Marcus Blakeston's Blog, page 3

The right proper history of Crass part one

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In 1973, bohemian aristocrat Penny Rambo experienced an opium-induced vision of the year 1984. In this nightmarish near future world, men dressed in orange overalls lay dead or dying in the streets while houses, shops and factories burned around them. Penny walked down the centre of the road in his tweed jacket and top hat, trying not to get blood on his Gucci shoes as he made his way to the Yorkshire Opera House, which was the only building left unaffected by all the chaos and destruction.

“Help me,” a voice pleaded.

Penny paused and looked down at a man lying on his back in the gutter, and noticed for the first time the huge torrent of blood flowing down the drain. The man’s bloody fingers twitched by his sides as he grimaced in agony. A white helmet with a broken lamp attached to it lay nearby, anchored with a thick black umbilical cord to a box strapped to the man’s waist.

“Who did this to you, old chap?” Penny asked.

The man’s cracked lips moved, but his voice was barely a whisper. Penny crouched down before him so he could hear what he had to say.

“… is coming. Save … the miners … from …”

Each laboured utterance was fainter than the last, and punctuated by a rasping breath. Penny had to strain to hear them clearly as the man’s life ebbed away from him.

“… save us … from … The … Thatcher.”

“What on earth is The Thatcher?” Penny asked.

But the man was already dead. Penny reached out to close his wide, staring eyes.

Then a brass band started to play. Penny startled and shot upright. He spun toward the sound, but there was nothing to see. It seemed to come from everywhere at once as a choir of Welsh and Yorkshire voices rang out:

“Save the miners and set them free, teach the world about anarchy.”

Penny woke from the vision with a start, the words of the miners’ lament still echoing around his opium-fuddled mind. He knew he had to do something to stop the prophesy coming true. But what?

Penny spent the next three years producing and distributing pamphlets extolling the virtues of anarchy, something he had learned meant living in a society free from government or law. He sold his ancestral home and built a house made entirely from clock dials so he would know precisely how long he would have left until the fateful year arrived, and invited all his chums from the polo club to live with him.

But nobody seemed to be interested in Penny Rambo’s pamphlets. He would find them scattered in the streets, unread, the message lost to an uncaring world. Even worse, The Thatcher, he soon discovered, was real and working her way up the ranks of the Conservative Party. If Penny didn’t do something drastic soon, the miners, and the whole country, were doomed.

And then along came the Sex Pistols, and everything became clear. The irony of singing about anarchy whilst signed to the pop music offshoot of global arms dealer Thorn EMI was not lost on Penny Rambo, but he saw enough potential in this new medium of punk rock to know it would be the perfect vehicle for his message. Using his military history as a drummer boy in the second world war as a starting point, Penny set about forming a band so he could spread the word about The Thatcher and her impending evil deeds.

They called themselves Cross, because they were all rather jolly cross about the whole affair, and to ensure there would be no ambiguity about what they stood for they inserted a letter A (for anarchy) inside the letter O of their name. With their marketing  strategy in place, the  fledgling punk band then set about converting Penny’s political pamphlets into rhyming couplets. Early attempts, such as Anarchy Would Be Rather Spiffing Old Chap, and Don’t Do What One’s Nanny Tells One To Do, failed to impress focus groups, however.

“Do what, you poshos?” Sounds journalist and amateur cage fighter Gary Bush is reported to have said at the time, before going on to write a scathing review in the Daily Mail.

Cross hit back by penning the song Gary is a Meanie, but Penny knew deep down that the band’s aristocratic upbringing was a major problem.  After all, if nobody took them seriously, how were they supposed to warn the world about what was coming in the year 1984?

In the end it was Cross’s marketing director Gee Whizz who came up with the obvious solution. The idea came to her while she and Penny were watching a stage production of Oliver Twist at the Royal Opera House in London.

“I say, Rambo old chap,” she said during the interval, “I’ve just had a jolly brilliant wheeze.”

“Pray tell, my dear,” Penny replied.

“What if Cross hired a street urchin to sing for them? Then that old meanie Gary Bush wouldn’t say such frightful things about you.”

“What a simply splendid idea, old girl. But where on earth could we find such a person?”

“Golly, I hadn’t thought of that. Perhaps we could place an ad in Vogue?”

“Do street urchins read Vogue?”

“Of course. How else would they know what is in fashion?”

“Then that is what we shall do, my dear.”

But as luck would have it, Penny didn’t need to advertise for a street urchin in Vogue Magazine. As he and Gee were leaving the Royal Opera House after the play they bumped (quite literally) into a young chap by the name of Steve Ignoramus who was on his way home from a Clash concert.

“Oi, watch ahht you mug,” Steve grumbled as he glared at Penny’s top hat.

“Golly,” Gee said, “doesn’t he talk frightfully funny?”

“Do wot?” Steve replied. “You havin’ a fackin’ bubble, darlin’?”

“I say old chap,” Penny interjected before the situation became any more heated. “How would you like to earn some money?” He pulled out one of his Cross business cards with a flourish, and held it out to Steve.

“Fackin’ Crass? Wot’s that when it’s at ’ome’?”

“It’s pronounced Cross, dear boy. We’re a punk band, and we would like to hire you as our singer. How does a guinea a week sound?”

After careful consideration, Steve Ignoramus agreed to join the band and moved into Clock Dial House, where he worked as a butler while Penny Rambo set about composing Cross’s first concept album, The Feeding of the Five Thousand Miners.

To be jolly well continued …

 

 

Christmas at the Punk Rock Nursing Home

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The geriatric punks from  Punk Rock Nursing Home return in this new 50 page paperback for the festering season. Cheap as a bag of chips will be a few years from now, and available from all good amazons for a limited time.

Get it here:

http://amzn.to/2BQnnU9

 

Anarchy in a Cold War

Anarchy in a Cold War is a novel by Kurtis Sunday set in the West Berlin alternative-squatter-Punk scene during the latter part of the Cold War. The city, a focal point in the conflict between East and West, was a capitalist enclave smack in the middle of Communist East Germany. It was entirely surrounded by the Berlin Wall, complete with razor wire and machine gun posts. There is much that is familiar and much that is not. The Cold War is raging and the missiles are armed and waiting in their silos. If nuclear war breaks out there will be a four minute warning. There is no internet and perhaps NO FUTURE. Reality? Sur-reality? Or hyper-reality?

Unglue.it:

https://unglue.it/work/191661

and/or

the Internet Archive:

https://archive.org/details/AnarchyInAColdWarKurtisSunday

Print copies available from:

https://www.cambriabooks.co.uk

Punk Rock Nursing Home audio book

 

 

Available soon on Amazon, Audible, and iTunes.

For paperback / ebook purchase options and opening chapter sample, click here.

 

Preview: Runaway

1

Stiggy didn’t reckon much to the support band. And judging by the amount of beer and abuse being hurled at the stage, neither did anyone else in The Marples that night. It wasn’t that they were young and inexperienced, although the way both the guitarist and bass player had their backs to the audience the whole way through their set, and the way the singer kept stuttering his words all the time, certainly didn’t help. It wasn’t even that they couldn’t play their instruments properly. They were a punk band, after all, and a certain amount of rawness came with the territory. They just weren’t the band Stiggy had paid his two quid to see, and he wanted them to hurry up and finish so the Cockney Upstarts would have enough time to play their full set before he had to leg it down to the train station for the last train home.

Stiggy didn’t care much for the Cockney Upstarts either, but he had his own reasons for being there. The Donny punks had had nothing but hassle from skinheads for months, and he wanted to be there to back his mates up in case any trouble kicked off. And judging by the glares Twiglet kept getting from the mob of skinheads leaning against the bar, it looked like that was inevitable.

There was twelve of them in total, all dressed in regulation boots and braces with short-cropped hair and bleached jeans, like some sort of drunken regiment that wasn’t too fussy about who they let in. Even the solitary bird with them was dressed the same, except in place of jeans and T-shirt she wore a short denim skirt with red braces hanging down over her bare thighs, and a pale green plaid shirt with short sleeves and buttons down the front. Her brown hair was close-cropped, just like the men, the only nod to femininity being long thin strands at the sides, and a three inch fringe that partially obscured her eyes. She stood to one side of the group, sipping from a bottle of Babycham, while the men punched the air and chanted at the support band on stage.

“Off! Off! Off!”

Their leader, a huge, stocky man at least ten years older and a good six inches taller than the others, shouted the loudest. Bulging muscles threatened to burst out of a skin-tight Rock Against Communism T-shirt with every jerk of his massive, tattoo-covered arm. Dangling red braces and a huge pair of black Doc Martens with white laces completed the image of someone nobody in their right mind would want to mess with.

But Stiggy wasn’t in his right mind that night. He was still off his head from the bag of glue he’d had on the train down to Sheffield, and the three pints of cider he’d had since arriving at The Marples an hour ago gave him a sense of invincibility he never felt when he was sober. He smiled to himself as he imagined going up to the bald-headed bastard and booting him in the bollocks, then taking on the rest of his mob single-handed. Yeah, he could do that, no fucking bother.

But then someone would call the coppers and cancel the show, and Stiggy wouldn’t get to find out if what it said in the newspapers about the Cockney Upstarts throwing a dead pig’s head into the audience at the end of their set was true or not. He’d bet his mates a quid it was true, and told them he was only going with them so he could see a skinhead get smacked in the face by a flying pig’s head. But that wasn’t the real reason he had to know the truth.

If the Cockney Upstarts were using murdered animals as a form of entertainment there was nothing that would stop him bursting into their dressing room and telling them exactly what he thought of it. Then he’d write to Crass and tell them all about it, so they could spread the word and organise pickets outside their gigs, make sure they never played anywhere ever again. Maybe even get them kicked off their record label, or at least banned from Top of the Pops.

The skinhead boss draped his arm around the young girl’s neck and squeezed one of her breasts while he continued chanting. She looked tiny and frail next to him, and visibly winced. Stiggy wondered what she saw in an ugly brute like that. She looked about sixteen or seventeen, whereas the bruiser she was with was at least twenty-five, maybe even older. Every now and again she would flick her head to one side to swing the fringe away from her eyes. Each time it would just flop back down again.

“This– this is our last song,” the support band’s singer stuttered from the stage.

The young skinheads cheered. “Make it a fucking short one, you useless cunts!” one shouted.

The older skinhead drained his lager and hurled the plastic container in the direction of the stage, then pushed the young girl away from him and ordered another drink from the barman. Released from his grip, she wandered over to the far side of the bar and leaned against it with her back to the band.

Stiggy stared at her legs and wondered again what a tasty bird like her saw in a thug like that. It just wasn’t fair. Stiggy wasn’t exactly handsome in the traditional sense, and he knew it – his nose was too big, the area around his mouth was riddled with acne from years of solvent abuse, and his ears stuck out like those of a chimpanzee. But at least he wasn’t a fucking gorilla, like that skinhead she was with. So why didn’t anyone ever fancy him instead?

Some sixth sense must have told the girl someone was watching her, because she turned around and looked straight at Stiggy. Stiggy smiled and raised his hand in greeting. The girl’s face reddened, and she turned away. Stiggy shrugged to himself and brushed the dandruff from the shoulders of his Crass T-shirt before finishing off the last of his cider. After scrunching up the plastic container and tossing it on the floor, he leaned on the table and pushed himself upright from his stool. The small round table lurched to one side under his weight, forcing Colin, Brian and Twiglet to snatch their drinks up to save them from toppling over.

“Fuck’s sake Stiggy, watch what you’re doing,” Brian yelled.

Stiggy ignored him and staggered over to the bar for a refill.

The support band finished their set and unplugged their instruments. Nobody clapped, nobody cared. The skinheads shouted their final insults, then turned away and ordered fresh drinks from the barman.

Stiggy sidestepped closer to the skinhead girl and waved a pound note to attract the barman’s attention. The man nodded and held up two fingers while he finished off serving the skinheads – a wait your fucking turn gesture.

Stiggy pointed at the half-empty Babycham bottle standing on the bar in front of the girl. “You want another one of them?”

She shot a glance at the skinheads at the opposite end of the bar, then shook her head. Her hand trembled when she picked up the bottle and took a swig.

“You all right?” Stiggy asked. She seemed nervous about something, but he couldn’t imagine what. She wouldn’t even look at him, she just stared straight ahead at the optics behind the bar.

The barman finished serving the skinheads and wandered over. Stiggy ordered a pint of cider and took a long gulp. He stared at the girl’s profile, wondering what was wrong with her. Maybe she was shy or something.

“I’m Stiggy,” he said.

No reply.

The skinheads turned away from the bar and glared out into the gloomy, smoke-filled room. It wasn’t long before they turned their attention to Twiglet again. A chorus of monkey sounds erupted. A young lad bent forward and swung his arms from side to side, hamming it up. Twiglet stuck up two fingers and looked away. He was used to shit like that everywhere he went; being the only black punk in Doncaster always attracted unwanted attention from skinheads, and  he had learned to ignore it long ago.

But the skinheads were looking for bother, and Twiglet’s cold shoulder routine just riled them up even more.

“You and me, cunt,” their leader yelled. “We’ll have our own fucking race war, right here.”

The younger skinheads laughed. “Do him, Joe,” one said. “Smash his fucking head in.”

Twiglet glared across at the huge skinhead and sneered. “Nah, you’re all right, Nazi. I wouldn’t want to get my fists dirty on your ugly face.”

“You what? What did you say, you fucking nigger?” The older man’s eyes bulged in their sockets. His teeth ground together. He clenched his fists and took a step closer to where Twiglet sat. The younger skinheads lined up behind him with their chests puffed out, voicing their encouragement.

“Leave it out, mate,” Colin said to the skinhead boss. “We’re just here to see the Upstarts, we’re not looking for no trouble.”

“Well you should keep your fucking pet monkey under control then, shouldn’t you?”

Twiglet’s eyes blazed. He rose to his feet and cracked his knuckles, then took out his skull and crossbones ear rings and put them down on the table next to his pint. “Look after these for me, yeah? I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Fuck’s sake Twiglet, just ignore them,” Colin said. “It’s not worth it.”

“Maybe not for you.”

Twiglet removed his studded wristband and wrapped it round his knuckles. Colin sighed and rose up next to him in a show of support. After a brief hesitation, Brian shook his head and joined them. Other punks nearby watched on with interest. Twiglet matched the older man in height, but not in build. Youth and agility would give him an advantage as long as he could dodge those huge fists of his opponent, but one thing Stiggy knew about skinheads was that they never fought fair. The others would pile in as soon as it started, they always did.

Stiggy put down his cider and stepped away from the bar so he would be ready to help even the score when the time came. The hairs on the back of his neck stood to attention, but his legs felt weak and wobbly. His stomach churned as he stared at the huge skinhead. Every instinct told him to stay out of it, let it run its course without him. But he couldn’t let his mates down like that, he just couldn’t.

The beefy skinhead peeled off his T-shirt and handed it to one of the others for safekeeping. More tattoos covered the man’s upper body. British bulldogs, naked women, Union Jacks and Swastikas all mingled together into one technicolour mass of ink. He pulled the braces up over his bare chest and snapped them into place over his broad shoulders.

“Let’s fucking have it, then, you cunts! I’ll take the fucking lot of you by myself!”

Twiglet sneered at him. “Come on then, you fucking Nazi prick.”

Stiggy clenched his fists, but it was more to stop his hands trembling than a show of strength. He could feel his bowels loosening. Beads of sweat dribbled from his armpits as he glanced from Twiglet to the skinhead and back again. Fuck it, he couldn’t just stand by and watch his best mate take a pounding without doing anything about it. He took a step forward, ignoring the wobbly sensation in his legs. Don’t think about it. Just do it.

“Oi, you two,” the barman shouted. “Behave yourself, or you’re out the door.”

The younger skinheads glanced at the barman, then at each other. Twiglet and the bigger skinhead maintained eye contact while they continued hurling insults.

Then a high-pitched blast of feedback came from the speakers either side of the stage and everyone turned to look in that direction. The Cockney Upstarts stood there. The guitarist tuned up while the drummer took his seat. The bass player plugged in his instrument with a loud electrical pop and slung it over his shoulder. The singer downed a can of lager, crushed the can in one hand, and tossed it to one side.

“All right?” his amplified voice yelled as he peered out from the stage.

The young skinheads turned to their leader for guidance. He seemed to consider the situation himself for a couple of seconds, then glared at Twiglet.

“This isn’t fucking over yet, cunt. I’ll see you later.”

“We’re all fucking upstarts!” the band’s singer screamed, and a wall of sound blasted from the speakers when the Cockney Upstarts broke into their top ten hit.

Punks and skinheads rushed for the stage, jostling to get the best position between the huge twin speakers. They leaped around together, their differences seemingly forgotten in an instant as the raucous music washed over them.

Stiggy sighed in relief as he watched Twiglet, Colin and Brian lose themselves in the swirling crowd, keeping well away from the skinheads. That had been too close for comfort. He looked at his wristwatch: half nine. That should leave plenty of time for them to finish before he had to leave for the train station. So he’d get to see if they ended their set by throwing a murdered pig’s head into the audience or not. And if they did …

The skinhead girl turned to Stiggy and smiled. Her green eyes seemed to twinkle in the harsh light illuminating the stage.

“I’m Sally!” she shouted.

“All right, Sally?” Stiggy shouted back. “You’re not into all that Nazi shite as well, are you?”

Sally leaned closer and shouted into Stiggy’s ear, “Am I fuck. I’m only here because Joe made me come. I don’t even like this sort of music.”

“Is Joe that big fucker who was hassling my mate?” Stiggy pointed into the crowd around the stage, where a group of skinheads were sieg heiling the band’s singer, their leader clearly visible as he towered over them.

Sally nodded. “Yeah, sorry about that. He always gets like that when he’s been drinking. Just tell your mate to stay away from him for the rest of the night and he’ll be fine. Joe’s that pissed up he’ll have probably already forgotten about it, anyway.”

Stiggy turned to watch the Cockney Upstarts play. It was one of their earlier songs, Aggro Boys, released a year before their appearance on Top of the Pops made them a household name and an overnight sensation. Back when they were still a punk band, and long before the skinheads latched onto them. Stiggy had heard it on John Peel’s radio show at the time, and quite liked it. But that was before he found out about the pig’s head.

The song ended, and the rest of the band took swigs from beer cans while the singer told the crowd about the time he was arrested and beaten up in the cells by a policeman who objected to the All Coppers are Bastards T-shirt he wore. It was a story most people already knew, because he had recited it word for word on their live album too, but that didn’t stop them from listening in rapt attention.

Stiggy turned back to Sally, who stood toying with the Babycham bottle standing on the bar. He took another gulp of cider to bolster his confidence, then the words just blurted out of him.

“So how come you’re wasting your time with an old geezer like that, anyway? A good looking bird like you could have the pick of any bloke in here, you know that, right?”

Sally turned to face him, an odd expression on her face, as if she were trying to figure out if Stiggy was just winding her up or not. She stared into his eyes. Stiggy stared back, but up close he struggled to get her into focus.

Then she smiled, shook her head, and turned away to watch the band, who had just started their next song. They watched together, side by side, sipping their drinks. Stiggy could feel the room spinning pleasantly, the cider doing its job on his already glue-fuddled brain. He bought another drink and resisted the urge to tap his foot in time to the music while he waited for any sign of a pig’s head to appear.

* * *

Forty-five minutes later, the Cockney Upstarts gig was still in full swing and Stiggy was starting to get anxious. He would need to leave in another fifteen minutes if he wanted to catch the last train home, and there was still no sign of the pig’s head.

The singer snatched the microphone from its stand and screamed into it, then dived off the knee-high stage into the audience while he sang. The crowd surged forward around him, desperate to have their go with the microphone during the chorus, to be a part of the band, even if it was only for a few seconds.

“Police scum, police scum, kill them all,” out of tune voices shouted. “Line the blue bastards up against a wall. Spray them with bullets and watch them fall. Police scum, police scum, kill them all!”

The singer continued into the next verse, but was cut short when a punk with a massive red mohican grabbed the microphone from his hand. A gruff Yorkshire accent took over the vocals. The crowd pushed and shoved, closing in on the mohican to wrestle it back from him.

The band’s singer stumbled in the surging scrum and disappeared from view. Boots trampled over him in their owners’ oblivious attempts to reach the punk with the microphone. The lead guitarist and bass player peered down from the stage, then stopped playing mid-song. It took the drummer a few more seconds to realise something was wrong and rise from his seat to see what was happening. The mohican punk continued singing his out of tune rendition of Police Scum as he dodged all attempts to grab the microphone from him.

The three band members jumped down from the stage and pushed their way through the throng, swinging punches at anyone who refused to get out of their way. Between them they managed to clear a space around the fallen singer and helped him back onto his feet. Blood poured from his mouth and nose as they led him away to the small dressing room at the side of the stage. The drunken singing continued in their absence.

Stiggy watched the dressing room door to see if the band would re-emerge with a pig’s head, but the door remained firmly closed despite cries for an encore. Roadies unplugged the instruments and packed them away. The skinheads gave each other Nazi salutes while everyone else wiped sweat from their faces and headed for the bar or the toilets. Stiggy sighed. Now he would never know if the story in the newspaper was true or not.

Sally started trembling again. She bit  her lip as she stared at the group of skinheads by the stage.

“You okay?” Stiggy asked.

She nodded. “Yeah. Look, you’d better go, before Joe sees you with me.”

“Fuck that, I’m not scared of that wanker.”

Sally looked down at her boots and shook her head. “You should be. Please Stiggy, just go while you still can.”

“Are you frightened of him, is that it?”

Sally sighed. “It’s best if you just go, he’ll have a fit if he sees you talking to me. You don’t know what he’s like.”

“What does he do to you, Sally?”

“Nothing. Please, you have to go now. Your mates, as well. Before it’s too late.”

Sally cast another furtive glance at the skinheads and edged away from Stiggy. Stiggy closed the gap once more and reached out to grip her arm. Despite his glue and cider-fuddled mind he was sure there was something about the big skinhead she was keeping from him, and it wasn’t hard to guess what.

“Are you worried about what he will do to me, or are you worried about what he will do to you?”

Sally’s mouth dropped open as she turned to look at Stiggy. Her jaw trembled.

“I fucking knew it,” Stiggy said. “Come with me and my mates, we can save you from him.”

Sally wrenched her arm free and yelled: “I don’t need saving. You just need to get away from me, that’s all. While you still can.”

“Stiggy!” someone shouted from the other side of the room.

Stiggy turned to look. Colin and Brian were pushing their way through the crowd heading for the bar, Twiglet close behind. Colin’s eyes were wide and staring. He pointed over his shoulder.

“Fucking leg it, quick!”

Then Stiggy looked beyond his punk mates at the mob of skinheads hurtling forward, knocking people out of their way as they went. The huge, bare-chested skinhead’s face was purple with rage as he led the charge. He locked eyes with Stiggy and roared.

“Oi, that’s my fucking bird, you cunt!”

Anti-propaganda for the UK general election 2017

Assorted Facebook posts I wrote aimed at combatting online conservative propaganda. Feel free to copy any of them anywhere you think they might be useful (no attribution required). If you have any corrections, or suggestions for additional ones, let me know.

 

General points

Don’t let the conservatives con you with advertising slogans. It is your future, and your children’s future, that you are gambling with. Use your vote wisely.

We don’t need to let the conservatives rob our granny’s house to pay for her care costs. We don’t need to let them steal the food from the mouths of infants. We don’t need to let them take from the poor and give to the rich. We don’t need to let them double the national debt every five years to pay for their austerity scam. We don’t need to let them bring back fox hunting. And we don’t need to let them cripple the economy by taking us out of Europe without a trade deal and into a war with Syria.

There is another way. We can invest in the future. We can kick-start the economy instead of crippling it even further. We can raise the living standards for everyone. We can reduce homelessness and child poverty along with the national debt. We can have a trade deal with Europe that benefits everyone, rich and poor alike. And we can look after the elderly and infirm, the sick, the disabled, the children who live in poverty.

All these things can be ours. Labour’s manifesto is fully costed, and has been verified by independent economic experts. The only people saying it isn’t viable are the conservatives and billionaire media moguls who dodge paying their fair share of tax. Ask yourself what they would have to gain by lying to you in this way.

If you earn less than £80,000 a year you will be better off under Labour. Even the conservative newspaper The Spectator has confirmed this. If you earn more than £80,000 a year and don’t want to contribute to society, you need to remember one key point – the conservatives are refusing to reveal how much they will raise taxes and national insurance by until after the election.

——

This is the first election where the poor and disabled have been given a clear choice between prosperity or torment. As for the rest of us, we just can’t afford to go on doubling the national debt every five years to pay for austerity programmes while the rich and greedy syphon off all their money into tax havens. it is time the elite started paying their fair share instead of sponging off the rest of us.

——

Some of the more observant here may have noticed that certain combinations of words are repeated over and over again. These are called trigger phrases, and are commonly used by advertisers to manipulate the minds of consumers. They work by being repeated so many times that they become ingrained in the listener’s mind, and eventually become accepted as the truth, even though under more considered examination they are anything but.

Here are a few examples you may be familiar with: Washing machines live longer with Calgol (they don’t). Guinness is good for you (it isn’t). The goodness that’s in Milky Bar (there isn’t any).

So now we have “Strong and stable leadership” to add to these. See if you can work out for yourself where the falsehoods in this statement lie. To make it fair, just base your reasoning on the last two years of Conservative government. Have those years been stable for the country? Has the leadership been strong? Is there anything to suggest it will be any different in the next few years, with the chaos that a hard brexit will bring?

——

You would think, with all the extra warning they had before the announcement, that the conservatives would have come up with a better election campaign strategy than just saying “pooh pooh you smell” to all the other party leaders. But I suppose increasing national insurance (aka the jobs creation tax), increasing VAT and crippling the economy, and re-classifying pensioners as scroungers who deserve to have their benefits cut, were never going to be vote winners.

 

Brexit

If May isn’t even strong and stable enough to debate the country’s future with Corbyn, or even take unscripted questions from the voting public, how is she going to stand up to someone like Merkel, who has already dismissed her as a fantasist? We need someone with a clear vision for the future to take over Brexit negotiations. Not someone who has flip-flopped so many times she doesn’t even know which way up she is. And we need a foreign secretary who isn’t a world-wide laughing stock.

——

If you ignore the propaganda and lies, this election boils down to one key point. Who do you trust to come up with a bill of human rights to replace the ones we will lose when we leave Europe?

On one side we have the Conservatives, a party condemned by the United Nations for the way it treats the disabled. A party whose idea of tackling homelessness is to erect spikes on every flat surface people might choose to sleep on, then fines them for being too poor to afford anywhere to live and confiscates their blankets so they will freeze to death. A party whose attitude toward mental health is to ask people with depression why they haven’t killed themself yet.

On the other side we have Labour, the party who gave us the NHS, minimum wage, bank holidays, social housing, and lots of other things we take for granted. All of which, it is worth pointing out, the Conservatives voted against.

 

The ecomomy

Conservatives can’t be trusted with the economy. All they have ever done is sell off our national assets at rock bottom prices so that they and their billionaire donors can line their own pockets. But don’t take my word for it, do your own research. Look up how many conservative MPs became private landlords after Thatcher caused a shortage in council homes. Look up how many conservative MPs made a huge profit from selling off the nation’s assets. And look up how many of the current batch of conservative MPs have a financial stake in companies that will profit from a fully privatised NHS. Then look at a list of their top donors, and see where they make their money.

http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2016/03/13/the-conservatives-have-been-the-biggest-borrowers-over-the-last-70-years/

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Labour’s plans won’t just be funded by a small increase in tax for the wealthy elite. They will be funded through savings to the benefit budget caused by increasing minimum wage, and the extra boost to tax from the resulting increase in consumer spending and corresponding company profits. Plus by saving money on nonsense projects like testing the disabled to see if their doctors are lying or not, cutting subsidies to opera houses and private schools, etc, and by investing in the education of our own citizens instead of importing skilled labour from elsewhere. It’s a long term economic plan, something the conservatives have never had.

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How can the conservatives possibly justify increasing National Insurance (aka the jobs creation tax, which according to Cameron will lead to mass unemployment and cripple the economy)? With all the cuts to social security for the poor and disabled, and the rationing of NHS services and huge waiting lists for essential operations,  it should be reduced to reflect the lower level of safety net it provides.

 

Benefits / Social Security

Labour’s rise in minimum wage will drastically cut the social security budget, lifting people out of poverty, and freeing up that money for other things that every member of society will benefit from. It will also increase consumer spending, which will be good for businesses. Just like it did when Labour first introduced the minimum wage. Even the conservatives eventually agreed it was a good thing, despite all of them voting against it at the time. The conservative rise in tax and national insurance for low and middle earners will cripple the economy even more.

 

Tax and National Insurance

All you people who earn more than £80,000 and don’t want to contribute to society need to consider one key point — why are the conservatives keeping their tax and national insurance policy a secret until after the election? What are they hiding?

 

National Debt

Conservative voters —  I get that you are rich. You live in a nice home in a nice area. Either you have inherited wealth, or you have a nice job with a very high salary, and you want to keep every penny of what you have earned. You certainly don’t want to waste any of it on scrounging cripples who can easily support themselves by begging in the streets like they did in the good old days. Or the children of parents living in poverty because they weren’t as lucky as you. We could always bring back the workhouse to sort those people out. Get them doing odd jobs in return for what they get from food banks. I get all that, really, I do. But what I don’t get, is why you are happy for the conservatives to double the national debt every five years to pay for all this torment they are inflicting on people.  It is your own children and grandchildren, and their children and grandchildren, who will need to pay that debt off.

Don’t you even care about them, either?

 

Health / Social Care

The real scandal of this conservative government isn’t that NHS staff need to use foodbanks, it is that ANYONE needs to use foodbanks in a country as wealthy as this one. We all pay national insurance so that the more vulnerable members of society can be looked after — the poor, the disabled, the elderly and infirm, etc. And yet we have record levels of homelessness and child poverty, a crisis in care, and rationing of NHS services. So if the conservatives are not spending our national insurance money on the people it was designed to help, what are they spending it on instead? Where has all that money gone?

——

The new policy on care for the elderly and infirm in their own homes shows how callous the conservatives are. The people affected don’t matter because they won’t be able to make it to the polling station on election day.

——

Why are the conservatives pretending they care about people with mental and physical disabilities when they have spent billions in tax payer money doing nothing but tormenting them and causing  them mental anguish for the last two years? If they have somehow developed a conscience because there is an election coming and they want to make up for what they have done, just give them back the £30 a week they stole from them to fund the cut to corporation tax, and leave them alone. Otherwise they should just admit to everyone that the money they spend will go to pen-pushers who will carry on asking people with depression why they haven’t killed themself yet.

——

The tory attitude to mental health is best summed up in the question “why haven’t you killed yoursellf yet” being asked at disability assessments. If they are still alive, they are obviously faking it and don’t need any help from the state. If they are dead, maybe they were telling the truth after all, but at least they won’t need any help from the state. It’s a bit like how if you drown you weren’t really a witch.

 

Self Employment

Something to consider if you are self employed. And remember — we all go through rough patches that we have no control over, it goes with the territory.

Under Conservative plans for the self employed, as published on the Universal Credit website, you will need to file your accounts on a monthly basis, so there’s no annual averaging of income if your work is seasonal or if you have months when you make less for whatever reason. There are no more allowances for capital expenditure, either. Only day to day running costs can be counted as a business expense.

You are also assumed to be making at least the equivelent of minimum wage, ie about £1200 a month, so even if you earn less than that in some months your top-up social security credit will be based on the full £1200. And in the months when you do well, you will obviously get lower credits or nothing at all because of that.

On top of that, the DWP can call you in for job centre interviews whenever they like, and you will be sanctioned if you don’t attend or if you can’t prove you are actively seeking more customers. They will also have the power to close down your business and force you to seek employment instead if they decide you are not running your business effectively. But you won’t be able to claim any jobseekers allowance because you were self employed and therefore gave up your “job” voluntarily.

——

Every business owner knows that the planned conservative increase in National Insurance will hit them a lot harder than any nominal rise in corporation tax. Corporation tax is paid on profits they make, whereas National Insurance is paid for every employee they have, regardless of how much or how little profit they make. It will cost profits, and it will cost jobs.

 

 

 

This is England 2015 screenplay leaked

I recently came into posession of a leaked copy of the new This is England 2015 film screenplay. For copyright reasons I can only post the first page, but as you’ll probably agree it looks like it’s going to be very reminiscent of that period in skinhead history.

Return of The Snatcher

Scar Gill risked a quick glance over his shoulder as he ran across the wasteland, desperate to reach the safety of Gold Thor’s perimeter and the warriors who protected it. He wished he hadn’t; the scabbed ones were gaining on him. So close he could almost taste their stench in the back of his throat. Pus flew from the weeping sores on their emaciated arms and legs as they gave chase, a whole flock of them stretched out as far as he could see.

Scar Gill had never seen so many of them this far north before. In the stories, handed down from generation to generation, the scabbed ones of Notty Ham were in league with The Snatcher and had plotted with her to bring down the Under Dwellers of Yarkshire during her war with the mighty warrior Scar Gill was named after. Legend told how even on her deathbed, The Snatcher vowed revenge on the people of Yarkshire from beyond the grave, and that her evil spirit lived on in the minds of others.

Had The Snatcher taken on a new form and driven the scabbed ones north to destroy Gold Thor? Was the mighty town of Barn Slay, birthplace of the Scar Gill of legend, next on her list of targets for extermination? Scar Gill had to get home so he could raise the warning, rouse the village’s warriors before it was too late. He ran on, the scabbed ones screeching in their pursuit.

Arms pumping, breath wheezing, the stitch in his side burning agony, Scar Gill looked to the horizon, where the first traces of Gold Thor’s fields were visible against the setting sun. An oasis in the barren landscape, spared from the great Gee Had, some say, by the spirit of the legendary Scar Gill himself, Yarkshire’s protector and The Great Num’s ambassador on earth.

Scar Gill cursed himself for roaming so far from the safety of Gold Thor’s boundaries. But it was every citizen of Yarkshire’s duty to kill the scabbed ones of Notty Ham on sight, in revenge for their traitorous ways during the great war between The Snatcher and the Scar Gill of legend. So when he saw one sneak into Gold Thor and make off with one of the newborn lambs under its arm, Scar Gill gave chase with his trusty axe. He knew it was too late to save the animal as he followed the clumps of bloody fleece ripped from its body while it was devoured, but he had to do what was right. He had to rid the world of the thing that had taken it and avenge his ancestors.

He just never expected to come face to face with a whole flock of them nesting among the rubble of the wasteland. He skidded to a halt and turned and fled, but it was too late. The scabbed army had already seen him. They screeched and moaned, blackened teeth gnashing and scabbed arms flailing pus as they gave chase.

Now Scar Gill ran, spurred on by the sight of home, the pain in his side dissipating with renewed hope. Almost there …

A gnarled hand clawed against his back. Its owner’s fetid breath rasped in his ear. Scar Gill cried out and spun with the axe. Its blade thudded into rancid flesh and something warm and wet splashed onto Scar Gill’s face and chest. The stench was unbelievable, the taste of it in his mouth even worse. He gagged and spat, and almost stumbled as he ran on.

A shout came from the village ahead. One of the watchers, it had to be. Thank The Great Num someone was still on duty. Help would be on its way soon, Scar Gill just had to survive until then. More shouts. Then the glint of axes in the fading sunlight. The outline of figures with spears running toward him.

“Over here!” Scar Gill yelled, waving the axe above his head.

The warriors shouted the ancient chant of The Great Num as they ran into battle against The Snatcher’s scabbed army, just like their ancestors had done in the times of yore.

“Coal not dole! Coal not dole! Coal not dole!”

“Coal not dole!” Scar Gill repeated, overcome with emotion. He didn’t know what those words meant, nobody did, but he knew they would strike fear into the hearts of the scabbed ones of Notty Ham and give power to the Yarkshire warriors when the two armies clashed.

A dozen warriors ran past him. Axes swung through scabbed flesh as they continued the chant. Spears were plunged into blackened, traitorous hearts and ripped free. Arms, legs and heads were hacked off and sent spinning through the air. The ground turned red with diseased blood. Scabbed bodies twitched where they lay.

“Coal not dole!”

Scar Gill joined in the fray, his axe eager to taste blood once more before it was all over. He raised it above his head and ran at a scabbed one, embedded it in the thing’s face. It squealed and flailed its arms as it fell to its knees. Scar Gill placed his foot on the thing’s chest and wrenched the axe free. He looked around for a fresh victim.

The scabbed army were retreating. They screeched and squealed as they ran back across the wasteland in the direction they had come from. Yarkshire warriors chased them and cut them down with their axes and spears as they fled. Scar Gill watched, his arms and face slick with the enemy’s gore. It was over too soon, he had hoped to claim a few more lives before the battle ended. One or two scabbed ones managed to get away, but most lay dead or dying among the rubble. The scabbed army were defeated once more.

Scar Gill swelled up with pride as he looked down at his bloody axe. He had proven himself worthy of the name bestowed upon him, and there would be a new tale for the village elder to tell the children in the morning. Perhaps one day, when Scar Gill became a man, he would lead a charge into Notty Ham and destroy the scabbed ones forever. Then he too would go down in legend, just like his namesake.

But for now, it was time to party. And to celebrate once more the death of the evil witch known as The Snatcher.

 

Rockerhead – Peter Marshall

If you search for Hells Angels fiction on Amazon’s Kindle, once you discard the ones about angels and demons you’ll get page after page of romance titles featuring a hairy biker and his massive chopper next to some skinny bird who’s probably never had a hot throbbing motorcycle between her legs in her entire life. Presumably there’s a market for such books, but they don’t really appeal to me.

But tucked away on page three of the list you’ll find one called Rockerhead with a cover reminiscent of the old NEL books of the 1970s by Peter Cave and the like. The description mentions those books too, as does the writer’s introduction (which you will need to page-back to see, since it opens by default at chapter one).

The writer uses the name Peter Marshall, and goes to great lengths to point out it’s not his real name. Maybe he’s ashamed of the book, or doesn’t want to tarnish his current or future reputation by taking ownership of it, but he shouldn’t be. In a lot of ways it’s better than the original 1970s Hells Angels books he says he wrote it as a homage to. Most of those were pretty far-fetched, and barely more than a series of Asian or skinhead bashing set-pieces with minimal plot to tie them all together.

This one’s more of a revenge thriller with outlaw bikers in it. It has all the trappings you’d want from a Hells Angels book – bike chases, fisticuffs in the pub, petty crime, evading capture by the fuzz, even a bit of racist banter (though obviously toned down for today’s more sensitive readers).

Rockerhead is the nickname of the lead character, but everyone seems to call him Andy instead. He’s the leader of the pack, riding a BSA Thunderbolt with his Shangri Las style old lady Chrissy on the bitch-pad. Along with the rest of their gang they get up to assorted mischief during their annual run to seaside town Sidmouth, and soon get on the wrong side of Eastenders style cockney villain Jimmy Fitch.

The writer seems to know his stuff. There’s no motorcycle tyres screeching round bends, and no long, drawn out conversations between bike rider and passenger during a high speed chase like you find in a lot of books. So he’s either a biker himself or he’s at least done his homework. My only real quibble is with the naming of two of the supporting characters, Tosher and Tonner. The names are too similar, and you end up getting them mixed up with each other.

I’d recommend it if you grew up reading the old NEL books, like I did. And if you liked any of my books you should like this one too. It says it’s part of a series of “Retro Fiction” but it seems to be the only one available so far. Hopefully there will be others to come, but I’d guess that will depend on how well this one sells. It’s ebook only at the moment, and currently exclusive to the Amazon Kindle (though you could convert it to epub easily enough with Calibre if you needed to read it on something else).

It’d probably do better as a paperback, so if “Peter Marshall” reads this, get yourself over to Createspace and make one.

 

Get it here for 2 quid

 

 

 

Preview: Biker Sluts versus Flying Saucers

An outlaw biker story set during the aftermath of an alien invasion in 1970s England.

In 1973, 99% of Earth���s population are wiped out in an alien invasion.

Outlaw biker gang Satan���s Bastards are among the 1% who survive. Holing up in a nature reserve at the arse end of nowhere, the men spend the next five years partying while their women scavenge for food and booze from the ruins of nearby towns and cities.

But when a supply run goes tits up, it sets in motion a chain of events that will change their lives forever.

It���s now 1978, and it���s time for the mamas and old ladies of Satan���s Bastards to fight back against the alien scum who wrecked their lives.

This is their story.

 

1

Mia always got nervous before a supply run. She���d be daft not to, given the risks involved, but she knew it had to be done. If it was left up to the men they���d eat nothing but swans and rabbits, and sit around smoking dope all day. That was no way for Satan���s Bastards to live. They should be out on the road, roaming the country like they used to. Not rotting away in some nature reserve at the arse end of nowhere. So while Mia felt the usual jitters of apprehension, she felt something else too. A tingle of excitement at the prospect of getting back in the saddle and riding away from there. Even if it was only for a few hours.

She picked up the sawn-off shotgun lying beside her sleeping bag and inserted a cartridge in each of the twin barrels. You can���t be too careful out there, Fat Brenda always drilled into her. That was true, but shotguns were only useful for scaring off packs of wild dogs or as a quick way of getting through locked doors. Against the Angels they were no use at all. Nothing was.

Mia stuffed the loaded shotgun into a backpack and looked around the jumble of possessions littering her tent to see if there was anything else she might need for the shopping trip. A six inch serrated knife with an ivory handle and a box of spare shotgun cartridges went into the breast pockets of her leather jacket. She picked up a torch, checked it still worked, and tossed it into the bag with the shotgun. After another quick look around, she slung the bag over one shoulder and stepped out of the tent into the gathering dusk.

Wicked Tina, Suzy and Margot were waiting for her. Mia looked beyond them to the lake at the far end of the campsite, expecting to see Fat Brenda among the group of men and women watching Bonehead try to light the fire for the night. They jeered as he threw match after match at the petrol-soaked damp branches piled up like a skeletal tepee by the side of the lake. He struck another match and threw it. It blew out before it landed on target.

���You need to get a bit closer,��� Tanner said, ���hold it next to the wood when you strike it, then it won���t go out before it takes hold.���

���Yeah right,��� Bonehead said, ���and lose me beard and eyebrows again. Nah, you���re all right, I���ll do it me own way.���

Bonehead struck a match and held it to the remaining matches in the box until they flared up, then tossed the flaming box at the base of the woodpile. The petrol ignited with a loud whump, and crackling flames shot up the vertical branches. Everyone cheered. Bonehead turned to Tanner and grinned smugly.

���Yeah, well done, Bonehead,��� Tanner said. He shook his head, but he was smiling at the same time. ���Good idea, waste a whole box of matches when one would have been enough.���

Bonehead shrugged. ���Got the job done, didn���t it? Besides, it���s shopping day, innit? Just add more matches to the list of shit we need.���

Tanner leaned into the flames and lit a huge joint before sitting cross-legged near the fire to smoke it. Bonehead pressed play on his cassette player and a Hawkwind song he had recorded from John Peel���s radio show blared out.

���Where���s FB?��� Mia asked, noticing Fat Brenda wasn���t part of the group by the fire.

Suzy pointed at the row of tents lining one side of the clearing. ���I saw her going into her tent a while ago.���

Mia nodded. ���Right. I���ll go tell her it���s time to go.���

���Rather you than me, honey,��� Wicked Tina said, grinning.

���Why���s that?��� Mia asked.

���You���ll see,��� Suzy said.

Mia walked over to the tent Fat Brenda shared with Dirk. Like the other tents, the outside of the green canvas was daubed with white spray-painted slogans ��� Satan���s Bastards, Scum, ACAB, Born to Ride ��� as well as crooked swastikas and upside-down crosses. She opened up the flap and looked inside. Fat Brenda was on her hands and knees on the worn grass floor, leather trousers around her ankles, while Dirk thrust into her from behind. Rolls of fat rippled with every thrust, like a jelly being smacked with a jack-hammer.

���Christ, FB, you���ve had all day to do that. Hurry it up, yeah? We���re all waiting for you, it���s time to go.���

Dirk turned his head and grinned at Mia while he continued pounding into Fat Brenda. ���Give us another few minutes or so, yeah? Then she���s all yours.��� He slapped Fat Brenda on the arse. She cried out and called him a bastard.

Mia sighed and let the tent flap drop. Wicked Tina, Suzy and Margot burst out laughing. Mia shook her head as she walked back to join them.

���FB might be a while yet, let���s go and wait by the fire.���

They joined the other bikers by the side of the lake. A few more joints were doing the rounds, and Wicked Tina took a toke on one before she asked what everyone wanted them to look out for. Most wanted booze and smokes, predictably enough. Tanner wanted some new books, said he���d read all the ones they���d got him last time. Basher wanted chicken soup. Skinny Brenda caused a groan from the men and a torrent of insults when she asked for sanitary pads. Even some of the other women joined in with the taunts.

Bonehead held up his joint and offered it to Mia. She raised both hands and shook her head. ���Nah, I want to keep a clear head for the ride. Save me some for later though, yeah?���

���I���ve got a big stash in me tent, we���ll share it when you get back,��� Bonehead said, nodding vigorously. ���Can you get me some more batteries while you���re out?���

Mia smiled. ���Yeah, no worries man.��� Bonehead was always the easiest to please. As long as he had juice for his cassette player and an endless supply of dope to smoke he was as happy as a pig making its first arrest.

���And don���t forget the pizza,��� Basher said with a grin. Everyone laughed.

���Yeah, right,��� Suzy said, shaking her head. ���And I suppose you want ice cream for afters, do you?���

���Hell, yeah! And some donuts to dip into it!���

���I want bananas and custard,��� Johnny called out.

���Don���t,��� Wicked Tina said, shaking her head. ���Those are one of the few things I still miss. Why the hell didn���t anyone ever think to invent tinned bananas?���

���Wouldn���t do you any good if they did,��� Basher said, grinning. ���They���d be too mushy to shove up your fanny.���

���Piss off, Basher. That was just part of my stage act, and you know it. Besides, the way I remember it, you were the one who ate it after I threw it into the audience.

The cannabis-induced giggles came fast and loud. Mia doubted any of them would still be conscious by the time they got back later in the night.

���A rocket launcher would be awesome,��� someone said.

���Yeah, and a movie projector with something to watch on it.���

���That dinosaur one with Raquel Welch in a fur bikini. Gets me hard every time.���

���I���ll have Raquel Welch, you can shag the dinosaurs.���

���You guys get what you get,��� Fat Brenda said, walking toward the fire with Dirk. Her face was flushed, her cheeks rosy. ���If you want anything special you can go out there and get it for yourself, you hear?���

���Hell no,��� Dirk said. ���That���s what you bitches is for. We got much more important shit to do right here.��� He pulled out a bag of dried magic mushrooms and waved it in the air. Fat Brenda thumped him in the chest and he darted away from her, grinning.

Mia smiled. Nobody else would have dared do that to Dirk, and Dirk certainly wouldn���t have taken it from anyone but Fat Brenda. Being his old lady obviously came with some privileges, but Mia couldn���t help wondering if part of it was down to the sheer intimidating size of the woman. With her tree-trunk arms covered in tattoos, huge calloused fists and considerable bodyweight, she could���ve done some serious damage if she���d wanted to.

Dirk sat by the fire and opened the bag of mushrooms. He reached in for a handful and stuffed them into his mouth, then passed the bag on to Tanner in exchange for a toke on his joint. He took a long drag and held his breath, then closed his eyes and exhaled slowly with a sigh. He looked up at Fat Brenda.

���Take care, yeah?��� he said, softly. ���I���ll see you when you get back. And make sure you wear your helmet, just in case.���

Fat Brenda nodded, then turned away and strode off past the tents and through the bushes on the opposite side of the clearing. Margot bent down and kissed Deano passionately, then followed Fat Brenda. Mia raised a hand to Bonehead. Bonehead, and a few other men sitting near him, waved back.

���You ready?��� Suzy asked.

Mia nodded. Of course she was ready, she���d been ready all day. While everyone else slept off their hangovers from the previous night���s party, Mia had woken with the dawn chorus. She���d watered Tanner���s cannabis crop and gathered wood for the night���s fire in a daze, her mind filled with thoughts of the ride to come.

She followed Suzy and Wicked Tina through the bushes and onto a gravel path where the motorcycles were parked. Twenty-eight of them in total, one for each surviving member of Satan���s Bastards, all with leather saddle-bags draped over the rear seat.

Margot and Fat Brenda were sat on their bikes, revving the engines as she approached. Mia walked up to her Norton Commando and mounted it. She lifted a leather helmet and goggles from the front brake lever and put them on, then twisted the key in the ignition. The engine roared into life first time when she stamped down on the kick-start, adding to the noise of the other bikes around her.

Fat Brenda pulled forward first on her Triumph Bonneville, closely followed by Margot on her Kawasaki Avenger. Mia watched Suzy and Wicked Tina follow them down the dirt track, their rear wheels throwing up dust as they went. Mia pulled in the clutch and kicked her bike into gear. She switched on the headlight and rolled forward slowly, both feet scraping along the dirt as she went. She had once dropped her bike on the bend where the dirt track met the main road cutting through the nature reserve after her rear wheel slipped in some mud. That led to months of taunting about needing stabiliser wheels from the other bikers, and she was determined never to let that happen again.

The others had already sped off into the distance by the time Mia reached the end of the dirt track. She slipped the clutch and dabbed her way onto the tarmac road, then opened up the throttle and accelerated up to thirty. It was a straight road, lined both sides with the silhouettes of tall trees blocking out the stars, and Mia had ridden it so many times she felt she could do it blindfold. She twisted the throttle another inch and whooped in joy at the acceleration tugging at her wrists.

This was what Mia missed the most from the old days. The wind in her face, her long black hair whipping out behind her. The roar of the engine, its heady scent of oil and petrol in her nostrils. The thrill of the ride. It reminded her of those carefree days long ago, when Satan���s Bastards were the kings of the road. Riding wherever their bikes took them, doing whatever they wanted, not a care in the world. Travelling from town to town, terrorising the locals, then moving on before law enforcement caught up with them. Another day, another town. Another night, another wild party. But all that was gone now, and was never coming back. The Angels had seen to that.

The exit gate came up fast and Mia eased off on the throttle, letting the bike slow itself naturally as she drifted over to the right hand side of the road in preparation. She took the T-junction at twenty, and used the whole width of the main road to accelerate out of the sharp corner. This was another road Mia knew like the back of her hand. She knew every twist and turn, every burnt-out wreck and abandoned vehicle on it. So while the other women rode more cautiously in the cloying darkness, Mia kicked up through the gears and accelerated to sixty.

It didn���t take long to catch up with the other bikes. Suzy and Wicked Tina rode two abreast, either side of the dotted white line, trundling along together at a steady fifty, Margot close behind them. Fat Brenda took up the rear, and Mia eased off on the throttle as she rode alongside her. They cut through woodland, then crossed a river into open farmland. Overgrown fields, long since grown wild, flashed past on both sides, dimly illuminated by the light of the full moon. Wicked Tina and Suzy slowed on the approach to a wrecked Ford Cortina straddling the road, and manoeuvred into single file to navigate around it.

Mia looked up at the sky once she���d passed the car, checking in all directions now her view wasn���t obscured by hedgerows. She knew the Angels rarely ventured out at night, but it wasn���t unheard of so it always paid to be vigilant. Finding the sky clear, she twisted the throttle and edged ahead of Fat Brenda, then overtook Margot and looked for an opening between Suzy and Wicked Tina. They must have seen her coming because they parted, drifting over to the far left and right sides of the road to make room for her. She waved her thanks as she passed between them, then opened up the throttle wide. This was what Mia had been waiting for. An open road, and nothing to hold her back, nothing to slow her down. She accelerated up to seventy, a wide grin on her face as the rushing wind took her breath away.

The throaty roar of an accelerating motorcycle came from behind. Mia glanced in her wing mirror and saw Fat Brenda coming up fast. She eased off on the throttle to let the other woman pull alongside in case it was something important. Fat Brenda looked at Mia and shouted something, but the words were lost to the roaring wind.

���What?��� Mia shouted back, frowning.

Fat Brenda pulled ahead, waving as she sped away into the distance. Mia grinned and twisted the throttle a few more inches, determined not to let Fat Brenda take the lead. If she wanted a race, then she was going to get one, and Mia wasn���t going to make it easy for her. Norton versus Triumph, Mia versus Fat Brenda, with the winner getting gloating rights for the rest of the night.

Faster and faster they went down the empty, twisting road. Mia���s speedometer nudged eighty. Another twist of the throttle sent it to ninety. Fat Brenda went for the ton and opened up the gap between them. A sharp left-hander came up fast. Mia dabbed her rear brake and drifted over to the centre of the road to get an early view around it. Fat Brenda moved over to the left to take a racing line around the bend, and disappeared from view.

Tyres screeched. Fat Brenda screamed.

Mia instinctively grabbed the front brake and stamped down hard on the rear. She came to a sliding halt at the apex of the bend, just in time to see Fat Brenda fling herself off her bike and roll into the hedgerow with her head tucked under her arms. Fat Brenda���s motorcycle continued on two wheels for a few feet, then toppled and spun end over end in a shower of sparks before it thudded into the underside of a tipped-over lorry with a loud metallic clang.

���FB!��� Mia shouted.

Fat Brenda sat up and waved. She struggled to her feet and limped toward her wrecked motorcycle, shaking her head and mumbling obscenities to herself. After a few paces she stopped and turned, then ran back toward Mia a few paces before a deafening explosion knocked her off her feet and sent her sprawling in the centre of the road. A huge fireball blossomed out. Mia ducked down over her petrol tank and covered her face with her hands as the searing shockwave hit her. When she looked up again black clouds of billowing smoke filled her vision.

���FB!��� she yelled, kicking down the Norton���s side-stand. She jumped off her bike just as the others pulled up alongside her. Suzy stared open-mouthed at the burning wreckage from astride her Honda 400. Margot jumped off her Kawasaki and ran with Mia, calling out Fat Brenda���s name.

���I���m over here,��� Fat Brenda shouted.

They found her sitting in the road, hands on hips, staring forlornly into the flames. She looked up at Mia and frowned.

���My poor bike.���

Mia laughed, relief coursing through her to see Fat Brenda still in one piece. She held out a hand to help her up onto her feet. ���You mad cow, you could���ve killed yourself then, and you���re more worried about your stupid bike?���

Fat Brenda shrugged. ���I loved that bike.���

Mia smiled. ���Yeah well, bikes are replaceable, you���re not. We���ll get you a new one as soon as we can. Same model, same colour, you won���t know the difference.���

���Or maybe one that���s a bit faster?���

Mia laughed and shook her head. ���You think that���s wise, given what you���ve just done?���

���Nice firework display,��� Wicked Tina said, grinning from the seat of her motorcycle when Mia, Fat Brenda and Margot walked out of the smoke together. ���I reckoned you was done for, thought I might be in with a chance to take your place in old Dirk���s tent.���

���Hell no, you skinny bitch,��� Fat Brenda said, grinning back. ���Dirk likes a bit of meat on his woman, he don���t go for titless scrag-ends like you. Besides, it takes more than a little spill like that to put me down for the count.��� She patted the scuffed leather covering her enormous stomach. ���Extra padding comes in useful sometimes.���

���Yeah well,��� Mia said, climbing on her bike. ���Looks like we���ll need to find another route.��� She wheeled the bike around. ���And I suppose you want a lift?���

Then she saw Wicked Tina staring up at the sky. Two pulsating blue lights hovered just above the north horizon, growing larger by the second.

���Angels!��� Mia yelled.

 

2

Mia kicked the Norton into gear and shot forward a split second after Fat Brenda climbed on the back and clutched her around the waist. The extra weight on the back of the bike bottomed out its rear suspension, and Mia felt every bump and pothole she rode over as she sped down the road ahead of Wicked Tina, Suzy and Margot. The lorry behind them still burned bright, illuminating the landscape for miles around. The two flying saucers sped toward it at phenomenal speed.

Mia���s heart sank as she watched them grow larger in her mirror. She had hoped they would have more time to get away, maybe find somewhere to hole up until it was safe to venture out again. But here they were surrounded by wide open countryside, with the two Angel ships only a few miles away and closing fast. It was only a matter of time before they were spotted, if they hadn���t been already. Mia switched off her headlight and accelerated up to fifty, the fastest she dared in the cloying darkness ahead. The other women followed her lead and fell into formation behind her. Mia hoped she wasn���t leading them to their deaths.

Another mile down the road, Mia saw the outline of two trees. Just a small oasis of cover, but it was their only chance. As she got closer she saw the trees marked a junction with a B road cutting through the farmland. Mia turned into the junction and came to a halt under the overhang of the trees. The others pulled up alongside her and switched off their engines. Fat Brenda jumped off the back of Mia���s bike and pointed to an overgrown wheat field on their left.

���In there, quick!���

Nobody needed telling twice. Mia climbed off her bike and followed the others into the field. She waded through waist-high yellow stalks a few yards, then flattened herself against the ground and looked up. The two flying saucers hovered above the burning lorry in close formation. Even from a distance, Mia could hear the gentle hum of whatever it was that powered their engines. As she watched, one of the ships broke away and sped off into the distance. Mia wondered briefly what had caught its attention, and hoped the other would follow it. Instead, the remaining saucer hovered closer to the ground. A cone of harsh blue light shone down from the centre of its underside and illuminated the fields below. Then the ship began sweeping the countryside in slow, zig-zagging straight lines.

���Shit,��� Fat Brenda said, sitting up. ���We can���t stay here, they���ll find us straight away. We need to get going.���

���And go where?��� Margot asked. ���We sure as hell can���t outrun them.���

Mia thought fast. There had to be somewhere nearby they could reach while the Angels were still busy searching the fields on the far side of the lorry. She knew there was nothing for miles back on the main road, so the narrow, twisting B road had to lead somewhere. She just had to hope it led there sooner rather than later.

���Maybe there���s a village or something down there,��� she said, pointing.

���You reckon, honey?��� Wicked Tina asked.

Mia shrugged. ���I���m just guessing, but this road must go somewhere, otherwise it wouldn���t be here would it?���

���Yeah well,��� Fat Brenda said, standing up. ���I guess we���ll find out soon enough.���

They hurried back to their bikes, then set off down the road in single file with their lights switched off. Fat Brenda���s immense weight on the back of Mia���s bike was even more noticeable at slow speed on the bumpy road, and she wished one of the others had volunteered her a ride instead as she thumped over yet another pothole.

They rode into open countryside, then round a sharp left hand bend and came to a junction with a road sign pointing to a village three quarters of a mile away. They took the turn and soon rumbled into a small farming town, little more than a single row of houses with a small petrol station at its outskirts. They parked the bikes under the petrol station���s overhang and Mia just had enough time to plant both feet on the ground before Fat Brenda stood up on one of the foot-pegs. The bike lurched to one side when she jumped off.

The petrol station had been hastily boarded up with planks of wood, its owner no doubt worried about looters when they abandoned it. Mia smiled at that thought. As if material goods had mattered at that stage. Maybe the owner thought they would be able to return one day and just carry on as normal? But at least the boards would have kept the wild animals out, and for that Mia was grateful. It meant there might be something inside worth having.

Wicked Tina reached into her left boot and pulled out a dagger. She jammed it under the edge of one of the boards and used it like a crowbar to pry the board loose enough to get her fingers under it. Rusted nails groaned and creaked as she pulled the board off, sounding impossibly loud in the silence of the empty village. Mia watched the Angel ship fly over a nearby field, and subconsciously stepped back into the shadows of the building.

Margot and Suzy helped Wicked Tina pull the remaining boards from the door and lie them down in a pile under the boarded up window. Fat Brenda kicked out at the door. It slammed back on its hinges and they all crowded around the entrance to peer inside through a cloud of swirling dust. Wicked Tina took out a torch and switched it on.

���Jackpot,��� Fat Brenda said, smiling.

Mia slipped the backpack off her shoulders and took out her own torch. She stepped inside and looked around in awe. The petrol station stocked a wide variety of convenience food, all seemingly untouched for the last five years. Cartons of fruit juice, cans of food, even boxes of breakfast cereal. Four rows of shelves filled with goods, all coated in a thin layer of dust. It had been a long time since she had seen that much food in one place. There was so much of it they would need to make several trips to get it all back to their camp in the nature reserve. But it would certainly be worth it when they returned with a haul like that. They could feast off it for weeks.

A faded photograph pinned to a notice board behind the shop���s counter caught her eye. It showed a young boy, seven or eight years old, playing with a plastic Angel action figure some enterprising toy company had released soon after their arrival, when they were still seen as a force for good. Mia couldn���t help wondering what had happened to the boy when the killing started. The boards nailed over the door and window indicated his family had been forewarned in some way, but if they had somehow managed to escape then surely they would have returned at some point for the food they left behind?

���Hell yeah,��� Wicked Tina said excitedly, breaking Mia���s train of thought.

She turned to see what had caught her attention. Wicked Tina stood beside a glass-fronted display cabinet filled with bottles. Mia smiled and walked over to inspect them for herself. Wicked Tina pulled open the cabinet���s door and took out a bottle of whisky. She twisted off the cap and took a long drink, then sighed and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

���Now that���s what I call a good find,��� she said, and passed the bottle to Mia. She smiled. ���Looks like it���s party time, honey.���

Mia gulped down a mouthful of whisky, savouring the taste as it burned down her throat and into her stomach, giving her a warm glow inside. She took another long drink before handing the bottle back. Fat Brenda and Suzy headed over for their turn with the bottle, closely followed by Margot.

The remaining bottles in the cabinet began to clink against each other as the Angel ship hovered directly overhead. Thin shafts of blue light surged through gaps between the boards covering the window. Mia held her breath. Everyone else froze, their torches pointed down. They stood in silence for what seemed like forever before the ship moved on, further into the village.

���So what do we do now?��� Suzy whispered.

���We���ll have to wait until tomorrow night,��� Fat Brenda said. ���It���s not as if we can do anything else, is it? Those bastards will be prowling around out there for hours, and we can���t risk going out in daylight, can we?���

Wicked Tina took another hit of whisky and shrugged. ���Well I don���t know about any of you lot, but I intend to get absolutely wasted,��� she said. ���With all this food and booze and shit I don���t care if we have to stay here a month.���

Mia frowned. Fat Brenda was right, there was no way they could travel tonight, and venturing out during the day was just asking for trouble. But the idea they might be stuck there for any extended length of time was too depressing to contemplate.

���Pass me one of them bottles,��� she said with a sigh.