Jane Jago's Blog

Somewhere in the deep and distant past (during the time I was too busy raising a hopeful brood of contumacious little buggers to take notice of fashion) somebody sneaked something eggy onto the shelf behind the bar. Having made this dreadful mistake they looked at it for a decade before deciding that mixing it with lemonade and shoving a cocktail cherry in it made it a palatable drink. They then persuaded a whole generation of non-d...

I don’t feel myself qualified to comment on Thanksgiving. It’s a noble sentiment – eat until you almost explode to give thanks for staying alive for another year – and one I applaud.

Is it like British Bank Holidays? Slightly outmoded by the number of days people get off work now? Or does it retain real meaning?

I don’t pretend to know. And neither can I pretend to like pumpkin pie.

In the spirit of friendship I’ll see your Thanksgiving and  raise you British Boxing Day, wherein one lay...

A darkling drabble offers a shiver of horror in a hundred words…

The squire’s daughter had few friends, and many enemies. But, friend or foe, they were appalled when her father gave her in marriage to the bony octogenarian who was the king’s tax collector.

Next year, a much younger man came to collect the taxes. When asked where his predecessor was he laughed a cold sort of a laugh.

“My father is no longer with us. It is often thus when a foolish old man takes a bride young enough to be...

Poems of puppy Fozzie Jago as he is exploring and experiencing the world!

There is a something a horrid surprise
It’s behind me wherever I goes
And I cannot outrun it however I tries
And it sticks very close to my toes
It’s long and it’s creepy and scares me a bit
As I watches it out of of mine eye
And if I could catch I’d be biting of it
To make the bad follower cry
I will be creeping though long that will take
To catch and to punish the thing
I catches and bites but I thinks it’s as snake
Coz I bit it...

In a modern-day Britain where the Roman Empire never left, Dai and Julia solve murder mysteries, whilst still having to manage family, friendship and domestic crises…

They left the house as one party – with the addition of Cariad’s two children, who Julia was pleased to find were both quite delightful, taking after their mother in looks, but seeming to have their father’s easy-going disposition. They had an escort: servants carefully sanding the paving in front of them and a ceremonial guard ...

Advice on growing old disgracefully from an elderly delinquent with many years of expertise in the art – plus free optional snark…

If you’re old get a new high back chair
And stair lifts to get up your stair
You shouldn’t be seen
Clad bright neon green
Glued to railings to protest that you care!

Eleanor Swift-Hook

A tale of angels, demons and dragons…

Thor cleared his throat. “I wondered where all the berserkers went,” he said mildly, “so I went looking for Loki. Found him trying to release a certain wingless demon. I may have lost it a bit down there.”
Lucifer looked to Aeva to be torn between laughter and annoyance, in the end Thor looked so much like a schoolboy caught out in mischief that laughter won.
“Any fatalities?”
“Not that I remember. But there’s a few demons in an iron cage and that wingless b...

Pearls of wisdom from an octogenarian who’s seen it all…

I’m as fond of food as anyone, and I cook some pretty mean stuff. But the day I plate it and stick it on a carefully dressed table in order to post a picture (or effin video!) of it on Facebland or Instayawn or Tricktoke you have my full permission to slap me about the head with a wet fish and have me committed. 

Worse still?

Being in a restaurant and perfectly willing to let food go cold so one can be a pretentious poser.

Just...

A darkling drabble offers a shiver of horror in a hundred words…

The vigilantes had been hunting her for three generations, though they no longer had any idea why. 

In a street of tamped earth next to a stockyard full of bawling beeves, they finally found her. Tiny, she was and as wizened as a season-dead black beetle, but the twin sixguns were rock steady in her hands.

The shooting commenced, and she pretty soon took four loads of buckshot which all but blew her in half.

Only she wo...

Poems of puppy Fozzie Jago as he is exploring and experiencing the world!

There is a walking place
Where I goes wiv humum
Where ugly fings wif fevvers
Swears at me and my chum
Me would like to bite they
But mum says firmly no
So I does do my angry bark
And in the wet they go

Jane Jago