Melanoma is not (yet) related to smoking, drinking or being overweight.
If you have it, you might be one of the thirty per cent who wouldn't die at once if you had access to a certain drug.
"On the basis of the evidence provided so far, ipilimumab could not be considered a cost effective use of NHS resources."
So if you have non-smoking, non-drinking, non-burger based melanoma, you are going to die because you're too expensive for the NHS to bother with.
But hey, you're saving the NHS money. All that money you paid in will go to treat other people.
Get the idea yet? Somehow I doubt it.
Friday, 14 October 2011
Late at write...
I've been wandering other people's blogs and sometimes leaving babbles in the comments tonight because a) I'm knackered and b) I am wilfully obstructing the latest attempts to force me to live as a dull and lifeless Puritan. Therefore I am now full of cider and red wine and have a plentiful supply of gas for any EU under-eights who need balloons blown up. Just be careful not to pop them. That's probably illegal based on both noise and toxic fumes legislations.
Seriously. I'm hovering above my chair on a cushion of warm air here. Well, I say 'air' but you wouldn't want to breathe it. Lamb and mushroom pasta with added chilli, combined with cider and red wine could solve the energy crisis at a stroke, if it wasn't for the 'ooooh, I don't like the smell' girlie-men this country is full of now.
Anyhow, on an entirely different tack, I see W H Smith is to sell the Kobo Ebook reader in shops. Tesco have had the Kindle on sale for months here but the Kobo one is cheaper if you don't want the touch screen.
Why would you want the touch screen? You're supposed to be reading the screen so the last thing you want is grubby fingermarks all over it. Get the non-touchscreen one, it works just the same and it's cheaper.
I'm pleased because I'm already selling books on Kobo (even though I had no idea who they were) so getting more people onto it is fine with me. It takes longer to get books onto Kobo and it takes longer to get paid by them but what the hell, another outlet is a good thing.
What is likely to happen now is that the bookshops will get WiFi installed, you'll download the first few pages free and if you like it, you can buy it. No need for a home computer at all. If they can do this in a city centre pub on Friday and Saturday nights, we authors are laughing.
Imagine waking up and thinking 'Oh crap, what books did I buy last night?'
How wonderfully surreal is that?
Seriously. I'm hovering above my chair on a cushion of warm air here. Well, I say 'air' but you wouldn't want to breathe it. Lamb and mushroom pasta with added chilli, combined with cider and red wine could solve the energy crisis at a stroke, if it wasn't for the 'ooooh, I don't like the smell' girlie-men this country is full of now.
Anyhow, on an entirely different tack, I see W H Smith is to sell the Kobo Ebook reader in shops. Tesco have had the Kindle on sale for months here but the Kobo one is cheaper if you don't want the touch screen.
Why would you want the touch screen? You're supposed to be reading the screen so the last thing you want is grubby fingermarks all over it. Get the non-touchscreen one, it works just the same and it's cheaper.
I'm pleased because I'm already selling books on Kobo (even though I had no idea who they were) so getting more people onto it is fine with me. It takes longer to get books onto Kobo and it takes longer to get paid by them but what the hell, another outlet is a good thing.
What is likely to happen now is that the bookshops will get WiFi installed, you'll download the first few pages free and if you like it, you can buy it. No need for a home computer at all. If they can do this in a city centre pub on Friday and Saturday nights, we authors are laughing.
Imagine waking up and thinking 'Oh crap, what books did I buy last night?'
How wonderfully surreal is that?
Thursday, 13 October 2011
Drink, smoke, cakes and impulse buys.
Busy at the moment. I've had a request (at last) for a full manuscript of 'Samuel's Girl', the next novel, and it's just as nerve-wracking as last time. They can still turn it down so nothing is guaranteed yet. This arrived last night just as I was most of the way through a brandy bottle. It's sent now so fingers crossed!
Drink is in the news today. MPs are wasting their time and the money they take from us on deciding whether to have special 'unit limits' for binge drinkers. Rather like declaring bag limits for bank robbers, it's all a total waste of time and money.
[Professor Heather] said: ‘In no circumstances should the committee recommend that the guidelines should be increased. ‘That would be inimical to the health of the nation and wrong on the scientific evidence.’ He is also in favour of advising two alcohol-free days a week.
He can recommend and advise to his Righteous little heart's content. I will ignore him because I will not spend my one and only life living it the way he wants me to. I do not go fighting or spewing and yet my 'unit intake' is enough to make his liver turn purple and crinkle at the edges. I am not the property of this government nor am I the property of any medical Nazi so he can take his recommendations, wrap them in barbed wire and a broken Glenmorangie bottle and ram them sideways into that place the sun does not illuminate. Ideally he should do this while using a rectal camera and post the results on YouTube as a warning to the rest of them.
All this rubbish is based on doublethink and lies and control freakery. Just as with smoking and fat and salt and all the rest of it. Science is dead. All we have now is a vicious, controlling Puritan religion using science as a front.
As Frank has pointed out in his recent posts, the effects of the smoking ban go far beyond the obvious. Like many of his commenters, it's not just that I no longer call in at a cafe or pub for lunch if I go to the town, I no longer bother browsing the shops either. If I have to go to the post office, I go there and go home. No idling in the cafe with a bacon sandwich and a coffee, and no casually looking in shop windows afterwards. It's not only the pubs and cafes and restaurants that feel unwelcoming now. It's the whole town.
Non-smokers probably haven't noticed yet but as alcohol becomes more denormalised, they'll find that the lack of a lunchtime pint means there's no point wandering the shops at lunchtime either.
Then the non-drinkers, once coffee denormalisation gets properly under way, won't bother with their cafes - nor with the shops around those cafes.
Naturally, the anti-smoke, anti-drink, anti-caffeine and anti-fat (bye bye bakeries) groups will insist there is no effect on any business and there can't possibly be an effect on the newsagent, the ornament/model shop, the electronics shop or the charity shop because none of those customers will be missed.
(PDSA- You drove me away with your 'second hand smoke harms pets' crap. I have not been back and won't be. Apple - I own none of your products and never will because you declared the warranty invalid for smokers. I don't care if you backtrack now. Too late).
I used to browse the garden centre and the camera shop. The camera shop is (was?) next to a cafe that did the best bacon rolls around and the garden centre has (had?) its own coffee shop. I haven't been to any of them in well over a year now and haven't even bothered to see if they're still there. I can get camera gear and plants/pots on the Internet.
Books too. The local bookshop closed a couple of years after the ban even though nobody had ever smoked in there and nobody was ever likely to. No connection? Maybe, but it was near a pub, a chip shop and two cafes.
It's not a conscious boycott, it's just that the entire town is so unwelcoming now.
As far as I can see, under Vladimir Cameron's Red Tory Party, it's only going to get a lot worse.
Drink is in the news today. MPs are wasting their time and the money they take from us on deciding whether to have special 'unit limits' for binge drinkers. Rather like declaring bag limits for bank robbers, it's all a total waste of time and money.
[Professor Heather] said: ‘In no circumstances should the committee recommend that the guidelines should be increased. ‘That would be inimical to the health of the nation and wrong on the scientific evidence.’ He is also in favour of advising two alcohol-free days a week.
He can recommend and advise to his Righteous little heart's content. I will ignore him because I will not spend my one and only life living it the way he wants me to. I do not go fighting or spewing and yet my 'unit intake' is enough to make his liver turn purple and crinkle at the edges. I am not the property of this government nor am I the property of any medical Nazi so he can take his recommendations, wrap them in barbed wire and a broken Glenmorangie bottle and ram them sideways into that place the sun does not illuminate. Ideally he should do this while using a rectal camera and post the results on YouTube as a warning to the rest of them.
All this rubbish is based on doublethink and lies and control freakery. Just as with smoking and fat and salt and all the rest of it. Science is dead. All we have now is a vicious, controlling Puritan religion using science as a front.
As Frank has pointed out in his recent posts, the effects of the smoking ban go far beyond the obvious. Like many of his commenters, it's not just that I no longer call in at a cafe or pub for lunch if I go to the town, I no longer bother browsing the shops either. If I have to go to the post office, I go there and go home. No idling in the cafe with a bacon sandwich and a coffee, and no casually looking in shop windows afterwards. It's not only the pubs and cafes and restaurants that feel unwelcoming now. It's the whole town.
Non-smokers probably haven't noticed yet but as alcohol becomes more denormalised, they'll find that the lack of a lunchtime pint means there's no point wandering the shops at lunchtime either.
Then the non-drinkers, once coffee denormalisation gets properly under way, won't bother with their cafes - nor with the shops around those cafes.
Naturally, the anti-smoke, anti-drink, anti-caffeine and anti-fat (bye bye bakeries) groups will insist there is no effect on any business and there can't possibly be an effect on the newsagent, the ornament/model shop, the electronics shop or the charity shop because none of those customers will be missed.
(PDSA- You drove me away with your 'second hand smoke harms pets' crap. I have not been back and won't be. Apple - I own none of your products and never will because you declared the warranty invalid for smokers. I don't care if you backtrack now. Too late).
I used to browse the garden centre and the camera shop. The camera shop is (was?) next to a cafe that did the best bacon rolls around and the garden centre has (had?) its own coffee shop. I haven't been to any of them in well over a year now and haven't even bothered to see if they're still there. I can get camera gear and plants/pots on the Internet.
Books too. The local bookshop closed a couple of years after the ban even though nobody had ever smoked in there and nobody was ever likely to. No connection? Maybe, but it was near a pub, a chip shop and two cafes.
It's not a conscious boycott, it's just that the entire town is so unwelcoming now.
As far as I can see, under Vladimir Cameron's Red Tory Party, it's only going to get a lot worse.
Wednesday, 12 October 2011
The horror... the HTML...
(Finally. Blogger has been bloggered most of the evening so I put a post on Orphans of Liberty instead).
Today I have been mostly screaming and pulling my hair out.
I have someone capable of designing a web site and they'll do it for free, which is good and bad. Good because free is always good, and bad because I can’t nag someone I’m not paying.
The problem is not so much the web-writer (although they also have a full-time job so this is part-time stuff) as much as it’s me.
It’s not just that I don’t know much about HTML. I also don’t have a clear idea what this website should look like. So I have resorted to dabbling with one of those free template things until I get something I think looks right, then I’ll hand it over to the expert and say “Make it look a bit like that but better, and make it work properly”.
One good thing – by that stage I won’t object to anything at all as long as it works so the web-writer will have free reign.
In the meantime I decided to set up at least a temporary page just so there’s a place to direct people when they ask about the books. I haven’t even got that right, but it exists and it loads and it doesn’t look completely rubbish (despite still battling with the text – somehow bold is turned on towards the end and I can’t turn it off).
The ads not mine, they are there because it's free hosting. I can get rid of those by paying - when there's a site there worth paying for.
That’s enough HTML for one night. The brandy is out now. For medicinal purposes.
(Actually I've passed the halfway mark but fortunately saved this post offline first)
Today I have been mostly screaming and pulling my hair out.
I have someone capable of designing a web site and they'll do it for free, which is good and bad. Good because free is always good, and bad because I can’t nag someone I’m not paying.
The problem is not so much the web-writer (although they also have a full-time job so this is part-time stuff) as much as it’s me.
It’s not just that I don’t know much about HTML. I also don’t have a clear idea what this website should look like. So I have resorted to dabbling with one of those free template things until I get something I think looks right, then I’ll hand it over to the expert and say “Make it look a bit like that but better, and make it work properly”.
One good thing – by that stage I won’t object to anything at all as long as it works so the web-writer will have free reign.
In the meantime I decided to set up at least a temporary page just so there’s a place to direct people when they ask about the books. I haven’t even got that right, but it exists and it loads and it doesn’t look completely rubbish (despite still battling with the text – somehow bold is turned on towards the end and I can’t turn it off).
The ads not mine, they are there because it's free hosting. I can get rid of those by paying - when there's a site there worth paying for.
That’s enough HTML for one night. The brandy is out now. For medicinal purposes.
(Actually I've passed the halfway mark but fortunately saved this post offline first)
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
Chairman Cameron...
...of the People's Democratic Republic of Airstrip One.
Taxes on everything. Even death. Yes, you have to save up to go on that final journey now unless you let the NHS break you up for spares and your cash-strapped family are going to be feeling some pressure. Pay thousands for a box and a hole to put it in plus an extra tax on top of the taxes already levied on funerals, or send you to the breakers' yard for free. You're dead - what do you think they'll do?
Now this utter cretin Cameron wants to introduce internet controls he claims are for pornography only. If you don't want your internet restricted you will have to sign on to the Pervs Register. For the damn cheeldren, of course, because their parents are too useless and infantile to take any form of responsibility for their offspring.
It will not stop them sending lewd photos to each other in school because they do that with mobile phones and Bluetooth. Not the Internet. Does Cameron have even the remotest grasp of modern technology? Can he really be as absolutely, totally stupid as he appears? I'd rather have George Bush the Talking Chimp in charge. Cameron is far, far less intelligent.
My current publisher also publishes erotica. They have a warning on the site. Does this mean I have to register as a perv just to carry on working? I neither read nor write erotica but it's one of the publisher's lines, and since it sells well, a lot of publishers handle it. How long before bad language is deemed too scary for the feeble population and we can no longer read Devil's Kitchen or Old Holborn?
David Cameron is not even remotely Tory. He is as bad as, if not worse than Blair and the Gorgon. His entire party are happy to leave him unchallenged and to let him run things as if the Lib Dems had won the election. Not one of them can be trusted. Not one. They all have to go.
Except the ones that do this. They might just have a trace of honour and decency left in them.
That Pervs Register will morph into the Subversives Register when Cameron shows his true Stalinist colours and starts clamping down on anyone he wants silenced. Including those in his own party who have to be re-educated. Once the mechanism to turn us all off is in place, watch the sites disappear. Even if you opt-in, you're only opting in to the sanitised version of the Internet. How will you know what's blocked if you can't see it?
Meanwhile the grinning pile of weasel droppings that is Huhne is still in post despite publically backstabbing cabinet colleagues, and he is getting the country ready for this.
How do people this stupid remember to breathe? You could pick the average drug-addled chav out of a sink estate and make him Prime Minister and he couldn't possibly be worse.
When there is snow covering those solar panels and ice in all the windmills, what are you going to do then, Cameron? Give that smug shit Huhne a pay rise? When half the pensioners die this winter, what are you going to do? Tax the brass handles off their coffins while looking all serious and sympathetic? That 80 mph speed limit is going to look a bit silly when everyone has snow chains on.
He wants us to inform on illegal immigrants. Why? He's not going to do anything about them. A vote on EU membership was promised and reneged on. Weasel words on the Human Rights Act and immigration, neither of which his puppet masters will let him touch. He doesn't want to - he wants to pretend someone else is stopping him. His idea of a restoration of civil liberties involves imposing more and stricter laws on us all.
Mention fat tax, death tax, harsher controls, and his piggy little eyes just light right up, don't they? The Chinese are laughing at you, Cameron. Soon you will be held up as an example of how life is worse abroad by the leaders of the DPRK.
I didn't imagine, during the days of the Brown Gorgon, that anyone could be worse. These Tories are worse. Far, far worse.
We expect petty, spiteful laws from Labour. We expect half-baked ideas from the Lib Dems. Now the Tories are worse than both of them combined. The Left like to call the Tories 'the nasty party' but they're all nasty now. All the same, all composed of drooling, gibbering subhuman sociopaths intent on stealing every last penny while watching us die of malnutrition and cold, and then taxing us more when we do.
A vote for any of them is not just a waste now. A vote for any of them is suicide.
Still, it's cheaper than using the gas oven, I suppose.
Taxes on everything. Even death. Yes, you have to save up to go on that final journey now unless you let the NHS break you up for spares and your cash-strapped family are going to be feeling some pressure. Pay thousands for a box and a hole to put it in plus an extra tax on top of the taxes already levied on funerals, or send you to the breakers' yard for free. You're dead - what do you think they'll do?
Now this utter cretin Cameron wants to introduce internet controls he claims are for pornography only. If you don't want your internet restricted you will have to sign on to the Pervs Register. For the damn cheeldren, of course, because their parents are too useless and infantile to take any form of responsibility for their offspring.
It will not stop them sending lewd photos to each other in school because they do that with mobile phones and Bluetooth. Not the Internet. Does Cameron have even the remotest grasp of modern technology? Can he really be as absolutely, totally stupid as he appears? I'd rather have George Bush the Talking Chimp in charge. Cameron is far, far less intelligent.
My current publisher also publishes erotica. They have a warning on the site. Does this mean I have to register as a perv just to carry on working? I neither read nor write erotica but it's one of the publisher's lines, and since it sells well, a lot of publishers handle it. How long before bad language is deemed too scary for the feeble population and we can no longer read Devil's Kitchen or Old Holborn?
David Cameron is not even remotely Tory. He is as bad as, if not worse than Blair and the Gorgon. His entire party are happy to leave him unchallenged and to let him run things as if the Lib Dems had won the election. Not one of them can be trusted. Not one. They all have to go.
Except the ones that do this. They might just have a trace of honour and decency left in them.
That Pervs Register will morph into the Subversives Register when Cameron shows his true Stalinist colours and starts clamping down on anyone he wants silenced. Including those in his own party who have to be re-educated. Once the mechanism to turn us all off is in place, watch the sites disappear. Even if you opt-in, you're only opting in to the sanitised version of the Internet. How will you know what's blocked if you can't see it?
Meanwhile the grinning pile of weasel droppings that is Huhne is still in post despite publically backstabbing cabinet colleagues, and he is getting the country ready for this.
How do people this stupid remember to breathe? You could pick the average drug-addled chav out of a sink estate and make him Prime Minister and he couldn't possibly be worse.
When there is snow covering those solar panels and ice in all the windmills, what are you going to do then, Cameron? Give that smug shit Huhne a pay rise? When half the pensioners die this winter, what are you going to do? Tax the brass handles off their coffins while looking all serious and sympathetic? That 80 mph speed limit is going to look a bit silly when everyone has snow chains on.
He wants us to inform on illegal immigrants. Why? He's not going to do anything about them. A vote on EU membership was promised and reneged on. Weasel words on the Human Rights Act and immigration, neither of which his puppet masters will let him touch. He doesn't want to - he wants to pretend someone else is stopping him. His idea of a restoration of civil liberties involves imposing more and stricter laws on us all.
Mention fat tax, death tax, harsher controls, and his piggy little eyes just light right up, don't they? The Chinese are laughing at you, Cameron. Soon you will be held up as an example of how life is worse abroad by the leaders of the DPRK.
I didn't imagine, during the days of the Brown Gorgon, that anyone could be worse. These Tories are worse. Far, far worse.
We expect petty, spiteful laws from Labour. We expect half-baked ideas from the Lib Dems. Now the Tories are worse than both of them combined. The Left like to call the Tories 'the nasty party' but they're all nasty now. All the same, all composed of drooling, gibbering subhuman sociopaths intent on stealing every last penny while watching us die of malnutrition and cold, and then taxing us more when we do.
A vote for any of them is not just a waste now. A vote for any of them is suicide.
Still, it's cheaper than using the gas oven, I suppose.
Sunday, 9 October 2011
Entertainment time.
It's been a while, so here's a new tale ready to tell the kids on Christmas Eve. Yes, it's early, but you have to stay ahead of the seasons. I intend to have a Christmas Special collection out in time this year ;)
Assuming I can come up with enough Christmassy tales in time.
Cold turkey for Christmas.
Three hundred and sixty-three days of bad habits. One day of virtue. Not a bad life, up until now.
Santa glared through his window at the white expanse beyond. What did it matter if he smoked and drank all year? It wasn’t as if there was anything else to do here. Nobody visited, nobody would know. Those elves had meddled in his life too much, and the smoking ban was the last straw. He hadn’t asked for the job. If they were going to keep him here, there should be some perks.
His beard itched. That was the worst part of the whole deal. The elves had received complaints, they said, about the stink of tobacco in the beard. He had offered to shave it off, but they would have none of that. The beard was essential, they said. Part of the uniform. Santa took a sip of his whisky, and wondered whether that would be the next thing on their list. Once the tobacco vanished from his beard, the whisky on his breath would draw moans and gripes from the precious little darlings he was forced to serve. His beard bristled with the curl in his lip.
He had a name of his own, once. It was lost now, gone into the dark place along with most of his memories. He had been slim and fit. He had jogged in the park late at night.
That was when the elves caught him. The dust in his face had knocked him unconscious, and when he woke, he was in a place white with snow. A baggy red uniform covered his body, and stubble covered his chin. It had been February, he remembered, but beyond that there was only a vague recollection, a life faded into the wastes of time.
Perhaps he had a wife and children somewhere. Perhaps one of the fatherless children he delivered to were his own. There was no way to tell. It was too hard even to remember how many years ago he had been captured, how many Christmas Eves he had flown the world, how many chimneys he had descended—and where there were no chimneys, how many letterboxes he had flitted through.
Oh, they had given him a little magic, but they had stolen his life. It had been tolerable, up until now. The cigarettes and booze had flowed unchecked, and he was only required to abstain for one day and night. Twenty-four hours without his vices. Cold turkey for Christmas.
Tonight was December 23rd, and he had not smoked since December First. Just passed the three-week mark. Whisky and gin dulled the boredom, but a smoke would have been good too. Cold turkey was bearable for a day, but three weeks of it was hell.
Santa rubbed his wide waist. They had fed him something when he arrived here, and they kept feeding it until he had filled the suit. It was pleasant to eat, for sure, and the little elves still gave him some occasionally, but not often enough, Not any more. Certainly not enough to compensate for the loss of his nicotine.
The sun touched the horizon, and covered the snow with crimson. Santa sighed and downed his whisky. He poured another, a large one. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve, his one day of virtue. He had to be sober to ride the sled. At four times the speed of light, it was best to keep your wits about you.
His fingers interlocked, separated and interlocked again. They drummed the arms of his chair. They picked at his face, they rubbed his chin. Dammit, didn’t all those old pictures show Santa smoking a pipe? Wasn’t the tobacco part of the uniform, like the beard?
“Time to get ready, Santa.”
The elf entered without knocking, as always, and the silence of his movements meant he had spoken directly into Santa’s ear, with no warning of his approach.
“Hell’s bells.” Santa held the whisky glass away from himself. In his surprise, he had spilled some of it over his jacket. “Can’t you cough or something when you come in here? You scared seven shades of crap out of me.”
“Mind your language.” The elf’s leathery face crinkled in a smirk. “Have to get that booze out of your system. Sundown, so no more drink until the job’s done. Hand it over.”
Santa swirled the whisky in his glass and glared at the little elf. It was no more than eighteen inches high. Small enough to step on, if he chose, and his weight would crush it to a pulp. Santa stared into his glass. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of the little beasts. Even if he killed them all, he was somewhere in the North, among the ice. He had no idea where.
“The booze, Santa.” The elf held out his hand.
Santa raised his glass. “Cheers,” he said, and downed the contents of the glass. He smacked his lips as the whisky burned its way down his throat.
“You are the most difficult Santa we’ve ever had here.” The elf snatched the glass from Santa’s hand. “One day of work, that’s all you have to do, and you object to it.” He grabbed the whisky bottle. “Lazy. Plain lazy.”
“How about a cigarette? One won’t hurt.” Santa raised one eyebrow. “Or a pipe. All the old Santa pictures showed him smoking. Why can’t I?”
“Times change. Smoking is a bad thing now. Santa can’t be seen doing bad things. The children smell it. There were complaints, in the letters this year.”
“I know, I know, but I only get out once a year. What about Christmas day? Surely I can have a smoke then?”
“No more smoking. Never.” The elf made for the door. “Next time we’ll be sure to choose a non-smoker for the job.” The elf left, closing the door with a bang.
Santa gripped the arms of his chair. His eyes narrowed, his breathing became shallow.
So, a merry Christmas to one and all. Not quite all, and certainly not to one in particular. Christmas dinner with no smoke to follow. I didn’t even apply for the job. They chose me, they never said how or why.
His brow creased. They never said what happened to the previous Santas either. Am I here until I die?
Santa struggled from the chair and stretched his arms. They tingled with the approach of his magic, the power he held for a few days only, over Christmas. Simple magics that let him into locked houses and fixed broken toys. Not enough to escape the pull of the sleigh; if he strayed too far, his head burned. Oh, he had tried to run away, in the early days, but the pain always forced him back. No, he could not escape, he could do nothing to avoid tomorrow night’s race around the globe. The sleigh would leave on time. If he wasn’t on it, he would endure agony until it returned.
There must be something. Some way to get back at these vicious little toymakers.
Santa strode from the room and into the attached barn. There, his sleigh stood loaded with sacks of presents. It had been ready for a week. There were no last-minute panics here. These elves were efficient.
Santa’s fingers tingled. There was a broken toy in one of the parcels. He felt it as though it was an injury to his own body. With a sigh, he heaved himself into the sleigh. Efficient they may be, but careful they were not. Santa ran his hands over the sacks until he found the one with the broken present. He pulled open the sack and reached inside.
His fingers closed on a long box, covered in green and blue paper. A wave of his hand separated the paper into two neat halves. Santa opened the box.
A toy laser gun, for a budding space ranger. Santa grinned. If only it was real. That would make for a Christmas to remember.
He found the fault in an instant. The trigger mechanism had snapped. Santa pressed his huge hand over the toy and closed his eyes. In his mind, he saw the parts reassemble, the broken pieces meld together. He opened his eyes and took a breath.
“Good as new.” Santa placed the toy gun back in the box. His fingers held the lid, ready to replace it, but he hesitated.
What if—
He had never really tested his magic. It was his for such a short time, and a busy time. All his thoughts were on the sleigh when he travelled. The pain he would suffer if it ever left without him. Now, Santa smiled at the plastic and metal toy. He took it from the box once more and held it between his hands.
This time, he closed his eyes and thought of spacemen, of battles between the stars, of Flash Gordon, of Cybermen and Daleks. Heat flowed between his fingers. The gun became heavy.
Santa opened his eyes. The gun, no longer plastic, gleamed with a new-metal sheen. He aimed it at the barn door and pulled the trigger.
The gun made no sound, but a hole appeared in the door. He held the trigger down and moved the gun to make a slot.
“Excellent.” Santa placed the gun back in the box. His fingers pressed the wrapping back into place. He examined the name tag. “I’m sure little Peter is going to be very pleased with this.”
Santa lifted parcels, one by one, and checked their contents. Toy dinosaurs. Hideous, deformed dolls. He shuddered at some of the more grotesque models.
“Kids, these days,” he muttered. “This stuff would be better suited to Halloween.” He shrugged. “Still, I suppose it’s what they asked for.” And this year, they’ll get more than they asked for.
With care, he replaced the toys in the sacks. It was too soon to make these creatures real. He could do it on the way, tomorrow night. Along with the guns, the bows and arrows, the plastic swords. The toy power tools, the ovens, the irons. These children had made the elves take away his smokes, but he would not deny them their presents. That would be too easy. Santa swaggered to the barn doors and pushed them open.
Stars twinkled in a blue-black sky over a landscape of pure white. A chuckle rose in Santa’s throat, to escape as a deep and resonant “Ho, ho, ho.” His laughter echoed out into the night.
For the first time in his career, this Santa’s mirth was genuine.
Assuming I can come up with enough Christmassy tales in time.
Cold turkey for Christmas.
Three hundred and sixty-three days of bad habits. One day of virtue. Not a bad life, up until now.
Santa glared through his window at the white expanse beyond. What did it matter if he smoked and drank all year? It wasn’t as if there was anything else to do here. Nobody visited, nobody would know. Those elves had meddled in his life too much, and the smoking ban was the last straw. He hadn’t asked for the job. If they were going to keep him here, there should be some perks.
His beard itched. That was the worst part of the whole deal. The elves had received complaints, they said, about the stink of tobacco in the beard. He had offered to shave it off, but they would have none of that. The beard was essential, they said. Part of the uniform. Santa took a sip of his whisky, and wondered whether that would be the next thing on their list. Once the tobacco vanished from his beard, the whisky on his breath would draw moans and gripes from the precious little darlings he was forced to serve. His beard bristled with the curl in his lip.
He had a name of his own, once. It was lost now, gone into the dark place along with most of his memories. He had been slim and fit. He had jogged in the park late at night.
That was when the elves caught him. The dust in his face had knocked him unconscious, and when he woke, he was in a place white with snow. A baggy red uniform covered his body, and stubble covered his chin. It had been February, he remembered, but beyond that there was only a vague recollection, a life faded into the wastes of time.
Perhaps he had a wife and children somewhere. Perhaps one of the fatherless children he delivered to were his own. There was no way to tell. It was too hard even to remember how many years ago he had been captured, how many Christmas Eves he had flown the world, how many chimneys he had descended—and where there were no chimneys, how many letterboxes he had flitted through.
Oh, they had given him a little magic, but they had stolen his life. It had been tolerable, up until now. The cigarettes and booze had flowed unchecked, and he was only required to abstain for one day and night. Twenty-four hours without his vices. Cold turkey for Christmas.
Tonight was December 23rd, and he had not smoked since December First. Just passed the three-week mark. Whisky and gin dulled the boredom, but a smoke would have been good too. Cold turkey was bearable for a day, but three weeks of it was hell.
Santa rubbed his wide waist. They had fed him something when he arrived here, and they kept feeding it until he had filled the suit. It was pleasant to eat, for sure, and the little elves still gave him some occasionally, but not often enough, Not any more. Certainly not enough to compensate for the loss of his nicotine.
The sun touched the horizon, and covered the snow with crimson. Santa sighed and downed his whisky. He poured another, a large one. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve, his one day of virtue. He had to be sober to ride the sled. At four times the speed of light, it was best to keep your wits about you.
His fingers interlocked, separated and interlocked again. They drummed the arms of his chair. They picked at his face, they rubbed his chin. Dammit, didn’t all those old pictures show Santa smoking a pipe? Wasn’t the tobacco part of the uniform, like the beard?
“Time to get ready, Santa.”
The elf entered without knocking, as always, and the silence of his movements meant he had spoken directly into Santa’s ear, with no warning of his approach.
“Hell’s bells.” Santa held the whisky glass away from himself. In his surprise, he had spilled some of it over his jacket. “Can’t you cough or something when you come in here? You scared seven shades of crap out of me.”
“Mind your language.” The elf’s leathery face crinkled in a smirk. “Have to get that booze out of your system. Sundown, so no more drink until the job’s done. Hand it over.”
Santa swirled the whisky in his glass and glared at the little elf. It was no more than eighteen inches high. Small enough to step on, if he chose, and his weight would crush it to a pulp. Santa stared into his glass. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of the little beasts. Even if he killed them all, he was somewhere in the North, among the ice. He had no idea where.
“The booze, Santa.” The elf held out his hand.
Santa raised his glass. “Cheers,” he said, and downed the contents of the glass. He smacked his lips as the whisky burned its way down his throat.
“You are the most difficult Santa we’ve ever had here.” The elf snatched the glass from Santa’s hand. “One day of work, that’s all you have to do, and you object to it.” He grabbed the whisky bottle. “Lazy. Plain lazy.”
“How about a cigarette? One won’t hurt.” Santa raised one eyebrow. “Or a pipe. All the old Santa pictures showed him smoking. Why can’t I?”
“Times change. Smoking is a bad thing now. Santa can’t be seen doing bad things. The children smell it. There were complaints, in the letters this year.”
“I know, I know, but I only get out once a year. What about Christmas day? Surely I can have a smoke then?”
“No more smoking. Never.” The elf made for the door. “Next time we’ll be sure to choose a non-smoker for the job.” The elf left, closing the door with a bang.
Santa gripped the arms of his chair. His eyes narrowed, his breathing became shallow.
So, a merry Christmas to one and all. Not quite all, and certainly not to one in particular. Christmas dinner with no smoke to follow. I didn’t even apply for the job. They chose me, they never said how or why.
His brow creased. They never said what happened to the previous Santas either. Am I here until I die?
Santa struggled from the chair and stretched his arms. They tingled with the approach of his magic, the power he held for a few days only, over Christmas. Simple magics that let him into locked houses and fixed broken toys. Not enough to escape the pull of the sleigh; if he strayed too far, his head burned. Oh, he had tried to run away, in the early days, but the pain always forced him back. No, he could not escape, he could do nothing to avoid tomorrow night’s race around the globe. The sleigh would leave on time. If he wasn’t on it, he would endure agony until it returned.
There must be something. Some way to get back at these vicious little toymakers.
Santa strode from the room and into the attached barn. There, his sleigh stood loaded with sacks of presents. It had been ready for a week. There were no last-minute panics here. These elves were efficient.
Santa’s fingers tingled. There was a broken toy in one of the parcels. He felt it as though it was an injury to his own body. With a sigh, he heaved himself into the sleigh. Efficient they may be, but careful they were not. Santa ran his hands over the sacks until he found the one with the broken present. He pulled open the sack and reached inside.
His fingers closed on a long box, covered in green and blue paper. A wave of his hand separated the paper into two neat halves. Santa opened the box.
A toy laser gun, for a budding space ranger. Santa grinned. If only it was real. That would make for a Christmas to remember.
He found the fault in an instant. The trigger mechanism had snapped. Santa pressed his huge hand over the toy and closed his eyes. In his mind, he saw the parts reassemble, the broken pieces meld together. He opened his eyes and took a breath.
“Good as new.” Santa placed the toy gun back in the box. His fingers held the lid, ready to replace it, but he hesitated.
What if—
He had never really tested his magic. It was his for such a short time, and a busy time. All his thoughts were on the sleigh when he travelled. The pain he would suffer if it ever left without him. Now, Santa smiled at the plastic and metal toy. He took it from the box once more and held it between his hands.
This time, he closed his eyes and thought of spacemen, of battles between the stars, of Flash Gordon, of Cybermen and Daleks. Heat flowed between his fingers. The gun became heavy.
Santa opened his eyes. The gun, no longer plastic, gleamed with a new-metal sheen. He aimed it at the barn door and pulled the trigger.
The gun made no sound, but a hole appeared in the door. He held the trigger down and moved the gun to make a slot.
“Excellent.” Santa placed the gun back in the box. His fingers pressed the wrapping back into place. He examined the name tag. “I’m sure little Peter is going to be very pleased with this.”
Santa lifted parcels, one by one, and checked their contents. Toy dinosaurs. Hideous, deformed dolls. He shuddered at some of the more grotesque models.
“Kids, these days,” he muttered. “This stuff would be better suited to Halloween.” He shrugged. “Still, I suppose it’s what they asked for.” And this year, they’ll get more than they asked for.
With care, he replaced the toys in the sacks. It was too soon to make these creatures real. He could do it on the way, tomorrow night. Along with the guns, the bows and arrows, the plastic swords. The toy power tools, the ovens, the irons. These children had made the elves take away his smokes, but he would not deny them their presents. That would be too easy. Santa swaggered to the barn doors and pushed them open.
Stars twinkled in a blue-black sky over a landscape of pure white. A chuckle rose in Santa’s throat, to escape as a deep and resonant “Ho, ho, ho.” His laughter echoed out into the night.
For the first time in his career, this Santa’s mirth was genuine.
Saturday, 8 October 2011
Boozy nights.
Off to Smoky-Drinky.
So far I have resisted looking at the news because I don't want to turn up in a foul mood.
Back later, possibly sober enough to type, but this Smoky-Drinky includes someone's birthday so possibly not...
So far I have resisted looking at the news because I don't want to turn up in a foul mood.
Back later, possibly sober enough to type, but this Smoky-Drinky includes someone's birthday so possibly not...
Sell, sell, sell.
I know nothing of marketing which is why I'm still an impoverished author and cheaply available rogue scientist.
Once I was the year tutor for the honours year of a business management course. Yes, they picked me, I suppose nobody else was daft enough. I neither understood nor cared about business management but I understood students. The previous incumbent told the students to 'aim for a 2.1 degree because a first is impossible'.
I told them to aim for first because whatever they ended up with, they knew they'd done the best they could.
During my tenure in that post, the course produced the only first class honours degree it ever had, before or since. My tenure ended when I defended someone who was unfairly dumped with a third class degree. He was eventually awarded 2.2 and I was no longer year tutor.
After what I had witnessed during those years, I regarded it as fair trade. I had been involved in quite enough crap by that stage.
I still know nothing at all about business management and less about marketing.So my book-selling efforts are amateurish and based on hit or miss attempts.
One of the most successful, if I can take enough of a liberty to call it that, was the release of a free short story with adverts for the other books at the end. It didn't boost sales of the other books to anything worth mentioning but it boosted pageviews by a hell of a lot. So, okay, the freebie gatherers didn't buy the other books but they now know of the existence of those books.
Did that help? Financially and immediately, not in the slightest. Longer term, they know I exist now. They need more prodding.
So there'll be more free shorts. The next will be a tidied up but no less horrible copy of this one. I just need a decent cover picture.
The cover is important because if I get the format right, Smashwords will spread it everywhere for me. For free.
Still, I'll take any and all advice on selling stuff because I honestly have no idea what I'm doing here.
If only...
Once I was the year tutor for the honours year of a business management course. Yes, they picked me, I suppose nobody else was daft enough. I neither understood nor cared about business management but I understood students. The previous incumbent told the students to 'aim for a 2.1 degree because a first is impossible'.
I told them to aim for first because whatever they ended up with, they knew they'd done the best they could.
During my tenure in that post, the course produced the only first class honours degree it ever had, before or since. My tenure ended when I defended someone who was unfairly dumped with a third class degree. He was eventually awarded 2.2 and I was no longer year tutor.
After what I had witnessed during those years, I regarded it as fair trade. I had been involved in quite enough crap by that stage.
I still know nothing at all about business management and less about marketing.So my book-selling efforts are amateurish and based on hit or miss attempts.
One of the most successful, if I can take enough of a liberty to call it that, was the release of a free short story with adverts for the other books at the end. It didn't boost sales of the other books to anything worth mentioning but it boosted pageviews by a hell of a lot. So, okay, the freebie gatherers didn't buy the other books but they now know of the existence of those books.
Did that help? Financially and immediately, not in the slightest. Longer term, they know I exist now. They need more prodding.
So there'll be more free shorts. The next will be a tidied up but no less horrible copy of this one. I just need a decent cover picture.
The cover is important because if I get the format right, Smashwords will spread it everywhere for me. For free.
Still, I'll take any and all advice on selling stuff because I honestly have no idea what I'm doing here.
If only...
Food, gormless food.
The tobacco companies fund antismoking initiatives. They say it's because they are obliged to but where do you think all that nicotine comes from for the alternatives? The tobacco companies are businesses. When they process tobacco, they spray the wash-water back onto the leaves because the wash-water has extracted nicotine.
How much easier and more profitable just to sell the wash-water to the patches and gum makers? The tobacco industry is not at all bothered whether you smoke it or stick it on your arm. Profit is profit.
The booze industry funds the anti-booze lot. The anti-booze lot insist that the booze industry charge more for weaker booze.
Why would the booze industry object to that?
Now the food industry is all bothered about people getting fat from eating too much food. They are into 'weight management' now.
What does 'weight management' mean? It means diet food. Higher prices and lower calories. For the food industry, this is fantastic. "I will sell you food that is so low in anything useful that you will just shrink away, and it will cost you only a little bit more than real food. Aren't I just the saviour you've been looking for?"
Eat the same amount, pay more, get less nutrition and lose weight and regard it as a good thing. It's a business dream.There really is one born every minute.
So it's not surprising that it's also full of pseudoscience.
• Where does the science stand with dairy?
Dairy science has been going on for a long, long time There is an enormous amount of it if anyone cares to look and it mostly predates the internet so you'll only find a fraction there. I'm afraid that any serious research will involve dusty tomes.
• What are the active ingredients – is it just related to calcium?
There are no active ingredients where weight loss is concerned. In anything. Get real and grow up.
...but people who consume a lot of dairy are slimmer, so says the epidemiological evidence
People who consume a lot of yoghourt and who routinely have carboard cereal with milk for breakfast, who eat boiled egg, and Feta cheese with olives, are not the same people who eat a lot of pie and chips and burgers and who prefer their cheap cheese melted over a bacon-enhanced Big Mac.
There is no magic in that epidemiological study, other than the 'magic' that is bad science.
There is no active ingredient. The answer lies in people's choices. That is no longer a consideration because the notion that people might make their own choices is now far in the forgotten realms of history, ie over a decade ago.
The good news? This is some idiots in commerce in America. We're not paying for it.
Phew.
How much easier and more profitable just to sell the wash-water to the patches and gum makers? The tobacco industry is not at all bothered whether you smoke it or stick it on your arm. Profit is profit.
The booze industry funds the anti-booze lot. The anti-booze lot insist that the booze industry charge more for weaker booze.
Why would the booze industry object to that?
Now the food industry is all bothered about people getting fat from eating too much food. They are into 'weight management' now.
What does 'weight management' mean? It means diet food. Higher prices and lower calories. For the food industry, this is fantastic. "I will sell you food that is so low in anything useful that you will just shrink away, and it will cost you only a little bit more than real food. Aren't I just the saviour you've been looking for?"
Eat the same amount, pay more, get less nutrition and lose weight and regard it as a good thing. It's a business dream.There really is one born every minute.
So it's not surprising that it's also full of pseudoscience.
• Where does the science stand with dairy?
Dairy science has been going on for a long, long time There is an enormous amount of it if anyone cares to look and it mostly predates the internet so you'll only find a fraction there. I'm afraid that any serious research will involve dusty tomes.
• What are the active ingredients – is it just related to calcium?
There are no active ingredients where weight loss is concerned. In anything. Get real and grow up.
...but people who consume a lot of dairy are slimmer, so says the epidemiological evidence
People who consume a lot of yoghourt and who routinely have carboard cereal with milk for breakfast, who eat boiled egg, and Feta cheese with olives, are not the same people who eat a lot of pie and chips and burgers and who prefer their cheap cheese melted over a bacon-enhanced Big Mac.
There is no magic in that epidemiological study, other than the 'magic' that is bad science.
There is no active ingredient. The answer lies in people's choices. That is no longer a consideration because the notion that people might make their own choices is now far in the forgotten realms of history, ie over a decade ago.
The good news? This is some idiots in commerce in America. We're not paying for it.
Phew.
Wild fruit pickers = smokers.
Following the announcement of Dozy Dai's intention of taxing fatty foods comes news that Southampton Council have banned blackberry picking on the Common.
It's all too easy to translate that into a conspiracy to stop us feeding ourselves so we can't avoid the eventual tax on all foods. So I won't. It's not anyway, not yet. Too soon.
Actually, what the council have banned is the organised picking expeditions set up by the man complaining about them, and as they can't tell the difference between one person and twenty, they have effectively allowed their Stasi to arrest anyone picking one blackberry in passing.
What's interesting here is not the ban in itself. That's just another council proving that the reason they are voted for rather than voting is that they are all too stupid to spell 'X'.
The interesting parts are as follows:
Firstly, that the council believe they have any right to stop anyone picking wild fruit on public land and that they feel justified in using outright lies to make their case. Here, they first claimed it was because of the newts - which do not eat blackberries and which live in ponds, where blackberries are seldom found. Nobody could expect the average council moron to know this.
Then they switched to some nonsense about 'the environment' which has never, is not and never will be affected by any number of people pulling blackberries off a spiky plant. No, it won't result in thousands of people doing it all year round and trampling all over 'the environment' because they can't start until the blackberries ripen and they'll stop when the blackberries are all gone. This problem cannot manifest. It is not possible. Blackberries are only available for a few weeks of the year. The reason they are available at all is that wildlife can't eat them all.
The reason my blueberry bush has had no blueberries on it for the last two years is that the blackbirds have found it and while it's still small, they can eat them all. So I'm having their blackberries. Sod them.
What is of concern is the precedent. If councils believe they can ban this, they believe they can ban anything. Anything at all. Also, when (not if) we have a tax on food, anyone picking blackberries or even growing their own food will be branded a tax-dodger. As are those who now buy tobacco or drink from overseas or from Man with a Van or who produce their own. The precedent for that accusation is well entrenched already.
Secondly, the comments -
Birds are not squirrels. They do not store food. Their nests do not include chest freezers full of blackberries and cherries and blueberries and all the little bits the feathery bastards picked off my plums. Birds either migrate or find what they can in winter and in my garden, I make sure they have seed and fat balls all through the snow. No hard feelings on the plums. I had plums to spare this year, I didn't even begrudge the wasps a few.
Squirrels store nuts - including acorns which we aren't much interested in eating. Not blackberries or any other fungus-inducing fruits.Sensible animals store dry foods for winter. They don't want to eat mouldy food.
We are not taking other animals' food by picking wild fruit. We are animals too and we didn't always have supermarkets, you know. Besides, have you seen what supermarkets charge for raspberries and blackberries, both of which grow for free all over the place?
I have raspberries in my garden. I didn't plant them. The birds eat the wild ones nearby then sit on the fence and shit seeds on my garden. The birds planted those raspberries so that's fair trade for the plums and the fat-balls, I suppose.
They also planted them right next to the fence which is ideal for tying in the canes, and they put them on the sunny side too. Good gardeners, those birds. I'll put out extra fat balls this winter.
It's all too easy to translate that into a conspiracy to stop us feeding ourselves so we can't avoid the eventual tax on all foods. So I won't. It's not anyway, not yet. Too soon.
Actually, what the council have banned is the organised picking expeditions set up by the man complaining about them, and as they can't tell the difference between one person and twenty, they have effectively allowed their Stasi to arrest anyone picking one blackberry in passing.
What's interesting here is not the ban in itself. That's just another council proving that the reason they are voted for rather than voting is that they are all too stupid to spell 'X'.
The interesting parts are as follows:
Firstly, that the council believe they have any right to stop anyone picking wild fruit on public land and that they feel justified in using outright lies to make their case. Here, they first claimed it was because of the newts - which do not eat blackberries and which live in ponds, where blackberries are seldom found. Nobody could expect the average council moron to know this.
Then they switched to some nonsense about 'the environment' which has never, is not and never will be affected by any number of people pulling blackberries off a spiky plant. No, it won't result in thousands of people doing it all year round and trampling all over 'the environment' because they can't start until the blackberries ripen and they'll stop when the blackberries are all gone. This problem cannot manifest. It is not possible. Blackberries are only available for a few weeks of the year. The reason they are available at all is that wildlife can't eat them all.
The reason my blueberry bush has had no blueberries on it for the last two years is that the blackbirds have found it and while it's still small, they can eat them all. So I'm having their blackberries. Sod them.
What is of concern is the precedent. If councils believe they can ban this, they believe they can ban anything. Anything at all. Also, when (not if) we have a tax on food, anyone picking blackberries or even growing their own food will be branded a tax-dodger. As are those who now buy tobacco or drink from overseas or from Man with a Van or who produce their own. The precedent for that accusation is well entrenched already.
Secondly, the comments -
Just go to the shops tightwad and leave the fruit and nuts (and maggots) to the wildlife.
I used to love blackberry picking. But birds
need them for food to help them through the winter. Humans are
destroying animals' habitat, and we are taking their food too by
'foraging picnics'.
Birds are not squirrels. They do not store food. Their nests do not include chest freezers full of blackberries and cherries and blueberries and all the little bits the feathery bastards picked off my plums. Birds either migrate or find what they can in winter and in my garden, I make sure they have seed and fat balls all through the snow. No hard feelings on the plums. I had plums to spare this year, I didn't even begrudge the wasps a few.
Squirrels store nuts - including acorns which we aren't much interested in eating. Not blackberries or any other fungus-inducing fruits.Sensible animals store dry foods for winter. They don't want to eat mouldy food.
We are not taking other animals' food by picking wild fruit. We are animals too and we didn't always have supermarkets, you know. Besides, have you seen what supermarkets charge for raspberries and blackberries, both of which grow for free all over the place?
I have raspberries in my garden. I didn't plant them. The birds eat the wild ones nearby then sit on the fence and shit seeds on my garden. The birds planted those raspberries so that's fair trade for the plums and the fat-balls, I suppose.
They also planted them right next to the fence which is ideal for tying in the canes, and they put them on the sunny side too. Good gardeners, those birds. I'll put out extra fat balls this winter.
Why would anyone pick and eat blackberries when most of them tend to be full of maggots and their eggs.
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