Since this is a bit of a milestone, six hundred weeks is something to behold, I’m going to start off in a good mood, I can’t promise that I’ll stay that way as life trudges on and I’ve found that it goes out it’s way to annoy me. I can sit here, being happy and I can guarantee that a phone-call, a thought or an email will make me want to kill someone. Probably the fucker who phoned, or sent the email or I thought about.
So to begin with, I need something to make me smile.
This band always does!!
*I’d also like to ask two quick riddles
1. What do you call a spider with ten eyes?
2. What is so fragile that even stating it’s name breaks it?
Following on from my topic last time, I want to advise, again, something that we have mentioned before. Some topics will never make it, as, well, we just don’t like them. The one that I want to touch on is animal cruelty.
We hate that.
I wrote about Peter Mullen in my previous Saturday’s Post. He has done some brilliant work. (‘Trainspotting’, ‘Neds’, ‘My Name Is Joe’ etc.
I wanted to watch ‘Tyrannosaur’ which he also stared in but THANKFULLY I read about the first scene. Due to that, I’ve avoided it like the plague.
I also have only watched ‘The Wee Man’ just once because of the same sort of reason.
Gwen loves those John Wick films but when I heard his dog was killed – I ain’t watching them either.
This is a lesson to the fucking outraged – If you know you will be outraged, don’t read the fucking story!!
Since this is number six hundred, I reckon I need to do something enlightening and appropriate. I thought about a lot of the topics I’ve used in these and also the points I’ve made and those that have been made to us. I’ve come up with this. It’s a sort of list of things that I’ve used and the experience that we’ve all gained. I’ve done these since Week 64 and Leila has taken one every two weeks since around Week 360ish.
I would say that I have learnt a helluva a lot about the site, these postings, writing and myself in that time.
So in no particular order!
– A statistic first. We’ve had over 17 000 submissions.
– Since Week 64, I’ve been trying to work out how to easily find out how many writers we have.
– From those, only three people who’ve been published took umbrage with us.
– There are only three previous writers who we would now never consider.
– AI is something newish. There wasn’t many stories of this ilk at the beginning. There is now and they are mostly fucking boring.
– There are always exceptions.
– Sometimes there are never exceptions.
– We changed the guidelines once and had to change them back due to some woke fuckwit. I really do regret that…But for the good of the site, I was happy to accept my regret.
– All our decisions are for the good of the site.
– Telling us you have chronic dandruff and such like is more information than we need.
– If we piss you off, have some pride, stay pissed off!!
– If you become un-pissed off, I can’t promised that we’ll do the same.
– A decision is a decision, asking us to change our mind is futile.
– We can spot passive aggressiveness in an email a mile away. We will respond courteously but we really want to answer with ‘Fuck off and die’!
– We’ll always be professional.
– In our minds and wishes, we can be really childish.
– Comments instigate thought and inspiration.
– Those who don’t comment or read comments are missing out on thought and inspiration.
– I’ve used comments between myself, Leila and Diane as inspiration for these postings.
– We can’t thank those who comment enough!
– As already mentioned in this post, animal cruelty stories will never get through. I’m still
traumatised by the late, great Tom Sheehan’s brilliant but harrowing story ‘Titanic’. (I’m filling up as we speak)
– We all miss Tom Sheehan.
– We’re all in awe of the amount and quality of Tom’s work.
– The three topics that I use for a title in these postings, I try not to use the words from the body of the posting.
– I’ve always wondered if anyone noticed the point above?
– Sometimes the number of the posting has relevance.
– There are only two films with the number 600. They are ‘The 600’ (A Rwandan film) and ‘600 Miles’ staring Tim Roth.
– I know fuck all about Rwandan films.
– Anything with Tim Roth in is worth watching – I’ll have a look.
– Any song that has the number 600 in it, to me, looks like shit.
– I know very little about classical literature and very seldom do I use any content in these postings. Except to slag off ‘1984’ and Shakespeare.
– I wonder if my slagging off of any topic is insecurity?
– See above – Fuck that – They bore me!!!
– I sometimes scribble down bits and pieces that’ve made me think and I hope that I can use them in The Saturday Posting, but as a rule I very seldom know what I’m going to write about. – I’m sure you’ve noticed.
– Another old tip. Never in the name of fuck, class you or your story as hysterical.
– PC, Woke, Proclaimers and The Outraged are and always will be cunts.
– I swear a lot but I don’t give a fuck!
– Our (You) writers are as good, if not better than many a published writer!!
– I will always hate romance!
– Sometime happy coincidences happen. This part of the posting is exactly 600 words!
Okay onto this week’s stories.
We had two new writers, a third timer, a sixth timer and a twenty-fifth timer.
To our new folks, we welcome them, hope that they have fun on the site and continue to send us their work.
We began the week with our first new writer, Brian Stumbaugh. His story was entitled, ‘Judy
Triton’
‘There are some great lines throughout.’
‘The tone was excellent.’
‘This was very enjoyable.’
On Tuesday the story was, ‘The Beggar’s Stone’ The writer was Peter Biles who we have now published for a third time.
‘A weird little story.’
‘The ending nearly eluded me.’
‘A bit mystical.’
P.R. Woods was our next new writer. The story ‘Reconciled To Eternity’ was next up.
‘This says much about the world and its deadening hypocrisy.’
‘Some credit for the writer taking the high wire.’
‘Tawdry but in a very good way.’
On Thursday we had Michael Smith with his sixth story for us entitled, ‘Bradley Hand & Lucinda Grande.’
‘I was amused by the names.’
‘It was a look at two different points of view.’
‘The MC was a total arse.’
And we finished off with a wonderful friend of the site. Christopher Ananias is not only a brilliant writer, he comments and supports the site.
‘A Certain Type Of Shopper’ was his latest offering.
‘CJA has a brilliant, strange mind.’
‘I love the observations.’
‘The ending was hilarious.’
That’s us for another week.
Send in a Re-Run (A story you read a while back and enjoyed) Throw in an introduction and we will post what you send us.
Please keep commenting or begin to comment.
Say ‘Thanks’ to the folks who take the time to read and comment.
Before I forget*
1. A spiiiiiiiiiider.
2. Silence
I need to thank Mr Tam Cowan whose column in ‘The Sunday Post’ has given me a few of the really stupid jokes I’ve used.
Just before a last piece of music, I will leave you with something he was pondering…
‘I’ve read a lot about rivers and the term for effluent is always raw sewage…What kind of weirdo cooks it??’
I’ve been watching ‘Lazarus’ by Harlan Coben – Not my favourite of his but it was still enjoyable and there is a song throughout that reminded me of a cover that was miles better than the original. If ever a song suited a voice, this is that one!
Oh and we just had to say:
Thanks to all of you who have stuck with us over these six hundred postings, the writers, the readers and especially those who comment – We appreciate you all!!!
Hi All
Thank you, thank you for sticking around 600 weeks Good Gordon Highlanders. dd
literally stories 
My answer was a Spider wearing one pair of glasses (or two monocles). Yours is far far better. Actually, I thought “quiet” for the second, so I think I got a check plus plus for that one!
Yes 600 is a tremendous achievement. There are lots of things that pile up that do not mean much, like 10,000 news broadcasts–those happen anyway. But something not driven by money, a human effort, is remarkable.
Let’s do some math. You did from 64 to something like 364 alone–so (duh) that’s 300, then half of the last five and a half years, which adds at least another 130 or so, so you will be closing in on 500 sometime in the next year and a half or so. There must be a way to pin that down without going one by one. Hmmm. And with a hundred-thirty some-odd stories you are already past that mark.
Congratulations to all who have been with us. I’d say we have had a 98% success rate with people–judged on basic manners and a lack of annoyance. The other 2% are the 2% type of people we all know.
Great clips. Never heard Dusty do that song before. She is a favorite of mine. Another who died too damn young.
I miss Tom, too–keep half expecting to see a new email from him. So it goes for us all.
Leila
LikeLike