David Hadley's Blog, page 186

TV Crime Reconstruction and its Limitations

Well….

You see, it all happened like this….

Well, sort of….

Obviously, the stepladder wasn't quite so artfully arranged and the wood pigeon was somewhat more beguiling than this somewhat sorry specimen, but otherwise we can be fairly confident that the supermarket trolley is of the correct design. Although, I am more than sure that some out there take a special interest in the history, design and utilisation of the post-war shopping trolley who will take great delight in correcting any errors that may creep into this reconstruction of those never-to-be-forgotten events of only last summer.

Of course, if you were abroad or in some other place (i.e. Luton) during those tense few days of Britain's worst 21st Century hostage crisis then you may be unaware of all the details of the events of that day.

It all began when the aforesaid wood pigeon was kept hostage by seven fundamentalist terrorists all precariously perched atop the one step ladder just to the left of the Sainsbury's supermarket car park in Snottygobble-Under-Lyme.

Of course, in retrospect it is obvious that the terrorist's repeated demands for a shopping trolley that always went in the direction they wanted to push it, was an outrageous demand and one that could never be met under current technological know-how. However, it should always be forefront in the minds of anti-terrorist agencies that the fundamentalist shopper is by the nature of their fundamentalism almost completely impervious to reason. This is especially true when they are in pursuit of the fabled paradise of Buy-one—get-one-free that the holy texts of the shopper guarantee to the shopping martyr come the final closing down sale of this imperfect Earth with its limited car parking spaces and accursed opening hours.

However, it was a stroke of genius on the part of the security services' hostage negotiator, which resulted in the successful resolution of this crisis. Resolving it with only the mere death in a hail of police bullets of the shopping fundamentalists with only the loss of one tail feather by the wood pigeon, when in a tactical gamble the negotiator said to the police marksmen: 'Oh, fuck it, I'm in danger of missing Top Gear here, if we don't get a move on. Just shoot the fuckers and then we can all go home.'

Which they did.

Pulling it off

[image error]

There are of course reasons for it. However, we will not go into that just at the moment as I see you are somewhat inconvenienced by attempting to adopt the stance of an interested onlooker with the potential to become a fully-involved interlocutor, all whilst holding a bespoke badger–irritating cue and an egg whisk.

Not something that can be easily pulled off with the necessary nonchalance, even for one as used to pulling off as your own good self is reputed to be.

Anyway, be that as it may… and it may very well be not… considering the rather tenuous relationship all this has to what we laughingly call reality. After all, if this reality was really real would we need quite so many supposedly-informed pundits telling us how little they really know each night on the daily evening news programmes?

Still, you can't always get what you want, as Professors Jagger and Richards so eloquently stated in their learned treatise of the same name, at least without falling foul of Russell's paradox somewhere along the line.

At least, that was my excuse at the trial. Admittedly, the box of weasels liberally coated in extra-virgin olive oil and the pedalo were a bit of a giveaway, but – fortunately, I was able to claim a religious purpose for it all and was able to get off on a technicality.

So, all in all, then, all's well that ends well… unless of course, it doesn't.

Thursday Poem: We Wait on the Edge

[image error]

We Wait on the Edge

The shore is there, waiting
and we return there wondering
why it is always the sea that pulls us
down close to the water's edge

To watch the waves drag themselves
up onto the shore and go
back to the safety of water.
down along the water's edge

We wait to understand
the river, the stream, the lake
the water always in motion
the canal, the babbling brook

The edge of things. One realm
making way for another.
Another world it seems.
We stand on the edge of things.

The sea, the sky and the dark woods.
All ready to take us beyond
these edges where we stand and wait.
We wait on the edge of things.

The Breeders

[image error]

All through human history, humankind has tried to rationalise it, come up with explanations for it. From the dark tales that became fairy stories, there were warnings about what happened to young women who stepped off the path and wandered into the unknown. There were fairies, goblins, demons and dragons. In later times, there were white slaves, serial killers and rapists, and now tales of people smugglers. All through their brief history, people have been telling each other why so many young women disappear and never seen ever again.

And they are all wrong.

We need those young women, all through the intertwined history of our two species we have – whenever we could – taken those young women and kept them for ourselves. We have needed them as hosts for our young, mothers for our offspring, we have always needed – and always taken – the breeders.

The humans have invented whole religions to keep their women under control and out of danger. They called us monsters, demons and devils and burnt, hanged and tortured and killed those who became our familiars. They have never been able to stop us, though. They have always been unable to prevent us from talking their women whenever we need them to keep our species alive and prospering, spreading slowly into the human places, into the human lands, into their villages, towns and cities. The more of us there are, the more we will need their women, until we have taken over completely and all their women are ours.

TV Chef Superstar

[image error]

Welshpool Toadreturner is – quite rightly – far too famous these days to need any introduction. For a long time now, she has been a fixture on the UK's TV screens for series after series of her innovative cooking programme, Is it Done Yet? Where she taught the domestic cooks of the UK all they need to know about bunging some stuff into the cooker until it is done and then eating it.

Up until Toadreturner demonstrated it on TV, not many people in the UK had every thought of opening a tin of Cream of Tomato soup, warming it up until it was hot and then eating it, possibly with some bread.

It is rumoured that when Toadreturner first used a tin opener on her programme, the next day shops all over the UK recorded massive sales of tin openers. Several supermarkets also reported that they had not only sold record amounts of tin openers, some of their branches had even sold out of tomato soup, even including the cheap and nasty own brand value range, which was little more than a tin of orange-coloured water with some pepper in it.

From this initial success, Toadreturner has gone on to greater and greater things with her most popular dish - the salt 'n' vinegar crisp sandwich, voted as Britain's favourite meal for several years running now.

As Yellow as Tuesday

[image error]

Think of a number.

Interesting, aren't they?

'You may think that, but I couldn't possibly wear that dress, not without a new integrated hamster. Even then, the thing that is not a thing is not a thing,' she said, whilst holding the melon in what would – these days – be rather a provocative fashion.

We go on down the road, until we stop. After that, there is nowhere left to go.

Do you know who?

Do you know why?

Can you smell it?

If we go down to that place where time isn't quite as yellow as Tuesday, and our chins no longer grow old, then one day we can return to the place we once stood to watch the goat turn summersaults over the incredulous Quantity Surveyors of Doom.

Each of us has a hat. We know the smell of it, and just where to position the device in order to achieve the optimal vibrational effect.

Should I laugh at your pitiful string collection now that winter grasps our genitalia in its icy grasp?

You used to dream of hamsters. You used to laugh at marmalade. But we grow old. We wear socks on Tuesdays and our habitual nudity becomes a source of amusement to those who pass by.

Whither the Reindeer?

[image error]

Even then, after all this time we still were not sure how to attach the banjo to the reindeer in such a way as to satisfy the precise requirements of both the stockbroker and the collector of antique pickled onion jars.

However, and I say this as a man who went to Grimsby – once - that she was the finest example of womanhood ever seen in these parts: from her retro 1950's hairnet right down to her faux-fur pink mules. Never had we looked upon her like before and – little did we know – we would never look upon her like – outside of certain specialist magazines and websites – ever again.

At least, that is, not until one of us ever – if ever – dared to set foot in Grimsby again, especially after last time and the 'incident' with the mackerel filets. Still, as they say in these parts, 'you can't build a fast breeder reactor without at least some knowledge of nuclear physics.' Wise words, I've always thought.

At least, it is something to bear in mind during these long winter evenings as we sit here next to the reindeer that waits patently while we discuss the few remaining options for the optimum placement of the banjo.

Matters of Ecclesiastical Exactitude

[image error]

Well, it just goes to show, we can't all be on intimate terms with an antelope, even if we have been on the induction course and watched all the instructional videos. Some animals it seems are just rather selective over whom they have for companions. I once, for example knew of a wildebeest that befriended a telecommunications engineer, but that was in Hartlepool, so we can't be too restrictive about our criteria.

Anyway, as I was saying before you put mayonnaise on your cucumber in a fashion likely to cause a breach of the peace, we can't be that sure that the antelope wasn't – for example – just in a hurry. Perhaps wanting to get home to watch a televised sports match, or take an urgent phone call from his booking agent about appearing on a David Attenborough nature wildlife documentary.

All in all you can never really be too sure, as the bishop said to the actress, or was it as the actress said to the bishop. With them both wearing dresses, it is sometimes often difficult to be certain about such matters of ecclesiastical exactitude, as I'm sure you would agree, if only you'd put down that cucumber sandwich for a moment and pay attention.

Cosmic Disharmony

Now we see the problems inherent in not aligning our salmon fishcakes with the stars, as per the instruction manual. All our badgers are now perturbed by this cosmic disharmony and the Estate Agents are - once more - on the prowl desperate for yet more advertising space in our local newspapers. Soon, I fear, even the pre-owned car sales advertisements will feel their wrath.

We wait with girded loins - mainly because of the way you gird them... so tight… so… so girded! We wait poised on the cusp of action, wait for the signs. But, with our salmon fishcakes out of alignment, we will never know if the omens auger well for our endeavours, or - if ill-luck does befall us - whether there is the chance one, or more, of us may put their back out.

Anyway, what is done is done, and if you've responded to one of those pre-owned car ads, then you probably have been.

Let us go then, you and I, now the chip shop is spread out against the sky, let us go and order cod, chips AND mushy peas for everyone. One last great feast before the uncertainties of the morrow engulf us all.

Ways of Beginning Again

[image error]

It did seem as though there were ways of beginning again, of forgetting all that had happened and starting anew. The past was over, gone and out of reach. She knew there was nothing she could do to change it. The only option she had was to leave if all behind, forget about it, move somewhere new where no-one knew her and invent a whole new past; she had done it before and knew she could easily do it again.

After all, she knew that the past was changeable, that people remembered only what they wanted to remember and forgot about the rest. She knew she could hide it all, at least from everyone else. She knew, from all her past lives, that they would come back and haunt her at those odd times. Those times when the past broke through into the present when some thing, some insignificant object, word or gesture brought a flood of old discarded memories back. Alternatively, those times in the deep heart of the night when the mind churns through itself looking for patterns it can shape and all those old memories are churned up like some muddy river bottom.

She knew all that, but she also knew the joys of starting over again, of inventing a completely new life for herself; of becoming whoever she wanted to become.