Week 333 – A Maiden Amount, Some New Traits For Samael And Patches Isn’t Just About Dungarees.

Here we are at Week 333 – Half the number of the beast.

I realised that I didn’t know why 666 was the number of the beast so I looked it up.

I’m none the wiser! It’s a bit complicated.

I decided to come up with my own reasons.

I think that it was the number of Times Auld Nick and Jesus did the nasty. I wonder who kept count and why – Maybe they were bragging to make Judas jealous???

Or possibly Lucifer was a Prog Rock fan and the meaning was confused. (Not that everything in the bible isn’t crystal clear and should always be taken literally.) He could’ve written some progressive track that went on for over ten minutes and it was more of 666 the number of the beats.

There is a chance that ‘The Lord Of The Flies’ was an award winning gardener and again, it was 666 the number of the beets.

I like to think that it was all three. We would then have Beelzebub: Giver to Jesus, Rick Wakeman collaborator and Alan Titmarsh enthusiast.

I think it softens his persona and takes away any preconceived nastiness.

Talking about all things religious I did have a wee prayer on Sunday due to The European Championships Final, (Sorry Diane!!) as did all of Scotland apart from some of those mad Rangers Supporters. The type that I’m talking about have an England Badge tattooed on their chest over their heart. (You couldn’t make it up!)

However, when The British Open is on, I will be supporting anyone from the UK as I like to see that trophy staying here. Us Scots are a complex people. (There could be an argument for being called ‘Petty’ and ‘Jealous’ as well as a bit ‘Immature’ – But that’s only for us to admit amongst ourselves!!!)

Maybe we have ‘Wee Man’ syndrome due to the size of our country but that can be bombed out the water due to the success of Tom and Luke Stoltman who competed in ‘The Worlds Strongest Man’ contest this year with Tom taking the crown.

It’s brilliant to see so much sport!

If it’s a choice between sport with its history makers or reality TV and attention seekers, I know what I’ll watch.

And in our world of stories, we can have them all as characters and do with them as we please!! (I tried to sneak in that shite link. I thought I’d got away with it until I read it back and realised it is fucking dreadful!!)

Okay onto this weeks offerings!

No new folks but plenty of stories between these writers and their quality is always outstanding.

That reminds me – I love the joke about the scarecrow who won an award for being outstanding in his field!

The topics this week include; dead walking, shorthand, transformation, a companion and living.

As always our initial comments follow.

First up was our amazing colleague, Leila Allison.

‘Hannah And The Homophonic: A Feeble Fable Of The Fantasmagorical by Leila Allison (With A Forward Foreword By Judge Jasper P. Montague, Quillemender) was published on Monday.

‘It is even better if you read this out loud.’

‘Very clever as always.’

‘Intended thoughtful texts can change into something that makes no sense or is downright rude.’

On Tuesday Marco Etheridge has taken a prompt and his sharp writing brain came up with ‘Rapturous’.

‘A Funny joyful story.’

‘The apocalypse portrayed is sort of pleasant.’

‘Marco did say he would send us one of these. He’s done a helluva job!’

Our Mr Constant over the last few months has been Yash Seyedbagheri. He broke the back of the week with, ‘Light.‘

‘The scene setting is done very well.’

‘Tortured and morose written brilliantly.’

The melancholy was lifted at the end with a small bit of hope.’

Dave Henson is a very imaginative writer. He was next up on Thursday with, ‘The End Of The World.‘

‘I’d always consider any of Dave’s stories.’

‘This was a well thought out idea.’

‘We all see what can happen regarding social media and mass hysteria.’

We finished off the week with Diane Willems.

‘Perry’ completed a very interesting five days!

‘This held me from start to finish.’

‘Different, unusual and quite heart warming!’

‘The POV was perfect for the MC.’

There is just one other thing to tell you about and that is an update to Tom Sheehan’s biography. He sent this in as a submission and we thought it would look good on his page. Be sure to check it out.

To finish off, another peek behind our curtain.

Sometimes our comments end up in all sorts of places. We start off talking about a story and for whatever reason those comments grow legs and we end up with tangents.

Baldness came up – I’m really not sure why!

Now as a fellow slaphead, I can comment on this as what hair I hadn’t pulled out, fell out so I shave my head. I could’ve tried saying that I dye my hair skull coloured but I don’t think that anyone would have been fooled.

It’s ironic that I grew a beard about thirty five years back because I couldn’t be fucked shaving but now I have to shave my noggin every day. If I don’t I want to spontaneously burst into a Clarence Carter song!

I find it interesting that any belief that baldness is an issue mainly comes from men. I’ve never heard a woman say, ‘Look at that baldy bastard!’ But I have heard them comment on comb-overs and wigs and how ridiculous they both look.

I did have a very elderly in-law who wore one of those plastic nylon numbers. You know the ones where balloons stick to their head and they keep getting shocks due to the static charge that builds up. At night he looked like the Aurora Borealis. He’d married an old aunt of mine but it didn’t last. I knew when he was cremated as there was a weird blue cloud over the Crematorium. That answered my question of ‘Wig on or wig off?’

Anyhow, all that nonsense was an excuse to grant Leila a request.

We can mention handsome bald guys; Bruce Willis, Louis Gossett Jnr, Evander Holyfield, *Alan Shearer, Yul Brynner, Billy Zane and Dwayne Johnstone to name but a few but Leila wants this clip to be available.

Maybe this guy isn’t the most handsome. Maybe his singing and dancing isn’t perfect but by fuck does he have character!!!!

Hugh

*For anyone who doesn’t know, Alan Shearer was a very successful striker who played for Southampton, Blackburn Rovers and Newcastle. He also played for England and is a mad proud Geordie. (Person from Newcastle)

There is a story that I heard about a taxi driver winding up a Newcastle fan when the fan was singing Shearer’s praises.

The driver sneered at him and said, ‘It wouldn’t be that if you caught him in bed with your wife…What would you do then?’

The fan replied, ‘I’d put a blanket over him.’

Image by Screamenteagle from Pixabay