Week 359 – Listening, Questioning And I Was Sad To Have Missed Seeing Jane Leeves But I Was Always Happy To Have Brought The Coal In For My Old Gran Instead!!

It seems ages since I typed one of these.

Leila has done a sterling job!!

I would like to mention Christmas and New Year, not for any particular reason except to say that I heard one of the best come-backs ever. One of the most cutting observations from a comedienne. And a one liner from another comedienne about being a vegan.

First off the comeback. There was an elderly man who got onto the bus and the conversation went thus:

Bus driver – Are you alright auld yin?

Passenger – Auld yin? Fair dos, I’m a pensioner and you’re a cunt.

Next off the legend that is Frankie Boyle.

He stated that he was pleased to read that the queen had sent her congratulations to Emma Raducanu as it was refreshing to hear that she supported a teenager in an American Court.

And lastly Mr Jimmy Carr:

His line went:

Vegans don’t believe in killing anything except a conversation.

Those made my holidays!

I also heard about the worst shoplifter in the world. He cut an alarm off a TV and stated that he didn’t know what had happened. He blagged it at the till and even tried to put his bank card through to no avail. He stated that he would return in the morning with cash.

The point is he was trying to wheel the TV out the shop in one of their trolleys. So when he left the TV on the trolley, he left his pound deposit in it.

That guy had dreams of making three hundred pounds from the TV but was out of pocket!

He was shite.

Over the holidays, I’ve been ‘Eight haufs in’

That’s the state of drinking eight alcoholic beverages and therefore not caring and being in a state of ‘Couldn’tgiveafuckness’

Mind you to stay that way, you need to count to eight once again, when you reached eight. You do this until you pass out.

In this state you contemplate everything with a wry smile and a carefree attitude.

You don’t want to kill wankers who annoy you, you’d be happy to leave that to someone else.

You wonder what is the most interesting point of a triangle. (For me, that depends on which way I am facing.)

Work is never far from your mind. You question if anyone really does enjoy their job and if they do what mental illness they are suffering from.

For some reason, the question ‘Why?’ comes to mind. You can add this to everything and have a conversation with yourself.

For example –

‘Pandas…Why?’

‘Politicians…Why?’

‘Meat free meat…Why?’

‘Alcohol free gin at thirty quid a bottle…Why?’

‘Adverts for hygiene products…Why?’

The list can go on for ever.

Now we are onto my shite segue (I agree Leila, this is impossible to do with any newness after you have done a dozen or so!!)

Why do we keep getting so many great stories?

Cause we just do and here we have this week’s!

(I loathe myself!!!!)

We had three new writers, a third timer and me.

To all our newbies we welcome them, hope they have fun on the site and continue to send us their work. (Miss Anderson still lives in my mind every time I do write repetition!! I wonder if the soul still believes in god?)

Anyhow – Topics covered included; Despair, acceptance, sexuality, a city and compulsion.

As always our initial comments follow.

First up was me with ‘From Afar’

I have a confession to make. I had forgotten about ‘Piranha’ It was only when Gwen read this one, (She is the only person that I ever show my work to as we have a certificate that states that she has to stay with me for better or worse!) she reminded me of that one and said that there was a tie-in. I was a bit reluctant to submit but let Diane and Leila decide and they thought it stood alone, so I was happy to go with it.

I’ve said many times, I’m shite at titles and characters’ names but I was delighted with the image that I found!!

My gran wasn’t so happy as she was left sooking her glass eye.

‘Blue’ by Selina Sheth who was our first new writer was published on Tuesday.

‘I examined this for judgement and found none, in either direction.’

‘Sensitively done.’

‘The note of absolute sadness at the end was quite moving.’

Our next newbie broke the back of the week.

Stevie doCarmo was next up with, ‘Wrecking Ball.’

‘Very well written.’

‘This story shows something different.’

‘Quite deep.’

And we nearly finished off but not quite with our last new writer.

DB Cox had his first story, ‘Friend‘ published on Thursday.

‘I was sold from the opening.’

‘Bleak and interesting.’

‘This has great pathos.’

We completed the week with a lady who works very hard at her craft.

Her hard work has paid off and she has graced the site three times.

‘Coral Not Pink‘ was Rachel Sievers’ latest offering.

‘Harrowing and intense.’

‘There is a believability about this and that is so sad.’

‘Some of these stories can be contrived for the topic’s sake, this is not one of them!’

That’s us for another week folks.

Please say thanks if anyone has commented.

Please comment.

And we haven’t had a suggestion for a re-run for a while. If you want to get involved, just write a spiel or an introduction on an older story that you have loved and send it into us. Throw a few questions in for the writer and we will publish exactly what you send us.

I’m going to try this from another angle. For anyone who has never been published and would love to see their own words on a site, do this!! It means that you can put down on your writer’s CV that you had contributed to a short story site!!

Also, I can’t stress this enough. Reading and thinking on questioning gives YOU inspiration!!!

Just to finish, I see that Benny Hill (A man who was once quoted as saying that he could afford a gold plated Rolls Royce but he preferred to walk) has been repeated in one of the TV stations and this got me thinking.

I find it interesting that the generation now-a-days who see this type of TV become one of the enraged. Now these are the wee fuckers that you would have seen screaming at their gran in a supermarket because the auld soul isn’t buying them something that they want.

Now before I get slated, I am not giving my opinion, I’m just stating an observation.

This type of humour really does enrage the enraged as they state how sexist it is and disrespectful to women.

What I wonder is why in those days, the seventies, that those who were growing up in those times and watching those shows would never dream of disrespecting their mothers or God forbid, their grandmothers??

The reason is simple and somewhat ironic:

In those days where TV women were portrayed as weak and sex objects, real women were strong, resourceful and would have beat the shit out of us if we stepped out of line. There was respect in reality.

Today’s TV women are strong, resourceful and have all the opportunity in the world whereas the generation that is watching them ends up with PTSD if they don’t get a ‘like’ for a picture of their breakfast muffin!

Hugh

Image by Alex Fox from Pixabay