Week 188 – Nik’s Cross-Dressing, A Black Mass And Ageing Scrotums

As with every other sequence ours has moved onto week 188.

Coincidentally, Nik has 188 sequins hand sewn into a shirt that he only wears in private, well, he calls it a shirt.

And he has a very liberal idea about Fishnets being trousers.

But enough of Nik’s harmless hobby, it keeps him happy.

It was a sad week this week. Aretha Franklin passed away and I must admit I had a premonition about a newspaper headline.

It just had to be R.E.S.P.E.C.T.R.I.P and I was correct. It actually sounds OK when you sing it.

What a voice she had.

All the stories that come out at this time are quite heartbreaking. I had read about Nat King Cole selling out venues that he wasn’t allowed to stay in. We have an author called Lee Conrad whose story ‘And The Rocks Came’ was about a Paul Robson concert. (This is one of my favourites)

You would think that in this day and age we should laugh at these stories and be able to say in a loud and proud voice that these were stories of the dark ages and that this would never happen now-a-days. Sadly that is very wrong.

We still have bigotry, racism, homophobia and sexism. But we also fuel this by category. Films and books can be found under LGBTQI. Sexuality has fuck all to do with a genre. A character’s trait is only a trait. Books should be under CMT, Horror, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Historical Fiction or Romance (If you must!) Those genres cover most things. If we look too closely at distinguishing, surely Frankenstein could be all of them!

We could also add in as a genre an affront to the bible or maybe bible inspired. (I think they call this Create-an-ism) This would be hysterical as we could sub-genre Frankenstein as anti-Darwinism.

We do need categories and genres as this stops me making a mistake and reading some Romance pish.

I was given a book one time and was told that it was a cracker. I began to read and I became a bit suspicious. My fingers began to burn and I wanted to deflower a virgin with a turnip. It was just a bit off and righteous. I looked up the author and found that they were a Christian writer. I felt violated and turniped.

I want my religion to be all Fire And Brimstone. It is obvious straight away that I should avoid it. But this sneaky Christian shite, gradually changes a nasty blaggard into a good guy due to them having a revelation, normally with a nod of the head and a knowing smile. There is also a helluva lot of metaphors and light. The story ends with them being contented and looking forward to the day that they can thank…???

We are never told what they have to thank, we are left to work it out ourself. Once we have done so, that is when we spontaneously become a Christian.

As I said, it’s pish and to be avoided.

Now onto our stories this week.

We had two new writers and three stalwarts.

To both M. Kilmeny and Paul Lewellan we welcome them and hope that they continue to send us their work.

Our topics this week include memory loss, a Western, the Amish, continual performances and some Science Fiction.

As usual our initial comments follow.

 

On Monday Fred Foote had his 47^th story published. Here’s to him getting to fifty very soon.

‘Misguided‘ began our week.

‘This is full of passion.’

‘I was left feeling sad.’

‘The ending tied it all in.’

 

Roger Ley was next up with ‘Trajectory.‘

‘There were a few pithy lines which gave it a realistic feel.’

‘I enjoyed that the Science Fiction element was just a backdrop to a survival story.’

‘For a Science Fiction short this was very good.’

 

There are no words to describe our next author or his achievements and continual excellence.

Tom Sheehan broke the back of the week.

‘Standing-To At Denby’s Creek‘ was published on Wednesday.

‘A Well written tale of manipulation.’

‘The prose was lovely.’

‘It is obvious that Tom has a love of these types of stories.’

 

Our first new writer was next up.

On Thursday we published M. Kilmeny’s ‘Theatrical Spirits‘

‘The story of desperation and people coming together all worked very well.’

‘This was a relating of a passing of time when people were trying to cope.’

 

Our second débutante was Paul Lewellan.

He finished off our week with ‘Abide Sister‘.

‘She was a strong and interesting character who sampled another side of life but kept her faith.’

‘This was well thought out and researched.’

‘An unusual setting and a bit different.’

 

Well that’s another week over.

I think if I really want to read a book of Christian fiction I should read the bible. But it is rather boring and the punctuation is terrible.

I would like to see an illustrated version, I heard that Eve was a bit of a looker. But I wouldn’t like to see Methuselah as he would remind me that my scrotum isn’t what it used to be.

 

Hugh

Banner Image: Thanks to Mrs Nik for this image of the inside of his wardrobe!