David Hadley's Blog, page 129

Undocumented Features

Well, there you have it. Not much of one, I'm afraid, but with the amount of money you are prepared to pay, that's just about the best you are going to get.

Be careful with it though, because this model has an undocumented feature where if you use it as intended, following the manufacturer’s usage guide, the end falls off.

Still, it was designed by a Designer – for what that's worth – and not, as first impressions suggest, a blind woodland mammal who suffered some loss of dexterity in its front paws due to some rural accident, possibly involving an over-zealous poacher and an inhumane method of trapping.

Still, though it was plenty of functions – some of which some people may find very occasionally useful. That is if they can discover how those functions work and can get them to work without those functions constantly trying to update themselves, download intrusive and unwelcome advertising and offering to broadcast you geographical location to every violent mugger, indignant fundamentalist and recently-released sex criminal in a twenty-mile radius. Besides that, most of them will also attempt to update your significant other's Facebook and Twitter status with what exactly you and that person of undisclosed gender were up to down on the canal tow-path at around midnight last Thursday, when you claimed you were out visiting elderly relatives.

Still, though, it only takes slightly less than three weeks for the batteries to recharge enough to give you nearly 12 seconds of usability, so it is a vast improvement on the last model.

Overall rating: 8.33333 out of 10.

The Warrens

The corridor was damp and dark, twisting around the base of the towers. It joined with steps up and down and various other irregularities made with the additions and subtractions of the centuries as bits were added, taken away or changed in the fabric of the great building itself.

At one point, it had been a castle with a small hamlet, spilling out from inside it that became a village and then a town. Then, for various reasons lost to memory, defences were extended around the village, then the town. As the castle grew into a large and ungainly building, houses, workshops, inns and other buildings merged into the fabric of the castle itself until it became this bewildering maze of tunnels, corridors, passageways and buildings within buildings.

It was said, by those who could be bothered to talk of such things, that there was no-one still alive who knew their way around anything but a small part of the sprawl. It was also said that whole families, whole dynasties could grow thrive and then dwindle away in parts of the great stone conurbation completely unknown to other such similar families but a few corridors, streets, passageways, away.

It was even said that in some of the more outlying satellite suburbs and warrens that the people there had no knowledge of the king and his court. Some claimed those outlying zones paid their taxes only to local lords and barons who ruled a segment of corridors patrolled at the borders by their own soldiers.

The old king had spent the final decades and years of his rule himself confined to a few narrow corridors and a few halls around his throne room and royal bedchambers. This meant some of the more outrageous stories about the disintegrating sprawl from castle to fiefdoms beyond the control of the king, could be true. But no-one knew, at least until the old king died.

His queen, once she had disposed of her rivals and their princely progeny after her husband’s death, decided she would like to have a cohesive and thriving kingdom to hand down to whichever of her sons – eventually – deposed her. So, she began preparing for the changes to come as soon as her husband departed his sprawling kingdom for the final time.

Growing Respectability

It seems that it is now possible - for those that find it necessary - to have all their personal small rotating devices attached to the small furry mammal of their choice by fully-trained professionals in the comfort and safety of their own home.

This is quite an improvement over earlier times where such tasks were often only performed by small trades-people who seemed - almost exclusively - to locate their professional premises in the most salubrious parts of the local commercial district. The kind of place where tattoo parlours, second-hand goods shops, pawn shops, porn emporia, lawyer offices, estate agents and other such enterprises of dubious legality and questionable ethical standards gathered together. Huddled together in worn-down, half-forgotten areas where only the brave or reckless would dare to venture after darkness fell. Places where streetlights, law and order, or even a nice cake shop, were little more than distant memories, met with cynical laughter tinged with regret.

So, now, as articles and features in fashion and style magazines featuring celebrity endorsement after celebrity endorsement raise its profile, it seems that having one's personal small rotating devices attached to the small furry mammal of one's choice is - at long last - escaping the dank ghetto of the dark and seedy and becoming respectable at long last.

The Wizard's Robes

'I'm a wizard,' I said.

'Oh, really?' She didn't look that impressed. 'I suppose those are your wizard's robes, then?'

'Yes.'

'What's that?' she pointed.

'That's my wizard's staff.'

'Yeah, right.'

'Really.'

'So, if you are a wizard, then, where is your pointed hat.'

'It's a metaphor.'

'What?'

'The pointed hat, and the staff – they're euphemisms.'

'What, you mean?' she pointed.

'I nodded.

'Show me.'

'Pardon?'

'Show me.'

'Are you sure... I mean we hardly know each other.'

'You say you are a wizard, and you know what I am. It's not as if I haven't seen one before, whatever name you give it, or what you claim it is a metaphor for.... Although, in my experience they are more magic wand than wizard's staff.'

I pulled the robe over my head and let it float to the floor.

'Now....'

I could see she was impressed.

'Now, that is a staff, definitely not a wand.'

'I know spells.' I grinned.

'If my boyfriend had one like that he wouldn’t now be my ex-boyfriend.' She smiled at me.

'Your turn,' I said.

'Prepare yourself,' she smiled as she took a few steps towards me. 'I know some real magic.'

The Alien Artefact

There it was, resplendent in front of us; as big and as purple as the biggest – and purplest – thing in the known universe... and Luton. Of course, it amazed us all – shocked and amazed us – but that didn't stop us walking up to it.



There were some amongst the crowd who wanted to touch it. In fact, I suppose, deep down we all wanted to touch it. There is, it seems, some deep instinct within all humanity to want to touch something so big and so purple, especially when it throbs... throbs with some need, some desire, for someone to touch it.



It was purple.



Purple is such a purple colour too.



And it was big....



And throbbing....



I know what you are thinking....



Yes, it was.



Right away the world's governments realised they had no options and couldn’t wiggle their way out of their primary duty of protecting their citizens, not this time. This meant the question on everyone's mind was: what kind of alien civilisation would need a marital aid, a sex aid, a vibrator, this size?



And what would they do to us when they – as they surely must – come... arrive?



Those that had actually read Gulliver's Travels and, especially that bit with Gulliver and the giant women, were either very worried or... in some cases, very excited... at the prospect of these giant women with their obviously oversized appetites landing on our planet.



The environmentalists, of course, worried about the size of the batteries it needed and where they would be dumped when exhausted. Others wondered whether the Earth had enough generating capacity if it needed rechargeable batteries, while others – mainly those concerned with flood defences – wondered just how orgasmic these alien beings could be.



Others hoped it was just some sort of alien advertising stunt that had gone wrong.



While the rest of us just watched the skies and waited....

Social Media and Society

Yesterday, social media darling Cleverly Pointless called for a 24–hour boycott of the social media site TwatFace, claiming that some of the users of the site are not as totally in awe of her genius, good looks and amazing sexual technique as she thinks they should be. Pointless called for the boycott as she claims the people who follow (known as ArseKissers) her messages (known as Ramblings because each one must be a minimum of 2000 words long) on the site have not been as obsequiously fawning over her as much as she feels is her right.

As Pointless Rambled:

[…]Some people just don’t seem to realise just what a modern media genius I am. After all, I have already published several books about me and my wonderful lifestyle and amazing sexual technique, which absolutely everyone should be completely jealous of. Yet, only 2000 of my regular ArseKissers have Repoked my recent Ramblings. I’m beginning to think that none of them deserve to be on the same Internet as me. Therefore, I have no choice but to stop Rambling for 24 hours to make them see the error of their ways.[….]

Asked to comment the creator of TwatFace, Scratch Buggerberk said:

These people just don’t seem to understand that I created TwatFace just to enable us all to fling abuse at random strangers. I first came up with the idea for TwatFace when driving my car and I was cut-up by a knob-end at a roundabout. After all, we all stand at the supermarket checkout or in the Post Office queue muttering under our breath at the idiocies of other customers and the uselessness of the staff. And we all make comments to our friends and families about the dress-sense of random strangers on the street. Also, we all love to shout at the twats on the telly, don’t we? So I created TwatFace to enable people to fling those insults out at the world in general, and all those self-important attention-whores in particular.

However, many social media celebrities such as Cleverly Pointless are taking part in the 24 hour boycott of TwatFace, demanding that there be special exemption from abuse rules for those who regard themselves as somehow above the mere proles. However, they also demand that they - the social media celebrities – must still be free to disparage the hoi-polloi as and when they see column-inches in jumping aboard the latest media-invented moral panic bandwagon.

Coming Back from the War

It was new. We thought we were both too old for anything new in our lives. We had long given up on anything coming along, bringing change, to make our lives new again. We had both grown older, living different lives, far away from each other, neither of us knowing what had happened to the other.

I could remember the time when I had taken the train out of her life, leaving her behind on that station.

I had made her promise not to wait for me. Both of us knew the war meant many of us would not be coming back. For those of us who did return, though, what we returned to would not be the same as we’d left behind.

The world after the war was a very different place. When we returned, what remained of what we’d marched off to defend was ruined and broken. The people we’d marched off to defend were ruined and broken too. All with the lines of war in their faces, just as our faces betrayed the ghosts of the battlefields that haunted us, even long after the war was over.

I did not come back for a long time. For many months – over a year – I patrolled the corridors of the hospital learning how to be alive again. Always seeing the faces of those I’d left behind in my dreams and in the shadows, filling the silences with their screams and telling me the stories of how they’d died, twisting in agony and fear.

The old home town was a shattered shell when I found my way back there. It was all ruins and wreckage, amongst which the ruins and wreckage of those we’d left behind created a kind of life for themselves. They were more akin to rats and scavengers than the proud people who had waved us off to war.

All things end eventually, even the war had ended, much to the surprise of those of us looking around in wonder that we’d survived. Eventually too, some prosperity returned as new towns grew out of the wreckage and the people became less feral and slowly turned human again.

Then, one day, walking down the reinvigorated High Street, I saw her once again. It was as if the long war years and the post-war decades had never been as I looked into those eyes that had held only tears of goodbye when last we’d kissed. It was like something new, like a flower found blooming on the bomb-sites, as if the tired, ruined, world we lived in had found a way to begin again.

UK's Newest TV Talent Show

There we have it, probably one of the least interesting things ever placed in front of a live audience at a televised Talent show, but viewing figures for this – the latest TV early Evening extravaganza have been higher than the actual UK population level, something which has delighted TV executive's but rather disappointed those mathematicians who like to believe in such numbers having a vague correspondence to reality.

However, despite the surreal viewing figures, this episode had proved conclusively that Britain's Got Pebbles is the television success story of this decade, easy out performing both Celebrity Rock Salt on Ice and The Brick, thus becoming the UK's most popular geology-based talent show.

Critics were at first sceptical that the viewing public would find talent shows featuring stones, rocks, pebbles and even house-bricks compelling entertainment. However, with the evidence gathered from other such programmes, it became increasingly clear that the viewing public would watch any old dross providing it was on in the early evening, it was fronted by a superannuated TV has been from the golden age of TV drivel assisted by a blonde with a cleavage and that the viewers could vote for or against something or other.

Thus was the success of Britain's Got Pebbles almost assured. Only time will tell however, if the format will go on to success in other countries and thus ensure that it continues to make money for its creators and therefore continues to appear on our screens for the next few foreseeable centuries.

A Real Bargain

Perhaps it was not meant to be utilised in such a manner, especially by one with such a cavalier attitude towards instructions manuals. Still, in the end, it did all work out for the best – more or less. Despite still constantly questioning whether it should be worn off the shoulder as she has it set up at the moment, she does think that – on the whole – it was quite a bargain, reduced as it was by 75% to clear.

However, bargain or not, we still aren't totally certain what it actually is... or how it should be used. As I've intimated, although it did come with the box, USB lead, a grommet and a barometer, there were no actual instructions as such with the device. It had just a badly-printed sheet of flimsy paper featuring several diagrams which display – as far as we are able to discern – someone trying to wallpaper a large mammal; possibly a hippopotamus or a rhinoceros, but definitely not a water buffalo, despite what the wife's sister says.

Still, once we'd worked out how to open the battery compartment and thumped it on the table a few times, it did buzz – somewhat desultorily into life... briefly, before changing the TV channel and emitted an ultrasonic signal that made the dog hide behind the sofa.

However, once we do – eventually – work out what it is, what it should be used for and why it seems to attract so many low flying aircraft - and feral cats - we are sure that it will turn out to be the bargain we hoped for when we bought it.

In God’s Name

We all wore the disguises as we mingled around the party. No-one there knew me, although there were many guesses made about the identity of each of the people there, no-one could know, not for certain.

This was lucky for me. I was not invited, not asked to come, even though the party was – ostensibly – in my name.

I have learnt over the years I’ve been coming to these parties that even the priests who act and – supposedly – serve in my name no longer believe in me, if they ever did. As far as I can tell, too, most of them apparently assumed I never existed either.

To them I am just some abstract principle that they use to give authority to their pronouncements and proclamations.

To the ordinary people, who I walk amongst, down in the streets and the markets my name often is taken in vain: a curse against the arbitrary iniquities and calamites an indifferent world forces upon them.

I never wanted to be a god, never particularly wanted to be immortal. Although, omnipotence interested me: even though being all-knowing is not as good as it sounds. It gets a bit dull to be honest. I did think being all-seeing would be good, back in my youthful naivety – now I have seen all I no longer want to look. If I really did all I’m blamed for, then I think the people have a right to curse me and use my name as a curse.