DISPLACEMENT OR HOW NOT TO GET ON WITH THE MANUSCRIPT



So, I’ve just finished one of the books on our reading list ”Driftnet” by Lin Anderson and thoroughly enjoyed it. A straightforward detective novel with lots of human interest. I noticed it was published by Luath Press, so instead of continuing work on my own manuscript I decided I had to find out what were all the other publishers in Edinburgh. Found a map of them – what a lot! Also maps of authors in Scotland – even more! Now I was on a horribly distracting website with interviews with people like Gavin Esler – no I hadn’t realised that he wrote novels as well as being a journalist either, Keith Gray etc. Ah, there’s a link to “Homecoming” – I fear that I have not made the most of the opportunities thrown up by this event so had a look – interesting article by Andrew O Hagan about Burns – is this displacement activity ever going to end? What are your displacement activities before getting down to work?

Must stop now and review my GOALS. I might even post them if they look impressive enough

Extract from short story

TANGO STORY BY ALISON SUMMERS

Language has its limitations. Even when you both speak the same language, it’s still possible to be misunderstood. Body language isn’t much better. Everyone reacts to it unconsciously and I really mean unconsciously. How many times have you found yourself palming your bare throat in front of a man you don’t fancy? So why are you sending out the classic signal of “here I am, come fuck me”? Is it nature’s way of ensuring optimal chance of procreation? So lingo is unreliable.
Tango, now – a whole new ball game. See first of all, you can’t just meet someone and tango off down the road with them. Oh, no. You settle into the embrace. The degree of closeness is up to you. Choose from cheek to cheek, head to head, melted into each other or leaning in but with caution. Now create a connection. With your body. You have to connect through the weight you put on your feet. So during the first few bars of music you both shift from foot to foot until you end up on the same feet as each other – when he is on his right foot, you are also on your right foot. To the uninitiated it can look as though you are both fidgeting because you need the loo.........
The first time I came across this technique I wondered why we hadn’t just started dancing. I thought the guy was a bit shy and cautious about launching. As indeed he should have been since inevitably when he set off, I set off on the wrong foot. Eventually, I learnt what the hopping about was all about and now I can shift subtly from left to right with the best of them.
This connection lark is not just about getting off on the right foot, though. In tango the couple learn to dance as one body. One way of looking at it is as though your hearts are stuck together. At all times your torsos have to be parallel. So whatever your leggies are
doing – whizzing about, lifting in the air, kicking in between the partner’s legs, your hearts have to be within whispering distance. Which is nice.
“Tango is so sexy!” That’s what everyone says. Hmm. It’s quite hard work actually. It is the most knackering mental exercise I have ever done. You, see, you have to really concentrate and I mean really. The slightest distraction like a nagging thought about that colleague you forget to phone or the motto on your partner’s t-shirt can break the connection between you and your partner in seconds. To dance tango you have to give your whole brain to it. Multitasking goes out the window. It’s heart to heart, two beating as one.
I’m not your obvious tango dancer. I don’t like sex, I’m not super skinny, dark or dashing. I don’t go on holiday to Latin countries and I’m not naturally graceful. In fact if it hadn’t been for that daft sharing your hobby exercise at the literacy class.............yeah, well we all had to do a ten minute presentation on our fave leisure pursuit (I demonstrated stain removal from dry clean only fabrics) and Carol brought in a selection of dance films. The ballet and the belly dancing left me cold and normally I don’t go for Antonio Banderas – he looks a bit worn and dirty. But the way that woman danced in that grotty school cellar. It made me feel hot under the collar. She was beautiful, yes but there was something else. The way she moved you could feel the magnetic pull she had on both her partner and her audience. Sucking them in, so that they couldn’t look anywhere but at her.
So I did some research. Couldn’t believe it when I found that there was a huge tango scene in Edinburgh. If you want to, you can dance tango every night. I plumped for the free class on Sunday nights. I was so nervous beforehand I had to keep ducking into local cafes to go to the loo. I nearly went home but eventually pulled myself away from the toilet and climbed the stairs to the Counting House function room. Up an unpromising stair the tango room turned out to be a confection of mirrors, red velvet and dark wood panelling. Around the walls were chairs behind small tables decorated by tall thin vases filled with carnations. Issuing from the pores of the wall wailed a mournful air that pulled at the heartstrings and instantly made you want to glide on the glossy wooden floor. There were two or three girls sitting down, chatting to each other. A short plump man with a shiny pate bustled about arranging the chairs. I sat down near the door and pushed off my outdoor shoes. I slipped my high heeled sandals (the ones I wear once a year in Bulgaria) out of my Lidl bag and struggled to fix the fiddly buckles round my ankles.

13 July 2009

Oyster card winks the gate open
Flat fish, sea and sky blue – so far from the ocean

14 July 2009

Bi-Polar

Whirling like a dervish,
A wheel pinned to a fence
But straining. Lavish
Sparks explode towards freedom. Tensed
With effort fit to burst,
A brain will blow a gasket
Aiming for the stars. Worse
Than wacky, just a basket –
Case. The needles jab and flatten.
One spark stutters, dies. Left
Over ashes, dried out case. Batten
On drugs, all senses bereft.
Heavy with silent screams
Curtain falls, no more dreams.

The Holiday

A deafening explosion shook the tour bus as the guests were clambering down the steps.
Geordie plucked the straps of his string vest and grinned.
“This is going to be a bloody good holiday!”
Picking his way over the debris of metal and bodies, Geordie heaved his leopard print suitcase out of the partially destroyed bus. The case was charred but still in one piece. The luggage label “Trench Warfare Luxury Holidays” was still attached.
Now that the dust had settled, Geordie looked round to see who else had survived the blast. The tiny blonde with the huge boobs was lying on the ground.
“What a crying waste!” Most of the other passengers were dead or badly wounded. The holiday reps were making their way through the bodies, identifying or bandaging.
Geordie shrugged, picked up his suitcase and squelched towards reception.
“Very authentic mud, “ he thought.
He grinned at the small man quivering behind the reception desk.
“Ow-do, mate!”
“Good evening, sir, may I have your name?”
“George Fortune, Geordie.”
“Excellent, sir. Single bunker, share communal latrines, side view of battlefield requested. That correct, sir?”
“Spot on, mate.” Geordie leaned in close to the receptionist who recoiled slightly.
“Now, I’m willing to pay top dollar or franc or euro or whatever it takes if you can find me one of those classy resistance girlies – the ones with raincoats and berets.”
“The Resistance Barn experience is down past no-man’s land at the end of the village, sir.”
Geordie winked and stroked his nose.
“Black market?”
“What might you require, sir?”
“What tickles their fancy, matey?”
The receptionist stiffened.
“I think you’ll find nylons and chocolate do the trick, sir. May I make a suggestion, sir?”
”Go ahead.”
“For real authenticity, perhaps try to cultivate a posh English accent, sir?”
Geordie walked away from reception, polishing his genuine First World War bayonet. Blood and it was only the first day.

Big Brother in the Dragon’s Den


It’s a new reality tv show – a hybrid of Big Brother, Ten Years Younger and Challenge Anneka. You take an ugly bird, give her a makeover so that she looks like a princess. Then you find a really fierce dragon, install him in a cave and get them to imprison the made over bird. Set up a few challenges for a bunch of fit blokes and get the audience to vote on which handsome young man will go and rescue the bird from the dragon. It can’t fail. Well that’s what we all thought.



Until Tracy came along. She didn’t say anything about being a vet in her interview.
Everything was going to plan until the moment when Gerard galloped up on his white horse, lance at the ready. Tracy rushed out of the cave and blocked his way. She nearly got trampled, but White Rum is a seasoned TV horse and swerved just in time. Gerard fell off and was swearing so much that the bleeper mechanism nearly blew up.
“What the fuck is she doing?” the assistant director growled.
“No, this is good, element of surprise, let her run with it” said the director, his eyes gleaming.
Gerard, cheated of his dramatic moment, dusted off his plastic armour, checked himself in the camera mirror and turned to face Tracy.
“Princess Tracy, I have come to rescue you from the clutches of the wicked, dangerous dragon.” The sound man snorted as he heard Gerard mutter under his breath, “don’t forget our pact – Hello will pay half a million for the pictures. Why did you change the script?”
Tracy took no notice but came over to the camera mirror.
Shoving her auburn curls out of her eyes, she spoke directly down the lens.
“I suppose you viewers believe all that guff about “no dragons are injured in the making of this programme,” do you? Well, that’s crap. Sure, the dragon that gets several feet of metal thrust into his side and rolls about groaning, smoking and dying is a special effect but think about the real dragon who comes out of his cave night after night. I tell you, I’ve spent the last 24 hours with Clarence (there was a competition to name the dragon) and what he had to tell me was disturbing. I smuggled in a video camera and this is the tape.” With that, Tracy set up a camera and pressed play.
“Shut down, play music – do something! She’ll wreck the show!” The assistant director was jumping about like a monkey with ants in his pants. The Director grinned.
“Chillax,” she said. “This will make the ten o clock news.”



“Tracy,” the dragon’s eyes were mournful, his green lids blinking furiously.
“My nerves just won’t take this any more. I can’t sleep, can’t eat – adrenalin constantly pumps round my system and I’ve lost so much weight.” Clarence did look pitifully thin, his vertebrae and ribs showing through his scales. The camera always puts on an extra five pounds so it was possible that he was worse than he looked.
“It’s this constant being charged at that does it,” Clarence continued. He shook his head and a few miserable puffs of smoke escaped from his jaws.
“You would think that I would have got used to it by now....” Tracy put a reassuring hand on his shivering neck.
“It’s your fight or flight mechanism, Clarry, it’s gone into overdrive and you can’t switch it off,” she said.
Clarence nodded. “I thought it was something like that. My grandmother had a breakdown when her husband kept hiding in a dark corner of the cave and then jumping out at her when she wasn’t expecting it. She ended up in the home for Damp Squib Dragons.” He shook his head. “Tracy, that was a terrible place. I don’t think.........” He gave a sob.
Tracy looked determined.
“Well, I don’t think the viewers want you to go to a place like that. Do you viewers?”
The phones were already ringing and it wasn’t with votes. The call centre staff were wildly improvising as they fended off irate callers complaining about Channel Fun’s treatment of Clarence.
“No, no, Clarence is not having a nervous breakdown, a mild virus has simply made him a bit depressed.”
“I’m sure that if the Priory take dragons, the Channel will spare no expense to make sure that Clarence gets the treatment he needs.”
The video was still running.
“What did the director tell you when you applied for the job?” Tracy asked.
Clarence gave a snort and a few flames flashed from his nostrils.
“Just a few personal appearances with lots of beautiful women. You’ll hardly have to light up at all. Some roars and flames and back to the truck for lunch.”
“And the truth?” asked Tracy.
“He didn’t mention the daily charges by mounted princes with flashing spears. I’m kept on a long chain here in the cave, with only a thick bimbo for company – have you tried discussing the finer points of Dragon lore with these vain, blonde wannabees? They have no conversation, don’t know how to cook cutlets of frozen princes, stink of fake tan.......” Clarence slumped his head on his front paws and sighed deeply.
“And the pay – what did the director promise you?” Clarence reared up and swung his head from side to side.
“One prince a day, a bag of gold and a cave in the Caribbean.”
“And what have you been paid so far?”
Clarence stared straight into the video lens.
“Apparently there is a shortage of fresh princes – tinned or frozen is all they provide and they are not even royal. Jumped up pop star hopefuls in the main – with HP sauce they are just about digestible but the racket they make in my stomach – that’s partly why I can’t sleep.”
Clarence gave a large burp and a cover version of “Last Christmas” could be heard loud and clear.
The Director giggled. “That was Boys with Voice,” she chuckled. “They sound better with a bit of Dragon insulation.”
In case you are wondering, there was a spin off programme for pop groups – the viewers voted them on to a recording contract or into the dragon’s jaws.
“And commercial break.” The screen changed to an advert for fire extinguishers and the staff in the control room looked anxiously at the Director. She leant back in her chair, hands behind her head. She had a manic look about her eyes.
“This could make television history,” she said. “Who knew that we had a talking dragon? Bring me the animals expert.”
Tracy’s video made the top slot on the late evening news. By the next morning Lorraine Kelly was interviewing a dragon whisperer called George and countless men in their thirties were claming to have been to public school with Clarence.
“ We just treated him like any other boy,” they said, “When he got a bit above himself we shoved his head down the lavatory – that doused his flames for a bit, I can tell you! Haw, haw!”
The production team met in a locked pod in the London Eye.
“What shall we do about the rest of the series? The viewers won’t stand for us “killing” a talking dragon. Gerard’s family are already getting hate mail and his mother had to take refuge in Tesco’s petrol station loo when an angry mob spotted her filling up. Gerard and the other “princes” were holed up in a safe house after gangs of teenagers waving plastic “My Little Dragons” threatened to overrun the Disney palace they were staying in. The Prime Minister had personally called the Director to ask about Clarence’s health. Even the BNP had withdrawn their bill calling for an end to asylum for reptiles. Zoos all over the country were employing security guards for their lizard enclosures, such was the public fury over the issue.
In the cave Tracy and Clarence were pouring over the emails in Clarence’s hotmail account. The majority were friendly and full of invitations to them both to be interviewed, to come for a break in the Galapagos Islands, to wear the latest spinal jewellery, to study for a Phd in Reptiles – The Way Forward. Tracy, a strict vegetarian, shivered at some of the emails from minor European royals offering choice morsels such as “my godfather, Prince Alexander, a lazy sod, is plump and juicy – shall we say 50 euros per kilo, 4950 for the whole carcass?” There were the usual ones from Nigeria too.
“You have won a prize in the Royal Lottery. To access your prize of a Royal Family, please send £2000 by Western Union to my account on the Isle of Man.”
Tracy was beginning to wonder if she had done the right thing. Clarence seemed unhappier than ever, his tail drooped and his eyes were going dull. He had retired to the furthest corner of the cave and spent most of the day licking his snout. If a customer had brought Clarence into her surgery in this state she would have had no hesitation in recommending that he be put down. When a creature has given up the will to live there is nothing that medicine can do.
Tracy racked her brain for a solution. What had they said at Vet School about anxiety in creatures? You have to make it clear that they do not have responsibility for human beings. That was it! Tracy came over to the camera.
“I want to speak to the Director of Channel Fun,” she said.

The new format for the programme went down a storm. After a spa holiday at the top of a volcano in South America, Clarence, his scales now green and shiny again, appeared on the TV reclining in a much improved cave. This time, contestants on “CAVE EXCHANGE” fought to the death for the opportunity to spend a week in the cave looking after Clarence, cataloguing his new library of Dragon Lore, searching out deposed royal dynasties and making interesting conversation over absinthe and peppermint cocktails. Viewers voted for the contestants that they thought Clarence liked best.

End of term

It was hell sitting there in the green twilight of the marquee, fidgeting on a hard folding chair, trying not to mind about the nausea and the sweat breaking out on my forehead. I’d tried so hard. My dress was beautiful, just the colour to bring out the indigo of my eyes, my hair glossy and styled. I had had such high hopes that summer day. It would be fun, I had decided. I knew a few of the parents. I knew a few of the girls. I had had a few pleasant experiences with some of the staff at the parents day. What could go wrong?
Well, first off, there’s nobody to sit beside. Where are Tiggy’s classmates’ parents? There is just a sea of strangers. And what strangers. They just ooze money and confidence. Jaeger, Karen Millen, LK Bennett. Hair expertly coloured and stunningly cut. Men in bespoke suits. Everybody slightly suntanned. And they all know each other. All around me people are smiling and crying out greetings, giving each other mwaw mwaw kisses. I could be invisible. I shrink further and further into the uncomfortable chair. I bury my head in the prizegiving programme. All the usual scholars gathering heaps of awards. The weird school song in Latin with the tune that nobody can remember from one year to the next.
At last the platform party arrives and we are all united as we stand up for them. I can relax while the Headmaster reads out the longwinded report of the school year. The speaker might be entertaining. Oh, God, the Headmaster is making Tory jokes and everyone except me is laughing. I really do not belong here and I hate them all. Soon I will feel so small that I will be able to crawl out of here like a woodlouse.
Something in me snaps. This is not on. Why do I feel like this? Why am I so ashamed? I have done nothing wrong. I have done nothing. They have all made it. They are successful. They are stinking rich. I am a single parent, living in a shitty little flat with a part time job, no pension and no prospects. And whose fault is that? I am getting hotter. My heart is racing. This has got to stop. I am a writer. I write. That is what I do. I have been published. I have. It is okay that it was in My Weekly. Lots of people read and enjoy My Weekly. I don’t care if it is Orange Bag fiction (for speedy recycling). For a few minutes I have entertained – what is the circulation of My Weekly anyway? – lots of people. Hah! I’ll show them.
And just how exactly will I show them? Write a bloody good blockbuster, that’s what I’ll do. Bet JK Rowling doesn’t feel like this at her daughter’s prizegiving. I can feel my spine straightening, my head is closer to the roof of the marquee. My breathing is steadier and I’ve stopped sweating. The speaker is not very entertaining but who cares. I am covering the programme with notes for my opus magnus.