Criteria

The criteria weren't broad enough for him to be included.

Singing Dog

He longs for the wide open spaces of the moor and sheep to chase. Alas he lives by the bypass with its fumes and growl of engines on tarmac. But at dawn and dusk the wild dog in him seeps out in a sweet, sharp, poignant howl.

One Less

She’s an old fashioned disciplinarian who can’t be doing with mouthy gits.

Soft Spot

I often seen him down The Dog & Duck where he’s wont to cheat at darts and neck back unattended pints of beer. I  walk back home with him time to time as we live in the same part of town though I’ve never invited him in for a coffee. I’ve a soft spot for him but I don’t want fleas in my flat.

Zombies All

Be grateful you can’t hear what this lass is saying. Burn your ears it would and scorch your hair too. She’s forthright alright especially when contentious matters are at hand, ones brushed under the carpet or hidden behind CCTV-eyed compounds.

Meat eating, Monsanto, consumerism, air transport, drone wars, vivisection, genetic modification, the arms trade. Ow! My ears are red as rashers and I’ve only been stood next to her for five minutes!

Yes, luv, I do get your drift, if it’s not an environmental disaster that’ll see us all off then its Extra Terrestrials or robots taking over. Failing that a global-tribal genocide or nuclear incident.

And in the meantime we’ll gonna become genetically modified clones spending our lives micro-chipped and controlled by some Big Brother consortium of billionaire shareholders.

Zombies all, that’s what she says we are.

Be warned!

Tale At The Traveller's Rest

The other night I walked to the Traveller’s Rest pub and a biting night it was too. Frost glistened upon rooftops and the roofs of cars sparkled, it was quite magical. 

All in all I was glad to be within the warmth nestling behind the old oak doors and to be asking for my usual brew, a golden real ale with a packet of salted nuts. And luck was with me as I gained a fireside seat: upon entering the lounge a couple on seeing me swiftly vacated their place which I put down to the damp dog smell of my scraggly mutt.

So I made myself comfortable and the mutt sniffed around for old crisps on the floral carpet and I glanced across to the window seat and espied a couple of blokes chatting. 

They were in fact conversing upon the subject of how to better themselves as they both worked down the local 24 hour supermarket, one in the warehouse unloading lorries and the other on tills. They debated a move to Spain to work in better climes abroad in the bars of the Costas. I thus engaged them upon the subject and this story unfolded as told by the one with stubble and a mobile which regularly shivered and lit up beside his half drunk pint. 

They said a mate of theirs worked for a while on a farm in Glamorganshire for a couple called Rowli Pugh and Catti Jones who were known to have bad luck. Their wheat was always patchy, their lambs sickly, their Landrover kept breaking down and their tractor had permanently unresolved hydraulic problems. On top of this Catti was depressed and thus rendered incapable of doing a moment’s work.

One day Rowli was sat upon the wall of his yard contemplating the drastic step of selling up in order to improve their lot by emigrating to Spain where property was cheaper and they could find some work, surely. And all that sunshine! While he was mulling over his woes an old man turned up, shepherd’s crook in hand, and asked why it was Rowli had such a gloomy countenance. Rowli was about to pour out his problems when the old bloke piped up,

“Don’t worry mate, hold yer tongue for I know more about you than you know and you’re going nowhere, I’ll make sure that your life becomes one of contentment right here. Tell the missus to leave a candle burning tonight when she goes to bed and every night henceforth.”

With that the old man or Ellyll as he in fact was, that is to say Fairy in more modern parlance, upped and offed. 

Rowli turned the conversation over in his mind and concluded that yes, he would tell his wife Catti Jones that an old man had said she must light a candle each night before bedtime and their luck’d change. 

And Catti would probably laugh her head off at such an idea. But what had they to lose? So that’s the angle he took and that’s the angle that got Catti to dig out the candles and light one having put the cat out and brushed her teeth.

And it’s a fact that from the next day onwards their life did change. When they went down in the morning to put the kettle on for a cuppa the previous day’s washing up was washed and put away. There was a freshly baked loaf on the table, croissants and a fat chocolate cake. The dirty washing was drying on the line clean and crease free and the bathroom was immaculate. And their home brew was bottled and ready to be enjoyed.

Each night Catti would light a candle before bedtime and by morning the baking, brewing and washing was all done. Rowli now always had clean clothes and bed sheets, tasty bread and well brewed beer and it made him feel like a new man, and he worked like one.

For Catti it was the make-over she’d always needed and she set up a business from home selling scented candles. Their farm prospered, the grain grew thick and strong, the pigs were the fattest at the market and the lambs too. They had a conservatory built and a gravel drive snaked up to the farmhouse where an eight grand Aga sat in the kitchen and double glazing kept the Welsh weather out.

Thus their life continued thus for a full three years until Catti could contain her curiosity no more. When Rowli was snoring one night she sneaked down the stairs and opened the kitchen door a crack. 

There she saw the Fairy Folk busily making bread and beer and dancing and laughing as they did so. Catti was so bemused by the sight she burst out laughing and in an instant they scattered in a whirl of fairy dust and the kitchen was silent. 

Rowli and Catti’s luck stayed with them however which is often not the case when the Fairy Folk are spied upon.

The blokes in The Traveller’s Rest confided to me they were hoping for a similar chain of events by sitting on the car park wall by their block of flats that night looking miserable as hell in the hope an Ellyll would appear. Slurring his words the stubbled one said they were off down the supermarket right now for some candles to light each night they were so desperate to escape their dead end jobs, overdrafts and singledom.

Though the thought did cross my mind that hanging around a car park late at night was asking for trouble, not from Otherworldly Folk but from the police. But I kept my mouth shut. 

Anyway, all said, good luck to ye lads, I hope the magic works.

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Pedws Ffowk & St Elian's Cursing Well

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Bye bye!

She’s been hearing birds recently, even above the growling traffic of the urban grey. It must be something to do with spring and the blackbirds at dawn and dusk, the prehistoric shriek of the gulls scavenging bins and the chit chat of sparrows on branches as she makes her way to work. 

In fact she’s begun imagining herself to have wings that lift her up over the streetlights and tarmac to blue skies, away from the rush hour fumes and angst, all those creased faces who’d give anything to be on holiday or under the duvet dreaming still. 

Her wings stretch six foot to each side and she’s climbing high.

Bye bye!

The Mermaid Of Zennor

Once upon a time not so long ago there lived a man called Matthew Trewhella. He was the finest singer in the Land’s End area of Cornwall and knew all the old ballads as well as some raucous ones too. He sang at folk nights, in a couple of bands and in the church at Zennor on a Sunday, a village nestled amongst granite rocks and yellow gorse.

One day a beautiful woman came to the service, slipping in the back of the church. She had heard his haunting songs drifting over the waves of Pendower Cove that was her abode for she was a mermaid of the sea and her name was Morveren. 

She begged her father King Llyr that she may go on land to see the man who sang such exquisite songs and after many a plea he agreed but on the condition that she let no human see her and that she return before high tide else she would be trapped on land and perish. So she swam to the shore and hid her tail beneath a sarong embroidered with pearls and coral. Painfully she crossed the tarmac of the road and entered the church where she gazed at the golden-haired man before her.

Each Sunday she returned, always disappearing before the service ended that none may see her. But one week she sighed so deeply he looked to the back of the church and saw her and fell instantly in love. 

She slipped out of the church as fast as she could but Matthew ran after her and as she fell he lifted her up, catching a glimpse of her fish’s tail. But his love was so great he cared not and in an instant made the decision to spend the rest of his life with her in the deep turquoise sea.

People ran from the church and tried to catch the couple but magic was on their side and Matthew raced over the rocks to where the tide crashed white. They dived in and all that was left was his t-shirt floating on a wave’s crest.

To this day if you wander out at night onto the headland at Zennor you may be lucky to hear the sweet singing of Matthew Trewhella and see Morveren sat on the rocks combing her luxuriant green hair.

The Ship Inn

‘I was down The Ship Inn t’other week and this lass walked in like no other lass I’ve ever seen before for more like a cat was she with head of brindle fur touching lightly her tracky top. 

'If I’d’ve been into psychic phenomena I’d’ve said she was a visitor from a parallel realm or the consequence of some fairytale enchantment. 

 


‘But, being  a simple bloke who loves reality TV, pub grub and a nice cup of tea all I could do was sit, mouth agape, staring into those fathomless eyes until a well hard bloke piped up, thus breaking cat girl’s tingly spell.

‘Oi, where’s my pint?’ yelled he. 

I glanced amongst the empty glasses on the table, drips sticking beer mats to table top.

‘I see not your pint mate, maybe you finished it?’

‘With that he aimed a ferocious swipe throwing me from my comfy fire side seat, spittle splatterering the wood chip wall of decades old dart holes.

‘He then staggered out, beer gut squishing. I fell to drinking my ale but, looking around, I perceived cat girl had disappeared! 

'I heaved a weighty sigh as I feared I had fallen in love with this enchanted lass now heading down some darkened alley where tom cats howled.’ 

So Are You Listening?

...Her husband didn’t and ended up with his riled wife armed with a very large sword pinning him to the wattle and daub wall. Fortunately for him, she let her angst out on his beard rather than his jugular, severing it from his aghast face with one fatal slice.

Unfortunately for him, his beard was his pride and joy, a fiery ginger carpet tumbling down to his fleshy knees and praised in many a poem by the clan bard.

This marital incident was immortalised in verse due to the two them already being notorious characters involved in many an infamous cattle raid of the Celtic era. The stanzas, performed by quick-witted bards singing along to enchanted harps, were passed down through the ages by subsequent poets, troubadours and random delinquents, culminating in the collected works entitled, ‘One Woman One Sword: The History Of A Warrior Queen And A Beard.’

The epic poem has been translated into modern vernacular by Professor Hilary Figg to mark Women’s Day 2011. The original, being 1,279 verses in length, has not been printed here due to issues of space and reader’s attention span. However, the Celtic Queen herself who went by the name of Angry Ethel has been immortalised in this portrait discovered rolled up in an urn in the damp recesses of a cave in Pembrokeshire in 1971.

Mr Myxomatosis

Your rage is ill-formed and unable

To fit into sentences which would enable

You to vent your hatred so instead it stews

Contorting muscles and distorting your view

As if myxomatosis had spread right through

You.

Success

“Prescription drugs give me love of a certain kind,
Pills I pop to relieve the tensions of my mind.
Prozac gives the feeling of the softening of reality
And with Viagra I make love with huge vitality.
Got dumped by the ex, now my life's a success -
Full of drugs and sex.”

Stilettos

Stilettos make him shake cos when he was a pup he was a sweet little darling and the girls loved his big round eyes and tickled his ears and stroked him under the chin and on his belly and he’d roll over in puppy delight until one angsty stilettoed lass came along and spitefully stood on his puppy dog tail.

This incident ended his innocence when it came to women.

‘Happens to us all’ said his dad. 

 

Happy(?) New Year!

He wishes humans had evolved the ability to hibernate over winter and to live on cake, tea and chocolate alone. 

As we haven’t he’s a gloom connoisseur predicting environmental chaos which he’s really looking forward to cos it’ll mean he won’t have to get up for work as the office will be 10 foot under water and swamped with sewage. 

And, fingers crossed, the swindlers in Parliament will have drowned too. 

This thought is one of the few things that actually cheers him up.

Coupled Up

They’ve been an item for five years now and it’s incredible how long it’s lasted considering he has Neanderthal eating habits and doesn’t wash from one month to the next. It must be his animal magnetism and innate insolence towards those in authority that keeps the flame alive; she’s always fancied a rebel.
And the magic certainly does spark up, like when he graffities the underpass with her name in a heart and climbs a crane with a banner demanding an end to speciesism and corporate destruction of the natural world.
Having said that though it can be hard living in the shadow of such a character; her best mate warned her ‘once a beast, always a beast’.
His unattractive traits like the fact he refuses ever to remove his coat and his uncontrollable urge to chase cats are things she finds hard to stomach. But after five years they’re still together. It must be love.

First Kiss

The first time Dogman and I kissed was on an end of season seaside prom lit by blue and red lights many of which had long since packed in, a fact which Dogman observed with his acute eye and perceptive manner.

Those the worse for wear staggered homeward beneath circling seagulls, their screeches a reminder of their reptilian past whilst the sea played like a harp on the shingle as we strolled beneath the coloured bulbs, Dogman’s tail occasionally brushing my thigh.

It was a moment I’ll remember for the rest of my life as we accidentally ended up in each other’s arms avoiding discarded beer cans and chips on the cracked paving slabs. Before I knew it I was stroking his furry chin and tickling his ears to the sound honking horns and the jeers of youths bored on the bench by the park.