David Hadley's Blog, page 103

One-Hit Wonders

Stylophone Trabant is – these days – probably the world's leading Rock Star. As lead gobshite with the UK's current (for this week at least) all-time greatest rock band Toad Entrails, he first came to attention on their number 32 hit single – Serving Suggestion.
With its intensely profound lyrics detailing just how to cook some instant noodles, this song seemed revolutionary in the staid and conservative rock music world. Set to a heavy metal version of a traditional Norwegian fishing song, the music was played on an accordion and bagpipes and featured a foghorn solo. So Serving Suggestionwas different enough to the run of the mill chart dross to get the attention of some of the country's most self-important music critics.
Although, these days music critics are no longer as significant as they like to think they once were, back in the heyday of the NME, Melody Maker and the Walsall Daily Advertiser. Even so, these days some people still do occasionally notice there are people who are paid to write about music. It was these music critics and their championing of Toad Entrails as the next big thing which brought Stylophone Trabant and his suspiciously well-filled trousers to the attention of the public. A Public growing increasingly disinterested in the music business and the posturing fools who think it owes them a living, as well as a drug habit equal to the GDP of several combined undeveloped economies.
However, it will be (almost) interesting to see if Toad Entrails and Stylophone Trabant himself can live up to the hype built up around them. They do claim they have nearly three notes of the next single already recorded. However, many are now beginning to feel they will be yet another band to add to the ever-growing list of one-hit wonders in pop history.


[Books by David Hadley are available  here  (UK) or  here  (US).]

The Magic Wand

Then it happened.
Well… almost.
The stick, or - as Mercor insisted – the magic wand, fizzed a bit at the end like a damp bonfire-night sparkler and the frog glared back at me.
Mercor studied the frog for a moment. ‘Not exactly a princess, is it?’ He looked over his eyeglasses at me, raising a portion of his facial forestry, which on someone less hirsute would be in the vicinity of an eyebrow.
‘Magic is bollocks.’ I glared at the stick… wand… in my hand. I waved it around a bit, like a bonfire night sparkler.
Mercor ducked, surprisingly fast for someone of his age… whatever that age was. ‘Careful!’ He raised himself up from behind the workbench. ‘That thing is still charged.’
‘Rubbish, there’s no such thing as magic, I threw the stick down on the workbench. There was a dazzling flash. One of the nearby curtains caught fire. 
‘Shit.’ I said.
‘See?’ Mercor folded his arms, his hands disappearing into the sleeves of his gown. I thought about mentioning wizard’s sleeves, but he didn’t look like he’d appreciate the joke right now.
‘Magic does exist.’ He spoke as he picked up a bucket of water and doused the flaming curtain. Black smoke rose from the curtain as it dripped wetly on the floor.
He turned back to me, gesturing for me to pick up my sti… wand.
‘Now, the frog.’ He pointed.
‘Er…?’
‘What now?’
‘Shouldn’t frogs turn into princes, not princesses?’ I shrugged. ‘Y’know… traditionally?’
Mercor looked at me. ‘Sorry, I didn’t realise you were… that way inclined…. I’ll get you a male frog.’
‘No… no…. I want… like the female.’ I waved the stick at him. There was another blinding flash. ‘I’m more than happy with a female fro… Mercor…? Mercor?’
Where the wizard once stood, there was now a frog sitting on the empty heap of wizard robes next to the fallen wizard’s hat.
‘Oh, shit.’ I said.


[Books by David Hadley are available  here  (UK) or  here  (US)]

A Perturbed Donkey

The donkey was perturbed.
Which was to be expected.
After all, when a professional donkey perturbist enters the perturbing arena and comes face to face with her opponent, then that donkey best be at least slightly concerned. Furthermore, it ought to be at least slightly perturbed by the end of the twelfth round or the crowd will want their money back.
This we all know and understand.
Or, at least, as close to understanding as some of us get. Which is often as close as a town and the railway station of the same name.
However, sometimes the donkey is not all it should be. Sometimes it is a ringer. There are rumours that Far-Eastern gambling syndicates are moving into the sport of donkey perturbing at an increasing rate. Particularly now that other sports have started to take an interest in the syndicates. Consequently, several of their shenanigans and ruses in those other sports have been exposed and terminated.
However, donkey perturbing, especially at the professional and international level, has long had a reputation of being a clean sport. Only the case of Derby Ornamentals Centre leg-on Perturber, Underhand Googly, ever, has resulted in a conviction with Googly banned from the sport for the illegal use of the marshmallow.
Still we can only hope that the sport will do the utmost to keep its good name and that it doesn't fall prey to the gambling syndicates. After all, these syndicates made football lose fans because of the match fixing and their use of spread betting almost made tennis bearable to watch. 
Otherwise, if no action its taken, this world will lose another of its great sports. This forcing us sports fans to take even more of an interest in naked female mud wrestling than we do already.


[Books by David Hadley are available  here  (UK) or  here  (US).]

Dreams Are This Fragile

Dreams Are This Fragile
Dreams are this fragile insubstantial as a thoughtdrop the moments when those timesbecome like a cold reality
and those delicate dreams tearlike tissues to fall as paper snowflakesacross a dark green carpet.
These are your dreamssomething precious to holdlike a rare delicate butterflyor some other living beating thing
with a soft tremulous heartbeatso soft, like a thicker warm momentpulsing under your fingertips.Something precious that can take hold
of the insubstantial air to take wingacross these endless skies to take your dream soaringto some high safe mountain
Where your tumbling tearswill not wash these dreams away.

[Books by David Hadley are available  here  (UK) or  here  (US).]

The Torture Chamber

‘No! Not the accordion!’
But it was too late, even though the man bound to the chair writhed and screamed there was no escape for him, not this time.
The man hidden in the shadows watched in silence, not moving as the accordionist went about his dastardly work.
Eventually the man bound to the chair could take no more, chewing his own head off from the inside rather than undergo any more torture from the deadly accordion.
When the man in the shadows was sure the accordion was silent, he pulled off his ear defenders. Then he stepped into the pool of light around the now headless, but rather bloody, remains of the man still bound to the chair. The man from the shadows sighed. ‘I thought he’d talk once we brought out the castanets,’ he said watching the torturer make the accordion safe before returning it to its music-proof cage.
The Musician-Torturer nodded as he cleaned his earplugs and placed them each in its own place in his velvet box, the box that had belonged to his father and his grandfather when they too were Musician-Torturers to the Emperor.
The man from the shadows, a shadow himself, dressed in black placed his thin white hand on the shoulder of the corpse, almost affectionately. ‘At least, he spared himself the bagpipes.’
‘He did talk though,' the Musician-Torturer said.
‘Yes,’ the man in black agreed. ‘But they all do… in the end.’

[Books by David Hadley are available  here  (UK) or  here  (US)]

When the Empress Danced

It is said, still after all these years, by those who knew her, that she was the most beautiful woman they'd ever met. Even allowing for the way time alters perceptions so we only remember the golden times, it is still something remarkable.
Of course, history has a way of choosing who it wants to remember and who it wants to forget. History has decided to keep Empress Shilah as one of its own, while her husband is left for the dust of time to cover over.
This suits me.
Even back then, I merged into the background, becoming the forgotten Emperor, while Shilah became the symbol and the beloved of the empire.Of course, that was not the whole story. As my wise old teacher, the philosopher Hedden, said to me once, 'while everyone is watching the dancer, no-one sees what goes on in the shadows.'
I liked to live, and – yes – rule, in those shadows, letting Shilah dance for everyone. She liked the attention, she liked the gold, the rich fabrics, the obsequious attendants, servants and slaves. She loved the fawning ambassadors and the politicians all eager to lick the dust from her feet, if her whim so commanded it.
They all thought that winning her favour would aid them in whatever way they thought would further their desires. Little did they know that while they plotted and schemed behind their smiles, while they manoeuvred and plotted to gain her favour or merely lusted after her, I was there in the shadows behind them listening and learning.
Of course, the stories and tales tell of all her lovers and her desires. But Shilah was not like that. Like all beautiful women who spurn men's – and women's – advances the stories grew more lewd and lurid the more of them she turned down and turned away from. She always, every night, came to my bed to listen to the stories I told her of what I'd learnt from the shadows while the court danced its attention on her.
She had no other lovers.
Except for that lover that crept out of the darkness of the East, out of the shadows where even I feared to tread. The lover that came from the plague- scarred lands and stole her from me with his fatal kiss.


[Books by David Hadley are available  here  (UK) or  here  (US).]

Meeting Doom

Sometimes there is not that much that can be done. Sometimes it is better to turn away and go back to how life used to be. Back before all this chaos, trouble and disaster up-ended itself over your head like someone emptying the night-soil pot from an upstairs window as you walk the street below.Other times, though, walking away is not possible.
Especially when there is a fire-breathing dragon in the way.
Especially when there is a princess with such huge… eyes, pleading with you to save her.
Trouble was Stan was not, as he claimed, Sir Stanley, Knight of the Storms. He was just Stan a poor peasant from a town with a great many upstairs windows. He didn’t know how to walk in armour and doubted it would be much use against a dragon; he’d seen what happened to metal in contact with heat at a blacksmith’s forge. So, he didn’t want to be locked inside this semi-articulated can when the dragon turned that flame on him. He had no idea how to get it off though, not without help.
As for the lance, he’d turned it over in his hands, looking for some indication of how it should be used. It looked flimsy, too flimsy compared with the dragon. The lance looked as though it could only annoy the fire-breathing beast, kindling and stoking up an appetite for a nice lunch of hot tinned man.
But the princess was begging him to save her and she had those huge… pleading eyes. She also looked like the kind of girl who could be very grateful.
Stan took a firmer grip on the lance, checked his sword was there in the scabbard at his side. He had to admit that so far his had not been much of a life, so losing it would not be that much of a loss, but it was the only one he had.
But she had those huge….
‘Right, dragon!’ Stan yelled as he lowered his visor and hefted his flimsy lance. ‘Prepare to meet my… your doom!’


[Books by David Hadley are available  here  (UK) or  here  (US)]

Dark Twisty Corridors

As so many times before the TV programme makers have – despite the odds – come up with another great example of the programme-makers art. Each episode of Dark Twisty Corridorsappears to be better than the last. 
Each week our heroes, sexy Doctor Improbable Chestbumps and her nervous sidekick Steve Questionable end up chased down several, seemingly never-ending dark twisty corridors. Chased either by a monster or an explosion, sometimes even both.
Although, the programme makers defied everyone's expectations for the three-hour long Christmas special. In that episode our brave adventurer and her nervous sidekick were chased down several extra-long dark and twisty corridors by an explosion right into the path of that episode's extra nasty (as befitting the season of peace and goodwill) monster. A monster with three heads and a deadly-poisonous elbow.
However, some critics have dared express even slightest reservations about the programme. Those that survived the multitudinous social media death squads hunting them down, revealed several plot flaws in the programme. Pointing out that it seems slightly improbable that, week after week, a person of Chestbumps intelligence would find herself stuck in dark twisty corridors, invariably with a faulty torch. Especially so, when it is known - usually – before they set off there is a monster down there and/or a chance of an enormous explosion. 
 It appears that each week there is an explosion at the end of the programme. Usually where they do that diving for safety hand-in-hand thing just as they reach the exit. Just as the billowing explosion of flame and smoke passes over, inches from their heads, just in time for Questionable's pithy, but apt, one-liner to end the episode.
However, the rest of us know the programme is sheer genius and thus look forward to the blinkered short-sighted TV network cancelling it too soon. Then we can take our justifiable outrage on-line until they reverse the decision as we knew all along they would.


[Books by David Hadley are available  here  (UK) or  here  (US).]

Here be Dragons… Possibly

‘We're here.’
‘What?’ Sir Gawain stared around the damp misty valley, then turned to his squire. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, look.’ His squire held up the sat-nav.
Sir Gawain clunked across to her. He was sure the constant drizzle was making his armour rusty, seizing it up slowly.
His squire showed him the sat-nav screen. ‘Here be Dragons!’ It said.Sir Gawain turned to stare at the damp, empty valley again.

‘Hey, be careful with that lance!’ His squire yelled, stepping smartly out of the way and ducking.
‘Sorry, it's new,’ Gawain said absently.
Then, out of the mist something emerged.
Gawain peered into the mist, whatever the whatever it was was, was coming towards them. His hand fell to his sword pommel as he dropped his lance to the ground.
‘Hey, careful with that lance!’ the squire said. ‘I was up all night polishing that.’
Gawain turned, trying to glare at the squire through his visor. ‘So, that was what you were doing?’
‘Yes, why?’
‘Oh, nothing… its just that… well, y’know…?’
‘What?’
‘Polishing your lance… y’know back at knight school… well, that was a bit of a euphemism….’
‘A what?’
‘Nothing…. Nothing at all.’ Gawain turned back to see the whatever it was was now standing in the road staring at them… possibly.
‘What manner of foul beast are you? I am Sir Gawain of the Knights of the Oblong Table and I command you to stand clear or taste the edge of my sword!’
‘What does it taste of, then?’ the whatever it was said, drawing back a hood made of the same collection of patched and ragged material that Gawain could now see gave the whatever it was its rather indefinable outline.
‘This sword of yours… taste nice does it?’ The whatever it was winked broadly. ‘Pork sword is it? Know what I mean, eh?’ It winked again.
‘I….’ Gawain peered through the mist. The whatever it was was a peasant, but it was hard to tell if it was male or female, or how old it was. Although, the dirt ingrained in the skin suggested he or she had not had a bath, or even stood out in the rain, for quite a long time. That was surprising in such a damp country as this.
‘Never mind all that,’ Sir Gawain said. ‘I’m looking for a dragon.’
‘Oooh, kinky,’ the peasant said. ‘Got a lance have you?’
‘Yes, I ha…. What do you mean by that?’
‘Disgusting, I call it,’ the peasant said. ‘You posh blokes coming up here to poke a nice harmless dragon with your lance… you ought to be ashamed of yourself.’
‘A dragon… nice… harmless…!’ Sir Gawain spluttered.
‘Yes.’
‘But… it is a… dragon.’
‘So?’
‘But they are savage, fire-breathing monsters who kill….’
‘Well, I’d imagine that you’d get a bit pissed off if every time you settled down for a nap on a heap of gold some toff strode up to you and started prodding you with his lance.’ The peasant peered through the mist at Gawain. ‘Although, you’d probably like to be prodded by a lance, wouldn’t you? I’ve heard what goes on at those Knight Schools once the candles are blown out.’

[Books by David Hadley are available  here  (UK) or  here  (US)]

The Lady and the Lemon Meringue

It is hard to say when it began. Mainly as it is impolite to speak with your mouth full. But it was the best of lemon meringues and it was – well, still pretty good. Even though it was one of her off days. Or if the lemons were past their best and the meringue refused to stiffen. Although, it was said at the time - by those who knew – that nothing would refuse to stiffen under her ministrations.
However, such musings were best left to those in the know. The rest of us could only stand and admire her wrist action.... and dream.
There were those who said too, that such fantastic lemon meringues were beyond mere human capabilities. That she was some supernatural being far beyond the mere mortal. Some thought her one of the woodland spirits that know the secrets of the fruit and the wondrous bounties of nature, and how to combine them to enslave and enthral us mere humans.
Others, though, spoke of the food of the gods. If anything on this Earth could lay claim to being such, then it was one of her lemon meringues. Those, of course, believed that she was some goddess, walking among us to bring us a taste of what humanity could aspire to. So when – at long last – we threw off these earthly shackles and the mortal concerns we bind ourselves with - we could take our rightful place in the heavens of the gods.
Those of a more prosaic nature claimed it was what the spoon was invented for.

The rest of us queued formally and in reverence for our portions. We offered our thanks and sat down with our own slice of heaven here on earth, hoping it would never end and our bowls would never empty.

[Books by David Hadley are available  here  (UK) or  here  (US).]