fair attraction.
Bring back them old days.

So here's an extract from TWO FEET about shopping -- hope you enjoy. Comments appreciated.

EXTRACT FROM THE NOVELLA, TWO FEET:
This was a good road. It had a few hills and a few potholes, but pedalling was easy especially on the way to the Store. I’d park the bike outside the Store where the hulking overhead diesel drum was positioned, and then walk across the dry patch of red earth where the chickens fed, and climb the few concrete steps onto the porch of the building. Here, a Cobbler and a tailor worked. The tailor had a milky eye and his left leg would furiously pump the plate on the floor to make the sewing machine rattle. He looked as though he was riding a bicycle to nowhere. The Cobbler, who wore a white shirt and a tie, had a tiny anvil and a mouthful of little black tacks that protruded from his lips like snakes’ tongues. Beside him were heaps of shoes that I thought would never cover a person’s feet or tread on a road again. But they did.
There is always a group of people gathered on the porch. A mother feeding her baby on her bosom, her head bent low over the infant to keep away the flies, an old man leaning on his cane peering from beneath the brim of his recently purchased hat, and another woman tying up her cash in a piece of cloth that she would thrust down her blouse for safe keeping.
The business of shopping was a muted, respected affair by customers in the Store. An aisle was approached with caution, almost in awe, bare feet scuffing on the concrete floor. Canned goods were held carefully in both hands, and the picture on the label was studied with the intensity of an art scholar. A bar of wrapped, Lux soap was sniffed and smiled at, and the bulky bag of Hullett’s refined, white sugar, stroked and prodded.
At the rear of the store, alongside gardening implements and paraffin lamps, shoes for men and women, made in Taiwan, beckoned. The shoes were never tried on for size but measured against the foot, the brightness of the shoe’s plastic alluring. The appearance of high heeled shoes would cause much stifled giggling.

The weighing of maize meal, sugar or flour by the Store’s owner was a solemn affair, the customer having ordered it, not by weight, but by what he or she could afford. As the grocer’s scale shifted on its fulcrum, so would the head of the customer, as if mentally trying to balance the brass contraption by telepathy. When the scale righted itself, the customer would do likewise with his or her head. Then the maize or flour would be poured into a paper bag and fastened with cello-tape. Whatever money the customer had was offered to the store owner as payment. It was accepted that the store owner would count out what was needed, and the balance be returned. A sticky sweet or two always concluded the transaction.

Swaziland: King Mswati Snubs His Own Airport

Swaziland: King Mswati Snubs His Own Airport

...if only his father was alive today!!

Yet another African country falls foul to corruption -- a damn, damn shame. Back in the days we were taking sanctuary in Swaziland to avoid the apartheid mayhem -- now it seems the opposite.
The fact is, he didn't need an aeroplane in the first place.
Grumpy.


allAfrica.com: Swaziland: King Mswati Snubs His Own Airport

Please visit the following site to read how it USED to be in Swaziland or simply give the novel TWO FEET a read -- set in the 1960's it highlights the GOOD of the country.  Thanks.

When it was good...

The Confused Kingdom

Here's a quick update on an earlier Blog - Two Feet, Where in Africa? in which I offered some trivia regarding the Kingdom of Swaziland, the locale of the novella.

It seems, according to the +Mail & Guardian King Mswati III has been sent a political message via God on how to rule his country:

Africa's last absolute monarch King Mswati III has announced his tiny mountain kingdom has a new political system – a "monarchial democracy".

I'm no political genius (is anyone? and if so, please stand up and be counted!) but this reads somewhat contradictory, doesn't it? But so do most things political I suppose --

OR, perhaps, the King has been participating in his country's main export which grows with abandon and keeps even the birds flying high.

OR, as Mabuza would have said:

Mabuza once told me that no matter what path you are walking, looking left and right as well as in front of you is always a good thing to do.

Two Feet -- How to save your money.

IS IT WORTH THE READ?

...with the advent of self-published novels via Amazon you pretty much can lay your hands on a novella for less than $3.00 -- +Kindle Fire and +Amazon.com -- competition is rife and from what I read, self-published authors are now topping the one million mark, plus. Like all things in life, we are all out there looking for the angle, the market, the means, to get our books read, to get recognised and chase the dream. Dare I add, a glimpse of the dream as I'm not that naive.
So I was thinking -- what do you get for $3.00 nowadays? Not much -- just on a litre of gasoline here in the UK and not even a pint of beer. Ten cigarettes if you are lucky and half-hour parking spot in an over-crowded parking lot where some idiot will bend your fender without leaving an apology so consequently that half hour will cost you a few hundred pounds.
I'm no mathematician, +The Economist, but analysing TWO FEET, the novella, I'm suggesting your $3.00 is pretty good value for your time:

Here's how I roughly figured it out:

A WORM UP YOUR BUM:
...an entire chapter dedicated on how to eradicate the little bastard worm common to people in Africa, with thanks to the medical advice of a now deceased Sangoma. (Ask your local GP for this advice and you will be re-mortgaging your house).

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT:
...how to survive six lashes of the best by a devout, +Marvel Comics reading, religious schoolteacher -- as corporal punishment is now "banned" this chapter may not offer much other than for you to remind your children as to how it was in "those days"! Parental advice is costly, but here you can gather it for less than $3.00. Not bad, me thinks.

WHERE ARE YOU FATHER?
...numerous chapters and thoughts on the disappearance of your father. Without the gloom but, admittedly, with a touch of salt and tears. What you learn by reading this is solely up to you -- but I cannot put a price on sharing such a loss, such a journey, so I will leave this open to your own interpretation: hoping, in our little way, that it has saved you the cost of a therapist simply by realising that you are not alone. Worth the $3.00 spend so I feel.

DEALING WITH A WARRIOR:
...this may read as foolish, but we ALL, daily, deal with our warrior -- be he within, be he on the outside. He's your creation, your light, your escape. Dealing with your warrior will inspire and often deflate, but his guidance is imperative. Take heed of his words and his hand. Travel his road for less than $3.00 and, hopefully, you smile at the end of the road (...if there is one!)

THE INDIAN DOCTOR FROM CALCUTTA:
...how to arrive in a small town with your dreams and have them dashed, until you learn the way of the people. If you are in business, are a manager, take heed of our Doctor in Two Feet -- there are always parallels, comparisons. Be it now, be it then -- he may have a problem with chickens shitting on his car, but don't we all ? So here's some business advice...for less than $3.00.

...saying more will give it away -- which is almost what it is now, a GIVE-AWAY -- but no matter what the price, there's always something worthwhile between the covers.  Spend it, but spend it wisely --

...As always I look forward to your comments (there's a box that can be ticked at the end of this Blog -- it's easy to do...use your wrist...and enjoy the spend...enjoy the read -- for $3.00 you get to read eleven years of my life -- that can't be so bad, can it??

$3.00 well spent here!!

The Bone Traders -- a FREE chapter

Please feel FREE to click the link below where you can catch up on both THE BONE TRADERS and the novella, TWO FEET.

Joe's home

Here's a freebie -- hopefully it will inspire you to comment or, better yet, to download the book!!!

CHAPTER EIGHT

Reverend Dickinson stumbles into the arched sanctuary of his Church. He is drunk. He drinks from a bottle of white liquid, compliments of Mister Needham who manages to distil the juices from rancid potatoes that are beyond being edible.

The night’s light barely intrudes through the cracked, smeared plastic sheeting covering the windows, silhouetting the few chairs in the room and the bulk of the makeshift altar.

His eyes move around the room. “Where are you? Where are you? Are you in here?” He looks in the vestry. “I know you’re here somewhere...”

He looks under a chair on wobbly knees. “Under here? No.”

He stands in the centre of the aisle facing the rear of the church. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he calls. The only response he gets is the wet echo of his own voice of the walls. He pulls up a chair with his foot and sinks into like dead weight.

“O come all ye faithful joyful and triumphant, O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem. Come and behold Him, born the King of Angels...”

He stops singing and remains still for a moment. He senses a presence behind him. Slowly he turns and looks up at the dirty, broken stain-glass window above him at the far end of the church. The window depicts God on high with his subjects kneeling at his feet. The images are childishly etched in crayon, a gift by a woman long deceased.

“There you are,” he sneers. He glares at the window. “Why, why must you torture me this way? I your most loyal servant, this is my reward? To fornicate, to screw, to fuck! Thank you for that little joke, Messiah!”

He tries to stand but thinks better of it. “Am I not a man of God but a man of flesh and blood also? Made in your own image? Imperfect image! Ungracious Idol! I will kneel to you no more.”

He sits quietly for a moment, looks across to the empty chairs that are his only company. “They sit here, frail and weak, the dying and the already dead, and you ask me to lie - to tell them their suffering in this world will be their salvation in the next. I made a vow to love only you and this how you re-pay me?  Hell and damnation?” He stares at his feet. “I accuse you of hypocrisy Blessed Lord, who did punish the meek and murder the innocent. Hypocrite! Vile hypocrite! Prophet of doom!  Do you have anything to say in your defence? No? Then the sentence is guilty, guilty as charged.”

He staggers to his feet, the bottle slipping from his fingers. It breaks with a dull, useless thud.

“Why did you not stop us? Not one word,” he asks the walls. “Not much to ask was it - a child, a product of love? Not much. No.”

He burps and laughs out aloud because of it.

“But she was sorry. Danya said she was sorry...my sweet Danya,” he tells the sound of plastic flapping on the roof.

Across the street from the Church, the light of candle flickers in a window of the Ferguson house.

The interior of the house reminds you of the house your grandmother may have built. Its furnishings are sparse but selective; heavy furniture inexpertly refurbished and prints of a once popular Monet and a Picasso, a Warhol, nailed to a wall; all somehow salvaged and badly repaired, collected after The Event like driftwood on a beach after a storm. The walls are a mismatch of brick, rock and wood. It is a sad attempt of making a home, but at least it is an attempt.

Sarah, carrying a pitcher of steaming water, enters the bathroom. Danya is in the bath. It is a metal tub and she sits with her knees up. There is no running water. Danya’s thoughts are elsewhere.

“Here we go. Perfect temperature, the way you like it,” Sarah says as she enters. “What were you thinking about?”

“Why I hate this wind and the dust.  It clings to me like a snake’s skin.  I think the dust is trying to throttle us, to starve us from breathing.”

Sarah kneels beside Danya and pours the water over her hair and upper body.

“It’s a wind from hell, I say. At least, before, it was cooler and the children would float paper bags on pieces of string.  One day we’ll see that again.”

“There was no dust on the automobile,” Danya points out. “No dust. Not even a dead insect. Not a fly, a locust. Did you notice?”

“No I didn't.”

“I thought, perhaps, that he came from somewhere where there is no dust, no insects but that’s impossible, isn't it?”

“Oh, so you were thinking about that man!” Sarah teases as she begins to sponge Danya.

“I was not!”

“Calm down. No need to be defensive, Danya. To be honest, I’d be thinking about him if he had looked at me the way he looked at you.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Sarah’s hands are working Danya’s shoulders, gently and sensuously. “I think you do,” Sarah whispers in her daughter’s ear. Sarah’s hands begin to explore Danya’s chest. Danya tenses her body, raises her knees tighter to her breasts, but then she leans back, closing her eyes.

Sarah leans closer to her daughter’s ear. “A man like that carries a scent that fills your senses with wicked abandonment; makes you imagine places to run, places to hide and to meet. Did you see his hands? They were strong, very strong hands that could hurt, just a little, but in the right places.”

Sarah leans over the bath a little further, her chin resting on Danya’s wet shoulder. 

“Mother...”

“Hush.”

Then Danya screams. She screams at the small window in the wall ahead of her. 

Hef has his face glued to the outside of the bathroom window, working his tongue like a snake’s. He licks the pane of glass.

“Get a robe on!” Sarah shouts to Danya.

Sarah charges into the passageway and into the bedroom.  From under the bed, in a smooth action, she collects the twelve bore shotgun that has seen better times.  Now she returns down the passageway and enters the kitchen.  She swings open the kitchen door in time to...

...see Charles crossing the small garden near the shed.  Sarah fires the shotgun and its pellets blast into the shed as Charles “yelps” and sprints around the corner of the house, his cashmere coat trailing like linen in the wind.

Sarah staggers under the recoil of the weapon.

“Stay where you are, Danya!” She shouts.

Sarah steps away from the kitchen door and into the garden. Hef comes sprinting from around the corner, straight towards her. Hef skids to a halt, his arms fluttering like a windmill. Sarah trains the gun on him.

“Did he send you?”

Hef shakes his head.

“Then run away you idiot,” Sarah tells him.

Hef does as Sarah shoots a round harmlessly into the night sky. She heads back into the house as she loads a thick cartridge. She storms into the lounge where she opens the only window in time to...

...see Sampson making a bee-line for the small, crooked gate. Sarah fires again, the pellets dancing in the sand near the running man. Sampson is over the fence and into the street, swallowed up by the darkness.

“Bugger it!”Curses Sarah. “Danya, where are you?”

“In the bathroom,” Danya replies, her voice shaking.

Sarah sets the gun aside and takes a deep breath. Then she hurries down the passageway and into the bathroom. Danya is huddled in the corner wearing a robe.

“Have they gone?”

“Yes. Be calm now. Come here. Come.”

Danya settles into Sarah’s hug, her body trembling slightly. “Why can’t they just leave me alone? Why?”

“Ignorant fools.  It will never happen again.  I will always protect you.”

“That is what Reverend Dickinson promised!” Danya says as she steps back from her mother.

“I know. And he’ll hear from me first thing in the morning. Trust me.”

The Bone Traders - Today's Quote

Where to buy The Bone Traders

Greetings from a cold, windy United Kingdom -- if, per chance, there is a reader of this Blog out there that has recently seen the sun, please let me know what it looks like -- a simple sketch will suffice.
 -- curiously, this Blog is now racing(?) toward a 1000 readers. Okay, okay...I am well aware that this figure is but a pin-prick in the ocean of Blog and that the likes of Lady Gaga accomplish that amount hourly, but I'm chuffed and I thank you all for reading and dealing with my gloom and doom and scattered words. And, may I add, yet to comment! Selfishly I set up this Blog to promote my novels and will continue doing so until this tired brain surrenders or the laptop calls it a day.
Talking of surrendering -- +Ad Sense  You win. I surrender. For those not in the know, +Ad Sense offers to place advertisements alongside popular Blogs etc,. etc. This Blog has been "under review"for a a few days but has been considered (by whom or what I ask?) as inadequate because it promotes copyrighted material. Ummm...yup...my/our material...but I get the gist of it all. I just thought it would be cool to allow you faithful readers the chance to share in purchasing plastic footwear, Viagra and cheap cosmetics...but forward we go. And, by the way, if you have your own Blog and are considering the Ad Sense route, ensure you have a degree in IT or the aptitude of a nuclear physicist. I sincerely think climbing Everest is easier than pasting an HTML code...whatever that means.
Before ending this digression, welcome to all the readers in Russia!
So here, FINALLY, is an extract from The Bone Traders. Our hero, Joe, is about to go to work:

I sold it, Sir!

DOG'S WEBSITE

...tense times here previous readers of 'You sold it how,Sir? '....I know there's a few because I've added a counter thingy that rotates with the speed of a snail on a razor blade...be okay if one or two of you commented just to fill in the vacuum...but I digress...dare I ask follow?
...tense times. I have sacrificed the first of my Facebook coupons (worth 25 big ones) and lodged my first advertisement for +Talking With Dog. I have highlighted the delete button on the ever complaining, antiquated laptop should the market, the CLICKS, go wild as on the floor of Wall Street and FB suddenly targets my shredded credit card. I sit now with anticipation and am ready to "auction" the cost (don't have a clue how) of the dreaded clicks once they rocket in...ha! The log line I have conjured, with much help from a can or two of ale, is....wait for it....COULD YOU SURVIVE IT? Clean...simple...now in hindsight I hope to F the ignorant out there don't construe that as meaning could they survive the read?? Oh boy...
...so...following on yesterday's idea of finding an isolated Island community to target for the novel's much needed boost, I have chosen...wait for it...the sun bronzed, the sun drenched folk of the United Kingdom. Yes, them mad dogs and Englishmen. I have targeted, according to FB's social surgery, those between 18-60 and who, hopefully, READ. I figured that made sense as even the +The Sun gets read on these narrow shores and that doesn't take much doing. You pretty much just have to mouth the words and read the photographs.
...so off we go then... advertisement is in preview, second coupon awaits with anticipation, fingers are a-hovering and I'm sure the folk at Amazon are experiencing the quiet before the storm.
You have to dream...
Comment. Complain. Ridicule. I'm good for it!!
Thanks Facebook...heh heh.

You sold it how, Sir? (3)

...bad news on my marketing ploy to gain a new coupon from the folk at Facebook. Inserting a recipe or two created by my hero in +Talking With Dog so the advertising campaign targets the good folk in Alaska (see earlier blog) ain't going to work. According to this fellow, http://www.abufares.net/2006/08/100-ways-to-cook-rabbit-recipe-no-26.html, he's figured out a 100 ways to cook a rabbit!
Be pretty dumb for my hero to challenge that and, besides, imagine what it would do to the book's format!
So its back to investigating all the social stuff on FB whilst my two free coupons glare at me and grow older.
Perhaps there is a way of targeting the folk on a very small Island somewhere?? A forgotten culture who, out of admiration for being targeted as part of my sweeping advertising campaign, form a cult...? Recklessly spend dollars, or whatever, on buying the novel?
Where to search, me asks? Amazon jungle....?? Mmmm...

..Ha,Ha...so the plot thickens! Some highly paid marketing exec at Facebook has again targeted me and sent me yet another coupon worth twenty-five quid. I think I'm on a roll here because the two coupons have a different expiry date. Now, if I'm shrewd here (which I am never) I should be able to stock-broker(?) both coupons at intervals, thus raising my advertising budget on *Talking With Dog* (there, got the name in!) to fifty quid -- watch out market, here comes the big time...now, ignoring all this bid clicking and whatever, FB is asking me who I want to target? who or what is my market? I typed in "...anyone who has a spare dollar to spend "...but that drew a negative, which seems honest considering the plight of this planet's economics. Moving on, I investigated further ;- this is all social stuff I see...people who are into film, people who only live in The Alps, people who have children or people that don't. Oh boy...well, it turns out the best target for my novel, are people who are interested in cooking and who live in Alaska and breed dogs (must be because I have Dog in the title). Now there's a thing considering my hero ain't no chef and the whole story is set in a heatwave. Mmm...but he does nosh the occasional rabbit, so if I added in a recipe or two....?? I'm working on this idea as it could spawn a cook book and gain me yet another coupon.
As for the bidding clicks? I'm still lost and hanging onto the remains of the credit card.
I await further marketing advice...or do I just purchase two messenger pigeons and get on with it?


...so I scrape together a few farthings to advertise the self-published novel,#Talking With Dog (had to get that in not that I fully understand this @ or # business) and I surf the net and think; okay, I've got the Facebook page done, but seriously doubt my flotsam of friends are going to give a flying F...so now I look at the Facebook advertising -- they sent me a coupon worth twenty-five quid the clever sods -- but its a head start. Add that to my farthings, I'm in for thirty-five pounds...you see, I'm thinking the economics here; on Amazon I'm selling the book for a pittance, so how much to break even?
Okay -- I'm soon realising that I have to be a stock-broker here -- what is this bidding per click?? Check it out...someone clicks on the dodgy advertisement, and I have to pay..okay, fair deal...but is that above the huge fee I allocated as my budget, or am I going to wake up and see an already drained credit card in the sewer...I froze. I panicked. Delete, delete...
Now I've got a plan -- messenger pigeons...I strap the advertisement to their ankles and off they go...
Must I use # and @ in a Blog to get people read?
Oh boy.