Mike Gill's Blog

SCENE 1. INT. NIGHT. THEATRE IN A NORTHERN TOWN WITH TELEVISION CAMERAS DOTTED ROUND THE STAGE AND ONE CAMERA ON EXTENDED ARM MOVING BETWEEN AUDIENCE AND PANEL. A PANEL COMPRISING JESUS, ROUSSEAU, PLATO AND ARISTOTLE ARE ON THE STAGE FLANKING DAVID DIMBLEBY

DAVID

We are here at the Middleton Arena built on the historic site of Middleton Gardens for tonight’s special edition of Question Time. Tonight we are fortunate to have not only four of the most significant movers and shakers in the history of western culture on the stage; we have in the audience a scattering of philosophers and political leaders from our history. We also have lots of people from our host town Middleton who will be asking the questions and holding our esteemed panel to account. Our first question comes from a Mr Jim Western of Middleton.

JIM

Thank you David. I think it is clear that the historic dichotomy which has separated secular and religious perspectives for centuries has in fact come to a head as church and state have learned to live in relative harmony in present times. My question is therefore, does the panel remember the railway station on Townley Street and would they bring it back?

DAVID

Aristotle, you are credited as the founding father of empiricism and from there the progression towards an increasingly secular based form of government such as democracy. What’s your answer to the question?

ARISTOTLE

I think I can speak on behalf of my mentor, Plato, as well as myself here in that the rise and demise of that station came two-thousand or so years after our existence. Indeed, I would say much the same for Jesus here. As such I cannot speak to the specifics here but the progression towards a democratic society, as described in my book, The Politics, is entirely welcome even though there are some casualties. This station may have been one such casualty.

DAVID

Jesus, what do you think?

JESUS

There were many rooms in my father’s hotel in Blackpool and the closure of the railways under that Doctor Beecham fella was bang out of order. All of a sudden the big spenders from Middleton were off to Benidorm and we lost out.

DAVID

Excuse me but are you not Jesus, son of God?

JESUS

No, I’m Jesus DelMontie, son of Jose the hotel mogul.

DAVID

Plato?

PLATO

It appears to me that the railway both came in and went out of Middleton. Finally it only went the one way only but now Middleton can find its true direction.

DAVID

What do you think of the answers, Jim Western?

JIM

Well, I think that the station provided the means to get to places that insisted on changing as the world revolved. We can’t have that sort of thing here and on balance, which is not a word we often use in Middleton, its best in memory only. We like that.

DAVID

Our next question is from Charlotte D’Arlot from Middleton.

CHARLOTTE

We’ve had a lot of talk of so called multi-culturalism. In Middleton we have a population of almost hundred per cent white and believe any further dilution could impact on our children’s futures. What have you bunch of pseudo intellectuals got to say about that then?

DAVID

Rousseau, you wrote a discourse on the origin of inequality and treaties on the social contract. What do you think?

ROUSSEAU

As I said when I was alive, all men are born equal and yet everywhere you look they are in chains.

FAT MAN IN AUDIENCE

What do you mean equal? Who’s in chains? I’m not equal and not in chains and what bothers me is the shoving of halal meat down my throat. I mean, I don’t want to eat it and yet if I say I don’t want it I’m told I’m racist.

DAVID (LOOKS AT CAMERA)

My apologies for earlier but we brought the wrong Jesus to the stage. We now have the real one so over to him.

JESUS

Although it is true that I spoke almost exclusively to the Jewish people, I was in fact talking to the world when I spoke of loving your neighbour.

FAT MAN

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You say that now but you never had to eat halal food.

JESUS

But neither do you.

WOMAN IN AUDIENCE

We have anti cruelty laws in this country. Are you saying that these people who have come into this country with the expressed desire to kill all the infidels while claiming benefits and living in council flats, can kill animals and then eat them?

JESUS

I think that perhaps one of us is missing the point.

WOMAN IN AUDIENCE

You got that right Jew boy. You don’t seem to get it that we are Christians here and that means we don’t like Muslims, Jews and God knows what coming into Middleton forcing their vegetarian, Kosher, Halal, fancy food fads down our throat.

DAVID

Let’s move on to another question. Barry Worseforwear…..

BARRY

All I’ve been hearing about, apart from what has just been said about other things, is that people should have rights. We’ve got the equal rights demanded by the people who think they are treated less well than others, we got teenagers claiming something called a right of passage and the other day I had a bloke in a car coming out of a street claiming he had the right of way. Its political correctness gone mad!

DAVID

Rousseau?

ROUSSEAU

I’ve just noticed Tom Paine in the audience perhaps we can ask him?

TOM

Thank you Jean Jaques. When I wrote my book, The Rights of Man, I was seeking to …..

MAN IN AUDIENCE

When I wrote my book? We don’t need books here. I went to the school of hard knocks and the university of life. I’ve a degree in struggle and a diploma in looking after number one.

SECOND MAN IN AUDIENCE

I was at the same university as the other fella and I got an honours degree in saying it how it is. Kids today don’t know they’re born and in my day would have had a thick ear for having an opinion. Now everyone thinks they have the right to think and when they start thinking where do you think that could lead?

DAVID

Can I ask that we calm down and engage in a civilised debate on these subjects?

SECOND WOMAN IN AUDIENCE

Don’t you come that southern civilised debate claptrap here! We, have spent years looking backwards to when Middleton was the centre of the world.

DAVID

Columbus, you may have some thoughts on this?

COLUMBUS

I think that my journey to what became known as the Americas conclusively proved that the world was much greater than Middleton.

LARGE MAN AT BACK OF THEATRE

Who are you to tell us about the rest of the world you Italian ponce? Everyone knows that Middleton is better than anywhere else.

DAVID (LOOKING TO CAMERA)

Well we have introduced some of history’s most respected philosophers and discoverers and yet the audience here is adamant and steadfast in its belief of its self-righteousness. There’s no Question Time next week because we have exclusive cover of Lucifer’s failed bid to host the next Winter Olympics where he had said that when Middleton accepts any new ways of thinking, Hell will most definitely freeze over.

5th May

Well we got here last night at about nine PM but that was 3AM UK time and we’d been travelling for 23 hours. We’d got lost coming down from the airport but I expect that and we soon found our way to the hotel by following our instincts and driving east.

The hotel is a bit of a hole with wires running along the upper parts of the walls without any conduits to contain the unsightly mess. Still we could avert our eyes downwards to the carpets that remind me of the sort that old people used to get way before we became old. This hotel has most certainly been passed over by the last century and is waiting for the look of tired and depressing to become the new chic.

Of course we were a little on the knackered side but needed to stay up a bit longer to get our body clocks in tune with the USA and reluctantly left the comfort of our room to take a stroll round downtown Chicago. We walked round for a bit and noticed that Chicago was a bit quiet for a Saturday evening but maybe we were just in the wrong part of it to fully appreciate it or to see its delights. We were wrong as it turned out but I’ll come to that in a minute.

Just outside the hotel and to the left was a railway line. Not just a railway line but it was on stilts and was in the sky. Now we’ve all seen this in the movies but to be right under it is fantastic. In fact it’s like being in one of the movies and yet all those people in Chicago just don’t bother. Not only don’t they bother, some of them don’t like it because of the noise it makes when the train passes their office of bedroom.

What’s up with them? I ask my train obsessed little self.

After a while we found a bar come diner on a corner of the street and went in there. You could watch something like 16 television screens all showing either sport or news. You have to feel sorry for people who are so obsessed that they have to have all the sports of America on screen when they are out for a drink.

Alternatively, you could look out of the window and watch the trains passing in the sky. How sad is that?

I said that I’d come to why we were in the right place and here it is. On our way back to the hotel we walked a different way than we’d come. Thing is that all American streets are in grid formation so everything is more or less at right angles meaning it is reasonably easy to find your way back to anywhere if you get a bit lost.

So we walk down this street and on the corner is Buddy Guy’s Legends Club. For those who don’t know who Buddy Guy is, he is the man who all the rock guitarists of the 60s wanted to be like. And I mean all of them from Clapton to Beck, Richards to Hendrix they all were influenced by this man. So we were outside his club and it was open 7 days a week meaning that Sunday night was going to be blues night in Chicago for the Gills.

We are staying in what is known as Downtown Chicago and you couldn’t get a more cool sounding description if you sat up all night with five of the most imaginative people on the planet. But on Sunday we took part in Daytime Chicago and it was fantastically American.

Everything is big here. The building are all massive and I know it will be said and probably has been by many, that it is like looking at a load of penises thrusting erect into the sky. No? Just me then?

Sky scrapers are not what you or I may think of as beautiful but here they look like the architects have lovingly designed them as a form of art with old and new standing out as different but at the same time being as one. And this skyline is right on the edge of a massive lake, Michigan, which looks like a sea with all the boats moored up on the “coast” like lakeside.

We took a stroll down the lakeside and there were loads of people jogging, running or walking fast in a determined way. Some were old, some were a bit overweight and most were pretty fit but all were serious.

The city combines the aesthetic with the functional everywhere you go. I’ve described something of the skylines and the beauty of the modern and old architecture but then there is the sizeable park area in between the buildings and the lake. This is not just lovely, green and well maintained, it is full of sculptures and fountains without a speck of graffiti to be seen nor discarded sweet wrapper of fag end.

At night one of the fountains is lit up and that is a spectacular sight with what looks like coloured water spurting up into the air. I took some pictures but to be honest they couldn’t quite get the magnificence of this art.

After breakfast we got on one of those tour busses where you hop on and off. After a little while we got off at Navy Pier and Grant Park. It was a bit cold but very sunny and we had art all round us.

There was a huge sculpture made of canoes and in front of it were a group of young musicians playing cellos, violins and double bass. Orchestral Busking in the Park you might say. There were other young people chalk drawing on the pavement and one of them was lying on a skateboard with his legs in the air so that he could get to the middle of his work without disturbing it.

It was so nice to be surrounded by so many nice people being both creative and entertaining but the best was yet to come.

We took a little walk to the Legends club and paid just ten dollars each to see a guy called Michael Coleman and his band play. We got some lovely Cajun food and lots of wine and got ready for one of the best nights ever.

Michael Coleman is an older guy who plays a mean blues guitar. His backing band is really tight and the entertainment flowed. The place was rocking and the interaction between Michael and the audience was like old mates having fun.

Then I noticed a young man go up to Michael as he was playing and Michael bent down to hear what was being said. Still playing he walked over to the other musicians and spoke to them. Something was going on.

When the song finished Michael went to the mic and said that they had a treat for us all and then went on to tell us that coming on stage was Buddy Guy himself. The place went crazy and a security man walked past my table with Buddy Guy following.

I have to say that it was like something magic had just occurred and Buddy went to the mic to talk for a while before singing. I tell you now that this man could read a menu out loud and it would sound like sex. He has such a deep voice that rises to a scream in the pace of a heartbeat and that is mixed with one of the most cheeky laughs you ever heard.

He slipped in and out of song and conversation and you could hardly notice the gaps. Some people shouted for him to get his guitar but he didn’t. Michael Coleman and his band did more than well enough and just to be there at that moment was like a privilege.

As soon as the session finished it was time for a break for the band and we went to buy Buddy’s latest CD for him to autograph. We got our picture taken with him as well as the CD and I was made up for the night.

May 6th

We are on the Mother Road again with the intention of driving to Springfield today. We want to spend some time in Springfield to see the things we missed last year. We also want to take in as much of Route 66 as we can and so try to spend more time on the route and less on the I-55 than I think we did last year.

Having got on the Mother Road as soon as we got out of Chicago having decided that the I-55 was quite close to our hotel and easy to get to, we drove some familiar miles before getting lost. I think I took a right turn too soon and we ended up on a disused road for miles before ending up on a country road that just went on and on through miles of farmland.

I don’t worry too much about this kind of thing. As far as I’m concerned we are just driving through some scenery that we would never have seen if we stayed on the right road.

Eventually we got back on the 66 and stopped here and there for some photos of some of the roadside attractions as they are known. All good fun but half the places are closed for some reason.

We’d been driving for most of the day without a real break and we decided to stop off for something to eat before looking for a motel. We ended up at a small town with a population of 8000 and an Italian restaurant in the centre. In we went and had one of the nicest lasagnes (other than Glen’s) ever.

We talked for a while with the owner of the place and by now I’m remembering what I really like about Route 66. What I like is that it is like a community, a family even, of people who are interested in you and you with them.

This guy was an Italian American who had recently been to Rome for the first time and thought the food was bland. I cannot imagine where he ate because when we were there the majority of the food was fantastic. Then again there was one place that we would never, ever be seen near, let alone in.

The 66 ends at this town for a while and we had to go a few miles on the I-55. Not a problem since it was getting late and we needed to find a motel. We’ve got one just a couple of miles from Abe Lincoln’s place and are going to stay a couple of nights here so that we can take in Springfield in a more relaxed way than last year’s rush.

Milostood facing the plain brick wall of the holding cell with his eyes fixed on the thin plastic mattress covering a wooden bench like ledge that doubled as a single bed and a seat. Claustrophobic and cold, the cell generated an overwhelming sense of impotence and doom that took immediate effect leaving him finding it impossible to move an inch for what felt like an eternity.

Forcing himself to look around he began to take in the physical reality of his situation and saw that the simple bench-settee of a bed was secured to the drab light grey painted bare brick wall by hinges and was held up by two thick chains attached to the corners at either end. Above the bed at a height beyond the reach of the tallest of mortal men was a rectangular slit of a window with thick opaque glass in box like formation allowing the minimum of natural light into the cell. Badly spelled graffiti proclaiming the loose morals of numerous young women from the estates ofDublinwas scratched into the paintwork giving the tiny room the feel of a public toilet.

The distinct odour of the room added to the visual impression by combining the smell of all manner of human body fluids with industrial strength bleach. As the unfamiliar smell hitMilo’s nostrils he was forced to breathe through his mouth until he pushed himself to acclimatise to his depressing reality. Perversely such acclimatisation was helped along by the sound of the door clanging as it slammed shut behind him creating an echo that resounded in the room and was amplified as it bounced off the bare brick walls, floors and ceilings like squash balls in a court. It was this sound that told him he was trapped in a box from which he could never just get up and go.

The shock to his system was immense. So many others had gone before him in this very cell and he wondered how they all coped, adjusted and acclimatised. He’d seen some of his neighbours in crime being taken into their own cells as he was escorted along the bleak corridor.

He studied their sullen defiance combined with acceptance. He weighed up their bravado and saw weakness combined with the venomous anger of cornered rats. It occurred to him that he might actually be stronger than these people but as his head told him of his strength, inside him was a churning stomach and a racing heart. The thought came into his mind that the contrast between the immaculate designer suit he wore and the cheap track suit bottoms, grey hoodies and tee-shirts of the rest of his companions might have attracted some attention.

A white collar criminal, if found guilty, would find himself in the same place as the thieves, pimps, drug dealers and killers from the scummiest parts of the Emerald Isle. How he would survive he had no idea. Any sign of fear had to be suppressed, any outward evidence of anxiety buried, the slightest demonstration of unfamiliarity concealed and replaced with a show of nonchalant acceptance as if this was simply a hazard of a profession of crime practiced on a higher level than the rest of the prisoners.

Contradiction upon contradiction shot through his head as he now contemplated survival among the incarcerated criminal classes whereas ten minutes before he stood before a judge and jury attempting to portray a man of means, professional standards and honest intent. If the case went the wrong way he knew he would have to fit in with people who would impose a new order of fear and tyranny in a prison whereDarwin’s maxim would be paraphrased as only the most ruthless survive.

He’d noticed one or two of the others glancing at him as they were marched to the cells from the different courts. What did they see? Was he a target? Was he someone who looked like a prosperous gangster or influential political prisoner of the republican kind? He didn’t know, he couldn’t know and neither could they. He had to focus on what he always focussed on; he had to fix his tangled thoughts on winning.

As he looked downwards towards the floor, portraying but not living some sort of physical manifestation of contrition or shame, he looked at his lace less shoes before running his fingers over his belt less trousers and tie less shirt as if to prove to himself that he really was in a cell and to remind himself he had no right to the trappings of civilisation or personal identity while so incarcerated. Even worse he now had no choices to make even to the point of using his belt, laces or tie to bring a premature end to his life as he waited for the verdict for or against him by a jury of his peers.

He began to walk up and down the cell as if to take some sort of control of his limiting environment. Pacing like a wild cat in a cage he crossed from side to side, bed to door and back again until the futility dawned on him and he decided another plan needed to be formulated.

After carefully folding his jacket and placing it on the end of the bed he began a series of press ups with his hands on the side of the bed and his feet pushed up against the base of the stainless steel toilet to give him the leverage he needed. He was beginning to take command of the situation and as his breathing intensified, as sweat began to moisten his sleeve’s underarms, as the blood began to pump through his body, his head engaged in a quest to find a way out of the negative maze his thoughts had found themselves trapped within.

It was now time to think. Raising himself onto the cheap plastic mattress and carefully lying on his back so as not to crease his clothes in case he was called back into the courthouse, he began to take in his situation. Up to this day he’d been able to enjoy his freedom to conduct his business and live his life more or less as he wished as long as he didn’t leaveIrelandwhile this sorry trial had dragged itself across three long months. Today though, bail was withdrawn as the jury deliberated upon the charges of insider trading and conspiracy to commit fraud while he contemplated that this cell may be the place of things to come.

He tried to distance himself from the noise of keys turning in locks, cell doors clanging as they were slammed shut by uniformed staff with tattoos and fat guts while the temporary residents of the cells shouted their innocence of all crime and contempt for all screws, judges and Gardai to their unknown neighbours.

This dungeon like block of cells under the beautiful Four Courts building was never going to find itself in any tourist guide book as a place to spend a night by the Liffey key side but for now it was the only place he could be.

Looking round his temporary new home,Miloreflected on its two hundred year history and imagined some of his father’s republican heroes, not least the great Wolfe Tone, who may have sat in this very cell waiting for the death sentence to be passed. Now he was in the same place but not anywhere close to the same esteem. For a single moment he was distracted from the fight for his freedom and thought of the shame a guilty verdict would bring to his family. No martyrdom forMilo, just notoriety for his pursuit of money at all cost.

Shame replaced fear and he thought of his mother’s face of disappointment upon hearing the news of a guilty verdict. In that moment he became a child again as he remembered being dragged home by a neighbouring farmer after being caught stealing apples from his orchard.

The childlike terror of his father’s wrath was nothing to the hurt he felt as his mother refused to even look at him and turned her face towards the peat fire burning in the hearth. Excommunicated from her love the child that wasMilowas sent to bed with no supper to contemplate the mortal sin of stealing a few cider apples that had made his stomach ache with pain through the night.

Anger replaced shame as he refused to judge himself on the values of parents who lived in a bygone age of Catholicism, idealism, socialism, communism, republicanism and every other ism that put the common man on a pedestal built on noble causes. He lived in the real world and this world had no pedestals, no noble causes; only winners, losers and pedestrians. The choices were fast lane, hard shoulder or pavement; wealth, poverty or mediocrity.

His head was spurred by the anger and negative thoughts were only allowed to remain for a second or two as he forced himself to return to the fight in hand by analysing the prosecution lawyer’s summing up. The counter argument to the prosecution case from his expensive English barrister, engaged for his magnificent track record of getting all sorts of corporate miscreants off from much more serious charges, was brilliant. That prosecutor, on the other hand knew nothing about business finance and he wondered what on earth possessed the people who appointed him to make such a choice.

Anyone sat in the gallery and not the dock would have rushed out to Paddy Power to lay a sizable bet on an acquittal but since he was the one being talked about and the jury would know less about business than a Presbyterian would know about organising a spending spree and pub crawl in Vatican City, he had his concerns.

Despondency began to creep back into his heart and sense of panic began to well up from the pit of his stomach forcing him to get up from his bed and walk but he could go nowhere other than up and down the oppressive, depressing hole of a holding cell with nothing to do but talk to himself in his head.

Emotions and thoughts were swinging like two pendulums with the one only slightly behind the other. Anger followed despair, optimism was crushed in a breath as even the slightest of doubts lodged itself in the corner of his mind, and hope waned to nothing as he realised there was no more he could do to influence his fate.

The cell began to feel smaller and smaller with the walls becoming thicker as his thoughts refused to focus on the positive. Things were getting worse and he began to imagine a verdict of guilty followed by a number and the word years. What would that number be? Where would those years be spent? What would be the fate of his millions siphoned away in properties and bank accounts across the free world?

The last question was the one that caused the most distress. All that work, all that time spent building an empire of investment to disappear just because he did what everyone else was doing. After all knowledge was power and all he did was exercise some of his power to ensure a return on his knowledge investment. How could that be wrong even if technically it may have been slightly on the mendacious side of the border of legal definitions? Surely the good men and women of the jury would understand that this was just normal business.

He stood up again and began to pace between the bed and the door trying to again recapture control but failing. His breathing began to increase in pace as panic began to creep through his body but he pushed himself back to taking charge of the only thing he had any control over – himself.

As his thoughts slowly navigated their way from negative to positive and then rapidly return to their pessimistic starting point he heard muted voices outside his small new world followed by the little flap at eye level slapping the metal door as it fell to reveal a pair of dark brown eyes looking in to make sure he was stood well back. The roughDublinaccent of the jailer man told him to step back and sit on the bed while simultaneously a key turned in the lock. The door swung open inwards to reveal the fat guard in his starched white shirt and blue trousers with sewn in creases and shiny backside standing in front of a familiar figure.

“Chief Inspector Murphy. To what do I owe this pleasure?”Milohad lost all semblances of contrition, angst and desperation by immediately assuming a confident welcoming tone as if greeting a business acquaintance walking into his opulent offices or a long lost friend coming into his palatial apartment. The cell had become the base from which he would conduct business as usual.

The architect of his present situation walked casually into the cell sitting beside him without saying a word. The large man looked up before nodding to the guard who retreated into the corridor and locked the door behind him.

Murphy looked round the cell for a moment before speaking in an accent that gave away his working classDublinroots in spite of the effort to enunciate each word with the exactitude of its spelling. “Not exactly what you’re used to is itMilobut I think you’ll have to call it home. At least for the evening anyway.”

Neither man looked at each other and the conversation was like that of two men fishing by a quiet country lake side, keeping a watchful eye on their bobbing floats in the distance but in reality simply fixing their respective stares on the iron door. “I’ve stayed in worse places and had to pay for the privilege.”

“Could be you’ll end up paying quite a lot for this accommodation if we get access to your bank accounts. By our calculations we’re looking at a couple of million euros in criminal compensation and then the revenue people will be after you and they’re like rats with bit of meat. They never let go.”

Milosmiled and glanced at the expressionless face of his adversary “You make an assumption you’ll win. I’m planning to be on the next available flight toLeeds.”

“You’re a cocky bastardMilo. Still that may help you out when you’re doing three years or so in the big house with all those drug dealers, perverts and thugs.” Now it was Chief Inspector Murphy’s turn to smile. “We had a pretty strong case and I think the jury will be swayed by it.”

“You may have had what you thought was a case but your barrister couldn’t have persuaded that jury of it being a fecking weekday if he gave them the morning papers with headlines saying it was Monday.” He paused to laugh while still staring directly at the cell door. “I mean for God’s sake if anyone should be getting done for fraud it’s him for making out he knows something about the law. If I was you I’d charge him for false accounting too if he bills you for that debacle.”

Murphy joined the laughter “I’ll give you that one son but the evidence was clear and you knew those shares you bought were going to rocket within days of getting them.”

“So you said in court but all I did was unload some shares in a business that was going down the pan and bought some that I felt were a prospect. Just intuition, business sense and a bit of good luck on my part as Mr Benedict so eloquently stated in his summing up. I think my peers will comprehend that and sympathise with a poor Wexford boy being persecuted, sorry prosecuted, for making an honest euro or two.”

“That’s as maybeMilobut you forget the little matter of conspiracy to commit fraud.”

“Yeah right. Problem is Chief Inspector that you need someone to have conspired with and your only witness was the person you said that was. Since you didn’t charge him at all there is no co-conspirator and that kinda weakens your case in my book. Also makes you look a bit like the chief persecutor himself. Tell you what though, and just to show there’s no hard feeling, I’ll buy you a Guinness and a nice Irish chaser tomorrow when the judge tells me I’m free to go.”

“I’ll tell you what my entrepreneurial little farmer’s boy, I’ll get you a drink when you get released from Mountjoy. You’ll need it after doing time withDublin’s finest. Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow… I’m off home to the wife and a nice supper. You, on the other hand had better get used to the shite they serve up here because you’ll be eating it for a while to come.”

As the chief inspector got up to go the fat guard opened the door as if on cue.Milostood up at the same time and held out his hand as if concluding a business meeting “No hard feelings Mr Murphy, I wish we’d met in different circumstances.”

Murphy tookMilo’s hand with a firm grip, “Yeah, me too son. I’ve enjoyed our chats over the past year or so. Good luck but however this turns out, I don’t want to see your sorry face on my patch again.”

Milosmiled, “You got a deal there my friend. I’m out of here as soon as I can be and it would take more than the craic of Temple Bar to get me back in this fair city.”

When the door slammed shut againMiloresumed his solitary debate and felt the strength ebb from his physical and emotional being as he descended into a valley of uncertainty, doubt and an overwhelming terror of finding himself in Mountjoy prison. As he lay back on the shiny blue mattress he looked upwards to the high ceiling and felt two tears slowly edge their way from his eyes and make their slow way towards his neatly trimmed black beard where they disappeared from sight leaving only two thin shiny trails to say they existed at all.

……….

Chief Inspector Murphy settled into his executive leather chair behind his large polished mahogany desk and began to leaf through his correspondence before getting to work on the case files. As he sipped from his mug of coffee he came to a post card with a picture of a glass of Guinness sporting a shamrock in the creamy head.

Turning the card over his policeman’s eye caught the stamp as being English and the franking asBradford. The message was brief “Dear Chief Inspector, sorry I missed you down the Brazen Head but I left a pint in the taps and a whisky in the bottle for you. Enjoy. M.”

*********

If you want to read more about what happens to Milo, go to Amazon, WH Smith, Waterstones or Author House and search for Corruption by Mike Gill

Middleton boy’s debut book launched to rave reviews.

 “Fantastic, gripping page turner. He’s on a promise tonight” – THE WIFE

“Did it have to have so much bad language”- THE MOTHER-IN-LAW

“Dreadful. I hope he rots in hell” – THE EX-WIFE

To form your own unbiased opinions go to:

http://www.amazon.com/Corruption-Mike-Gill/dp/1468581643

http://www.authorhouse.co.uk/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-000575902

Available now in paperback and soon in Ebook format.

DRUNKEN DIVA DEAD

Whit Euston, boozing drug addict and former singer, has been found dead in a pool of sick and surrounded by bottles and white powder. Police are baffled as to the cause of death.

Tributes have poured in as showbiz stars who never knew her rushed to their laptops to post expressions of their deep grief on Twitter.

Justin Timeforanother, aged 15, tweeted “Although I never knew the old slapper my agent has told me that her music touched me in a way I’d only previously touched myself.”

Cliff Davis spoke to the assembled press and television news wiping tears from his eyes “I’d booked her to open at my pre-granny party tonight but now that she’s corpsed I’m going to have to get some other karaoke artist in.”

Bobby Brown-Split who was married to Whit for several years without beating her up once or getting her illegal drugs said, “I’ve lost the love of my life, my gravy train and punch bag.”

Some old crooner who had a couple of hits decades ago said, “First Michael, then Whine-house and now Whit. Why is it that all the drug and alcohol abusers with diminishing audiences and record sales die young?”

Anonymous friends who had partied with her shortly before she was found dead said that her last words were only of love. One quoted her as saying, as she lay in the bath gripping a bottle of Jack Daniels “I love you so much. You are my best friend.”

The source was unclear as to whether she was talking to the friend or the bottle she was gripping.

IT’S ALL GOOD NEWS WEEK

SCENE 1. INT. DAY. TARQUIN IS SIPPING PIMS WITH COLONEL BAGSHOT HYPHEN JONES AT THE CONFERENCE CENTRE

TARQUIN

Well I think that STD put it well today.

COLONEL

Yes I think that he hit the nail on the head when he blamed all those people with slight limps for draining the country’s wealth.

TARQUIN

Yes, that was a masterstroke. All those whiners coming back from touring Afghanistan with a few minor injuries moaning about how the government is letting them down. Why can’t they get on the page with this one and think of the opportunities?

COLONEL

You are so right, in more ways than one my chinless little one. These are just a load of council estate scroungers who only joined the army to escape sentencing for stealing their mother’s family allowance to pay for their drugs.

TARQUIN

You know Colonel, I think you’re so right, even more right than the sainted Margaret of Cornershops. I think that some of those people could concentrate on positive things like the Para Olympics.

COLONEL

What? You think they should all jump out of airplanes?

TARQUIN

No, the Paraplegic Olympics. You know, where people run round the track on springy leg things.

COLONEL

You think they could all train up in time for that?

TARQUIN

Train up? Good God sir no! They could sell flags or those burger things that poor people shove down their throat or something.

COLONEL

You know that’s a really good idea. They could get on with their lives by participating in the enterprise economy we have created.

TARQUIN

Yes and I think that our esteemed Chancellor, George Richborn was brilliant in the way he put it.

COLONEL

Yes, how was that again?

TARQUIN

Well, he blamed the previous government for borrowing too much, not regulating the banks and other countries in Europe or somewhere.

COLONEL

Ah yes, I remember now. I made a fortune from selling on shares and unloading toxic debts. Weren’t you getting seven figure bonuses from that investment bank you worked for? What were they called? BCB?

TARQUIN

Yes they were. And I worked hard for those bonuses selling on your toxic debts and negotiating the government bale out, I mean rescue plan for the economy.

COLONEL

What did those initials stand for anyway?

TARQUIN

BentCorruptBastards.

COLONEL

So what are you doing these days?

TARQUIN

I’m up for a seat in the Shires and am doing rather well investing in manufacturing.

COLONEL

I thought that Saint Mags killed off that sector. Too many commie oiks getting above themselves if I remember.

TARQUIN

My money’s in Asia. We are providing work for thousands of young people who want to earn a living and not sponge off the so called welfare state.

COLONEL

It’s good to hear of some good stories of young people wanting to work even if they are Jonny Foreigners.

TARQUIN

I know. I was overwhelmed when I first went to my factory in the hills of Pakistan and all those six year olds surrounding me and begging to come and work for less than the price of a meal at Ramsey’s.

COLONEL

Less than £200 a day?

TARQUIN

A year.

COLONEL

You must be proud to be helping them all out.

TARQUIN

It gives me a warm feeling in my heart.

Once upon a time in a land far, far away there came a prophet known only as Con Sultant, who said that all economic patterns will be cyclic and that whosoever should rest on their laurels shall be doomed to banishment in the free from trading zone.

It was said that there would be seven years of good trade followed by seven years of highly competitive positioning for a viable share of a diminished market. And that in the years of the diminished market the principal customers of the market leaders would be able to break free from contracts and spend their money how they so wished.

But the prophet was scorned by many and was marginalised within his own business community.

The leader of the scorners, D’Twatyon, called to his supporters and said “Whosoever supporteth the false prophet shall be struck down with the P45 I hold in my hand and cast to the jackals of the Jobcentreplusorminus where they will be damned for an eternity of form filling and fruitless jobseeking.”

And the masses cowered.

“I say unto you gathered here today that we control over ninety percent of the dung recycling business in this empire and no one can come close to us.”

“Is that because we stink?” A timid voice squeaked.

D’Twatyon glared, “No you moron, it was foretold by the soothsayers of old that the public sector would trade with the public sector and that all in such a trading cartel would henceforth tread water, or other but smellier liquid, and recycle the same dung for an eternity.”

As D’Twatyon spoke to the minions there came from the east three wise men, (three men anyway) who were known as the most high shit contract managers of dung. Each of the shit contract managers had been given a huge pile of dung to manage by their master, D’Twatyon, and they each sat with pride on the same shit every day.

“Master” they called in unison, “We have been made aware by e.pidgin that you intend to embark upon a magnificent plan to ensure we continue to manage this shit for ever more.”

“Yes” boomed D’Twatyon, “And I have special roles for my three favourite shit managers.”

D’Leriumtremmors looked pained, “But master, will this mean that I have to do some work?”

“No my little red faced shaky one, it is of great importance to me that you continue to work as you do now.”

“Will it be so that I can just sit on this pile of dung and do no more than hum?”

“That is exactly the plan my dear D’Leriumtremmors.”

And D’Leriumtremmors was so happy that he took out his hip flask, sat down on his very own dung heap and drank himself into a coma. And so he came pass out and layeth humming in the sunshine while the circus of Fred Karno came into town to celebrate his great organisational skills.

The crowd of peasants with no higher grades than they deserved shouted out in anguish that the shit manager of number one dung pile was now and as always before, unavailable to provide advice, guidance and leadership.

But D’Twatyon simply smiled and spoke in an affronted way, “Haveth thou all lost faith in the dung? You cry out for leadership but where-forth to? Have we not stood still in this pile of dung for all the years I have been at the helm of this ship of shit?”

The crowd murmured that it was in fact true that there had been no leadership for years and that they had been standing still in shit for as long as any of them could remember.

Their master continued, “I have a plan to grow this shit and make the dung piles even bigger so that we can recycle it for many years to come.”

And as he spoke a lone voice came from the back of the crowd, “But master, I have been to one of our customers who told me that they had purchased the same dung from us for years and they were not happy with buying this crap.”

Suppressing his anger at the upstart who broughteth unwelcome news from the customer base, D’Twatyon spoke quietly, “I have spoken to the detractor and I have assured them that we do not sell the same old dung and that we recycle the old dung to maketh it into new and shiny dung.”

The Marquis of Dunfuckallsincehegothere decided to enter the discussion to protect his master and mentor, “I come not to bury dung but to praise it for the source of revenue and odour colon it provides to us all. Have we not all stood together in the same shit? Have we not all sold this crap for years? Do we want to go through the trouble of cleaning this up so much that we may wake up and be able to actually smell coffee?”

The crowd reflected without saying a word. They knew that to say no would result in being smitten with the P45 and being exiled to the land of Jobcentreplusorminus. To say yes would bring the comfort of security in a present but anxiety in a future of uncertainty.

D’Twatyon looked to his third aid, a stout man who sat on the biggest of all the dung heaps. “Lord Grandgirth, you have been close to my plans during the formation of them all do you have anything to say?”

And the Lord of Grandgirth spoketh in his most eloquent of managerial speech beginning by denouncing the false projections of the discredited prophet that he had previously endorsed and contributed to. “It should be said that if the extrapolations of the conditions applicable to the original projections, henceforth known as the heretic’s lies and fallacies, were in fact of integrity these piles of dung behind us would be both metaphorically and literally behind us and a thing of the past.”

The crowd looked puzzled and cried out “Does that mean we wouldn’t be selling recycled dung anymore?”

“Exactly, HR would have had us clean up our act, remodel our business and sell the things our customers wanted.”

The cry went up, “Burn HR, Burn he false prophet. What have Con Sultants ever done for us?”

D’Twatyon smiled inwardly and shouted his question, “And did you know that the false prophet wanted to develop you all so that you could deliver this so called improved service model?”

The crowd flew into a blind panic and ran round in circles crying in anguish at the thought of improving their ability to provide quality services that people wanted.

“Don’t worry little ones. My captains will rescue you from having to make any changes or learn any new skills.” He paused for a moment to let the crowd calm itself and join into a huddle to become a huddled mass. “Lord Grandgirth do you have the solution to the problem?”

“I do master, indeed I do.” With that the Lord of Grandgirth turned on the pile of dung and waved in his lieutenants. Grandgirth’s eyes scanned the huddled masses and he cried out, “Behold, we have replaced all development programmes with a collection of more of the same of what you all did in the bygone days when dung smelt of roses.

“My trusty lieutenants will deliver the chalk and talketh format which will enable you to go to sleep and never have to transfer any learning whatsoever.”

And so it came to pass that D’Twatyon relaxed into his throne of laurels and the dung business began to progress its way down the toilet, past the u-bend and onwards to the tube to take its rightful place as the biggest of all floaters.

Loretta came out of the mist and into the warm light of the eternal God in his heaven.

It was like a dream and as she slowly walked towards a huge white wall with massive gates at intervals of what seemed like a mile or so she noticed that she was not alone. As far as she could see there were people of all shapes, sizes and colour all in white smocks and all virtually gliding towards the wall in the distance.

No one was smiling, laughing, crying or showing any emotion other than serenity in their expression and a focus in their eyes on the gated wall in the distance. Loretta was clear about this being one of two things; death or dream. If it was the latter it would soon be gone and forgotten and if it was the former she had now been vindicated in her faith and she reached to her crucifix and kissed the head of the Lord who died for her sins. As she reached into the pocket of her smock and her fingers found the rosary beads she knew would be there and she began to quietly mutter “Holy Mary, mother of God …..”

As she began her devotion she heard a quiet female voice come into the atmosphere around her as if through the public announcement system at an airport or in the supermarket.

“Welcome to Paradise. We are sorry but the unexpected declaration of nuclear war by Iran on its neighbours coinciding with the previously planned tsunami in South East Asia has resulted in a sudden influx of souls for processing. Please bear with us while we work through the present backlog as quickly as we can.”

“Bing Bong” The PA kicked in again but this time with what sounded like a recorded male voice.

“On behalf of the One True God and for your own benefit we would remind you that all Christians of any denomination should proceed through Gate A where they will be met by immigration control. All Jews should proceed through Gate C and Muslims through Gates B and D. Islamic martyrs should inform the imam at the gate of their status and they will be directed to the VIP lounge to receive their voucher for the Virgins Megastore. Hindus should proceed to the gate marked recycling. Thank you.”

“Bing Bong”

“Welcome to Paradise. We are sorry ……..”

Loretta was beginning to get the gist of this process and dutifully headed towards the gate with a huge A above it. As the crowd moved forward and at different diagonals as the faiths crossed each other without comment she found herself in a queue which would have resembled a funnel, if you could have an aerial view in heaven, of largely Africans and Europeans.

Looking round the courtyard on the inside of the gate Loretta saw lots of large doors with every Christian denomination she had ever heard of and a good few that were brand new to her. She was looking for the Catholic gate which was easy since it had by far and away the largest group of people funnelling towards it.

At first she did not quite understand that the fact she was in this queue was due to her being dead and she was more concerned about the processes and how long they would take. As she moved through the door and into a huge waiting room she began to notice signs and posters on the walls like “You don’t have to be dead to work here. No actually you do” and “If you think this is taking a long time you will have an eternity to complain about it.”

As her senses began to return to her she began to notice more such as no one was actually saying anything to anyone else but there was the sound of a growing murmur as she began to approach the immigration process desks and the closer she got the more she understood that the speaking that formed the murmur was largely the immigration officers asking questions of the souls in front who tended to nod rather than speak.

She wondered if in death there was a silence imposed like in those monasteries but she soon worked out that she had a voice when it was her turn to be processed.

As she arrived at the desk the process clerk barely looked up “Name?”

“Loretta O’Brien.”

“Cause of death?”

“How do I know, I just found myself here and all of a sudden I’m talking to a rather rude clerk like as if I’m at the benefits office.”

The clerk looked up and over his spectacles as if totally bored “Look Loretta O’Brien, I’m just doing my job and asking the questions that have been designed by the latest consultants to be brought in by Saint Peter. If you’d have died a couple of millennia ago before he came and got put in charge of immigration control we would have been able to have a nice chat but unfortunately we have targets to meet now so if you would be so kind as to answer the questions….Uh? OK, cause of death not determined at this stage.”

“I’m sorry Mr?”

“Job, just Job. Someone thought it would be funny to second me from the Hebrew division and have me process Christians because I’m known as a patient man and my devotion to God needed a bit more testing for some reason. Six thousand years of immigration processing and two of them under the direction of Rome; you can’t get much more patient and devoted than that.

I mean, let’s face it they came stomping into the Holy Land given by God himself to his chosen people in their leather sandals and just as their power wanes they steal our God from us and dominate the world for another couple of thousand years. No offence.”

“None taken. OK, Job. I’m new at this being dead so I may need some help and guidance. I’d like to find my husband. He died last year and I was hoping to bump into him and perhaps be reunited in God’s presence.”

“Sorry but that’s not in my job remit and I don’t have access to records after I press the save button and your post life file is opened on the mainframe. What you could do though is pop into the PLIS offices on the left as you exit this building and ask there.”

“PLIS?”

“Yeah, Post Life Information Services. I can make you an appointment if you like.”

“How long will that take?”

“I think you’ve got to get out of this time obsession of yours. You’re here for eternity now. Time is an irrelevancy until you get to the thousand year mark or if you work for Saint Peter, which nearly everyone does in the service sector, with all his charts on through flow and outputs. Anyway, I’ve just checked on the MES….”

“MES?”

“Management of Ecumenical System. You know, it comes from the Greek originally and meant territory of Rome but don’t get me started on that again. Anyway you have an appointment to go now so you might as well take the opportunity to find out if they can fix you up with a job while you’re there.”

“Why would I want a job in Heaven?”

“Well I don’t know what I’d do without my job. I get to meet lots of new dead people every day and you’re all so interesting.

So it’s out of here through that door over there, turn left and BYU.”

“I must get used to the language up here. What’s BYU?”

“Bob’s your uncle. Next.”

Loretta emerged from the Department of Immigration Processing or DIP as she was told to call it onto the wide street outside. Everything looked surprisingly normal with people strolling up and down going into what looked like office buildings and shops just like on earth in real life. The only differences were that the light was all around and everyone looked even more serene than the souls that had emerged from the mist with her.

Sure enough and as Job had said to her left was a large white building just like all the others but with the letters PLIS in gold leaf over the door. As she went through the door and into the marbled floored reception area a woman in white looked up from her desk.

“Loretta O’Brien? Welcome I’ve been expecting you. How can we help?”

“What it is is that I just died but I could do with finding my husband, Francis, who died last year.”

“Catholic?”

“Me?”

“No, we know you’re Catholic because you’re in the Catholic section. I mean was he a Catholic?”

“Well it’s a bit complicated. You see he started as a Catholic when he was a boy but wasn’t confirmed because he decided to join a Baptist church so that he could be with his mates who were cub scouts there. Anyway he lost connection with the church when he got older but he was a good man and always helped people when he could.

He used to go down to the Catholic social club with his dad for a drink every now and then and used to say he was thinking of opening a lapsed Catholic club ‘cos it’d do loads of business. Oops, I don’t think I should have said that.”

By losing his connection with the church Loretta was actually saying that he had slid into atheism but she had neither been able to say that word or acknowledge that fact in life and she wasn’t going to do so now?

The woman behind the desk who had identified herself as Sister Kieran of the Little Sisters of the Assumption issued a barely audible tut when she heard of the defection of Francis to one of those heathen non-conformist pretend Christian Churches but all was not lost.

“Was he actually Christened into the one true faith?”

“Oh yes. His mum, an Anglican, used to tell me that when he was a baby and she’d dozed off once his Grandma O’Brien whisked him off to Saint Paul’s to be Christened.”

“Well thank the Lord for that. I’ll just check my records.”

As Sister Kieran tapped away at a keyboard Loretta looked around the room she was in and saw that the paintwork on the wall reminded her of the Vatican. “This is beautiful” she thought out loud.

Without looking up from her keyboard Sister Kieran responded to the thought “Think so? Michelangelo did it. Him and his Renaissance Painters and Decorators have just about got the interior design business sown up in the Catholic sector. Bit sick of it myself. It was OK when Da Vinci was working with him but they fell out over some interpretation of the Last Supper and that fallen woman Mary Magdalene. Da Vinci told Michelangelo that he was a pimp and a prostitute of his own art and stormed off to set up a new company with Galileo, D&G, but they don’t get the contracts. Pity really ‘cos we could do with a few more paintings and a bit less of the murals but that’s the way Saint Peter’s contract tendering process works; new companies don’t get a look in.”

“This Catholic sector? What’s all that about?”

“Well I’ve only been here a few hundred years but what I was told in my induction was that in the old days there were the twelve tribes of Israel and the Israelites were the dominant culture. That was easy to manage when it came to allocation of space in Heaven since all the other faiths at the time were about worshiping stone and gold icons. Well I ask you how on earth could rock and metal fanatics get into Heaven? Anyway Christianity and Islam came on the scene each worshiping the same God and then they started to split into all sorts of factions and we had to think up a new management system.”

“This all sounds a bit of a challenge.”

“You don’t know the half of it. Saint Peter got together with a few of the leaders of the other faiths and they set up an inter-faith working party to devise a system of management that would meet everyone’s needs. After a while they put some proposals to the CEO and the MD.”

“I’m sorry but you’re losing me.”

“Oh right. The MD is Jesus and the CEO is his dad. Not that Joseph fellow, he’s running a building firm in the Jewish sector, I mean his real dad. So, what they decided was that we had to be more customer focussed and that souls should be provided with the sort of Heaven they aspired to on earth. That way they would be with the people they felt most at home with and they would adjust easily.

I mean, it used to be horrendous up here during the Crusades after a battle between the Moors and the Crusaders especially when the Knights Templar had sunk a few bottles. They’d all be up here arguing about who loved God the most and they’d just start fighting again. Well it had to stop.

The upshot is that God and JC agreed the changes but I think they were a bit miffed at being pressured by the management team so they built in a couple of twists.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well they thought that all the customer focus stuff was a bit like the tail wagging the dog since they were in charge and the whole idea was that they were worshiped regardless of the reward system in place so they put in little twists like that one with the Islamic Martyrs.”

“Oh yeah, I noticed that they got VIP treatment and fast tracked to the Virgins Megastore.”

“It’s true that they get the virgins they were promised for blowing themselves and others up but the virgins are all old nuns from County Cork. So their reward turns out to be an eternity of getting hit over the head by an old nun with her crucifix for not acknowledging that our Lord sacrificed himself and died in agony for their sins and the nuns have to spend eternity doing what they spent all their lives doing to get here.

Look I can’t find your husband so I’ll give my friend Elizabeth a call in Purgatory. It’s worth a shot to see if he had any sins to deal with before coming here.”

“Your friend works in Purgatory?”

“Sometimes. She set up a training company, Save Our Sinners and she runs courses for penitent souls down there so that they can deal with their sins and come up here.”

After a moment or two of talking to her mouthpiece Sister Kieran turned to Loretta. “Sorry dear but he’s not been on any of her courses and isn’t on any booked for the next couple of years. She suggested that you try the Foundation for Quality Heretic and Agnostic Management since he had deviated from the one true path and he might be on their books. They’re just over the road in that white building. They’re expecting you now so good luck.”

Across the road stood a large white building with the letters FQHAM over the word Hall painted in stylish black and silver over the door.

Loretta walked into the reception hall and noticed the lovely paintings on the walls of bishops and priests comforting poor sinners stretched out on wooden beds clearly tormented by having realised the consequences of their sins. The priests were obviously so concerned that these poor souls didn’t fall off the beds and hurt themselves on the hard stone floor that they had tied ropes around their wrists and ankles. There was something about this building though that made Loretta think of Spain.

Loretta approached the reception area to hear the two receptionist answering telephone calls by talking into microphones attached to earpieces.

“FQHAM Hall, can I help you? I’ll put you through. FQHAM Hall, can I help you?”

As she got close to the desk one of the young women turned to her and smiled, “Loretta O’Brien? How can I help?”

“How come everyone knows who I am before I introduce myself?”

“Oh, that’s because God is omnipresent and since we introduced MES the communication is almost instantaneous so what he knows and wants us to know we find out in seconds. So, PLIS have told us that you are looking for your husband and that he may have been a bit of a heretic or agnostic heathen. No offence.”

“None taken. He did defect from the church before his confirmation and started going to the Baptists. When he got older he sort of drifted from them but didn’t come back to the one true church. Father Cassidy wouldn’t marry us in church because of that and we had to get married in a register office.”

“You poor thing. You know that means that you weren’t actually married in the eyes of God then? I’m surprised you didn’t have to go to Purgatory first before coming here.”

“I went to confession every week that we had sin and did my penance.”

“This defector problem we’ve heard it so often in the Foundation; that’s why we were set up in the first place. People go over to those fly by night churches here this century and gone the next. When I was alive back in the days of King John we wouldn’t tolerate such heresy but we had the resources then; nuns, priests, monks and even armies. No one was able to forget the one true and loving God who communicated through the Holy Father and he through us.

Baptists and all the other prody dogs never got to grips with our policy of tough love except for the Tudors and the witch burning puritans but look at them now eh? We have more people in Purgatory waiting to come up here than they have in the whole of their sector; we even send them most of the heretics and agnostics and they’re still nowhere near us in terms of numbers. Also they get the Jehovah’s Witnesses knocking on their doors every night asking if they’ve heard the news about Jesus which is usually about his next magic tour with Moses.

There was a time though that it was getting a bit touchy feely in the Catholic sector until Ferdinand and Pope Sixtus came up here.”

“Who are Ferdinand and Sixtus?”

“Call yourself a good Catholic? They founded the Spanish Inquisition on earth and when they came up here they set up the Foundation for Managing Heretic and Agnostic Scum into Oblivion. Saints Paul and Peter came round one night though and told them that their Foundation wasn’t customer friendly and we needed to help heretics and agnostics back into the fold so they would have to restructure the business model and re-brand our service. ‘OK says Ferdinand we’ll set up as FQHAM and move offices to the hall over the road.’

I couldn’t see the problem with the old company though I jumped at the chance to work with them right at the start.”

“So how can you help me find Francis?”

“All agnostics and heretics that come through the Catholic gates are sent to us for reprogramming so I checked my database for lapsed Catholics and defectors, LCDs as we call them but I couldn’t find any records of him coming here. What I’ll do is give Mavis a ring over at the Non-Conformist Information Centre.”

The receptionist turned to her machine and clicked her mouse on the number for her contact and within a moment was connected “Hello, NCIC? Can I speak to Mavis? Hi Mavis it’s Sister Angelica from FQHAM Hall, I’m making an enquiry about a potential lapsed Catholic who we know spent a short time with the Baptists in life and wondered if he was on your books? There was a momentary pause and Sister Angelica continued “Yes, his name was Francis O’Brien, died last year. He’s not? You sure? OK see you at the interfaith party next week then. Yeah, I’ve got some high class Vodka from one of those Orthodox priests and I’m thinking of putting it in the punch for those poe faced Presbyterians. That’ll liven ‘em up.”

Sister Angelica turned to Loretta “Suppose you heard that? Sorry but even the heathens don’t have anything on him. I’m afraid there is only one place left and that’s the boss himself.”

“God?”

“No, the running of heaven has been delegated to Saint Peter like everything else here. He runs everything up here like he ran everything on earth after the crucifixion. Didn’t you pick up the brochures at DIP? Anyway you go out of here turn right and walk for about a hundred miles and you come to a hill on the left with a mansion on the top. Saint Peter has a room there and he’s expecting you in ten minutes so don’t be late. Oh, just so you don’t confuse it with some of the other mansions this one has a sign at the gate with its name on – My Father’s.”

Within ten minutes she had arrived at My Father’s mansion and was looking at the list of names on the rack of door bells. When she got to the one marked Saint Peter she pressed the button and heard a loud Cock-a-doodle-do sound from the inside of the house followed by hysterical laughter from one of the rooms on the first floor.

A moment later the door was opened by a large old man with long grey hair and a thick beard dressed in a white suit and wearing white shoes. “Loretta, it’s good to meet you I’m Saint Peter but you can call me Peter, everyone does.”

Loretta was in awe at this informality with such a Saint. “What was that cock a doodle do thing?”

“Oh it’s that JC. He thinks its funny to remind me that I denied him three times before the cock crowed so every time someone rings my bell the cock crows and he laughs like a drain. Two thousand years I’ve had to put up with that.

Course he was a bit mad at me for commissioning the design of the crucifix as the symbol of the faith. Said that I was hardly being sensitive to his perspective on things since it was him that had to get nailed up, flogged, stabbed and have a crown of thorns rammed on his head.

He said that he didn’t exactly want to be reminded of that experience every single day of eternity by people wearing it all over the shop. He kept asking me ‘what was wrong with the fish? That was a good corporate logo and they’d be putting it on the backs of their carts by the end of the middle ages.’ But he’d left me on earth to set up the church and I had to manage the whole thing and then market it while he was up here putting a magic act together with Moses. Every bloody year since then they’ve done this act for the One True God Royal Variety Show and every year it’s ‘for my next trick I’ll bring a plague of locust down on this stadium before your very eyes’ and ‘loaves and fishes are on sale in the bar where the wine flows like water’.”

“So you’re not exactly happy with the situation here?”

“I wouldn’t say that it’s just that when Christ was on earth we had all this ambition to create a new and unifying religion but he stayed in the Holy Land for thirty odd years. I had to make the company global and when me and Paul met up we came up with a plan of action. The problem was we needed to work within a competitive market so we devised a strategy of growth through organic and inquisitional, sorry acquisitional programmes which meant compromises had to be made.

I mean when we acquired the Roman Empire, that gave us the leverage to undertake sustainable organic growth through military domination but were they pleased? No they just kept saying our commandments should be the unifying maxim. I’ll tell you what though, if we hadn’t made that one acquisition then re-engineer the business model and re-brand it as the Church of Rome, the Christian Sector would have been miniscule and all those thriving businesses would be cottage industries.”

“Oh, right I can see that now. I used to be a management consultant you know.”

“We know and I had my eye on you coming through immigration. I saw you checking out the processes and I noticed that even though you had a mission to find your husband you couldn’t stop yourself from analysing the processes. I’m impressed but we should deal with the problem at hand before we talk more about your future.”

“It’s my husband, I can’t find him and I’ve exhausted all the avenues opened so far.”

“Yes it’s a bit of a problem and it’s something I want to talk about in terms of a project that you might be interested in.”

“Sounds intriguing.”

“What it probably is is that when we did a major restructuring operation back in the middle ages to segregate the warring factions we decided to make Heaven more customer friendly but God said we had to do so without deviation from the original contract with mankind.”

“What contract?”

“The Bible. You see how it works is that like most contracts you find a lot of words to explain the deal and a load of clauses that have to be abided by. In the later centuries they organised contracts into sections so you would have a preamble followed by clauses but in those days the clauses were inserted all over the place. For example, some of the easy to understand clauses were laid out in Exodus and became known as the Ten Commandments but later clauses or amendments would get slipped in so Christ would say something like up to now you thought that you had to commit adultery but from now on just to think it would be a sin, neat eh?”

Loretta looked a little blank but slowly nodded her head thinking that it would all become clear.

“Anyway, the clause that we are looking at is the one that says ‘whosoever believeth in me will enter the kingdom of heaven.’ The clause had a number of problems that were not considered at the time such as we had all the Jews, Christians and Muslims in the same place and all the policies on multi-cultural integration just didn’t work. So we solved that problem by creating everyone’s own versions of paradise and now we’ve improved relations so much that we’ve got to the stage of inter faith competitions like the Self Flagellation Olympics. The Shias win that one hands down every year but some of the monks from the Middle Ages put up a good show for the Catholics.

You know what it’s like though. Every solution creates its own problems so now we have anomalies such as Catholics who commit suicide have to go to Purgatory but Islamic Martyrs get fast tracked to Paradise and that meant that the guys who flew the jets into the two towers got here straight away but the Catholics who threw themselves out of the building, thus committing a sin within their faith, are still in Purgatory.”

“That does seem unfair.”

“Glad you said that because I want you to do a project to evaluate the entry criteria and make some improvements. But that brings me to Francis.”

“How so?”

“Well, Francis was a card carrying atheist and as such by definition believed that when you die you are in fact dead.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m afraid that your husband got what he believed in and as a result he is in actuality dead.

Now about this project……..”

Once upon a time in a land far, far away there lived a handsome prince. Well, he wasn’t exactly handsome, more distinguished as age had begun to take its toll on his once boyish good looks and the frequent banquettes had grown his waist line since he stopped pursuing the princely tasks of fighting dragons and climbing tall towers to rescue maidens captured by wicked witches.

Where once there had been long blond hair which would rest on his shoulders there was now a mousey coloured shorter version tinged with grey around his ears and the nape of his neck. His eyes, once sharp and blue were now a little sad and lacking the famous twinkle they once shot at his conquest both maiden and dragon alike.

He hadn’t always been a prince. When he was young he was the son of a woodcutter and as such had his life mapped out before him from the moment he was born. All the other boys and girls in his class at the local primary school were all going to follow in the footsteps of their fathers or mothers but as the woodcutters son he had to do extra dragon slaying and maiden rescue classes because one day he would have to compete with a load of chinless hooray Henries for the hand of a fair princess.

It was a liberal school, to some extent, in that some of the boys would follow in the footsteps of their mothers and some of the short haired, broad shouldered girls would become blacksmiths or builders like their fathers. But for any sons of woodcutters there was no flexibility in the application of the rules on destiny.

His training regime had been relentless and often his father would lay in wait for him coming home from school and pretend to be a dragon or a big bad wolf by jumping out on him as he would pass a thicket or large tree. This proved to be a bit of a problem for him one day and he regretted having bought his son a sharp new sword for his thirteenth birthday. Still, he soon learned how to cut down trees with his remaining arm and he quite liked the false arm he whittled from a branch. It did bother him at first though when birds would nest in the fingers when he dozed.

Like all boys in that far away land he had been named after the trades of his parents. For example, a son of a blacksmith would be known as John, the Blacksmith’s son; the daughter of a prostitute would be known as Mary, the Slapper’s daughter.

As we know his father was a woodcutter and so he was know as the son of the woodcutter. But since he was marked out to win the hand of a princess his parents called him Charming, the Woodcutter’s son which sounded a bit like something someone may do if they fancied a woodcutter’s son.

When all the mothers of the children waited outside the school at home time they would always talk about how well their children were doing in school. Mrs (wife of) Blacksmith would tell everyone how well her son was doing in metalwork, Mrs (wife of) Page of the Stools (also known as the King’s arse wipe), would say how well her son was doing in brown nosing and Mrs Woodcutter would talk about how many wolves her boy had had slain. No one liked her though; they thought she was a bit above herself.

Charming wanted to do a honest days work for a honest day’s pay by chopping down trees to build houses when he left school at the age of ten but his mother made him stay at home and look in the classified ads for princess winning competitions. Unfortunately these were few and far between in Far Away Land. When they did come along they were often too far away or the princess was a bit of a growler.

When there was a good opportunity, like a princess being held in a tower by a fairly local witch there was the horrendous application processes to go through and every time there was only one woodcutter’s son allowed to get through the first stage. It was the same for all the other candidates; one black hearted knight, one prince called Tarquin or similar posh sort of name like Rupert and one frog who had once been a genuine prince. The frogs never got anywhere but did well in the chance kisses by desperate princess competitions.

Once he came second place to a neighbouring woodcutter’s son and received a very nice letter from the King’s very own third secretary to the vettor of breeding stock. It began something like “Thank you for your application but you have been unsuccessful on this occasion. Should the King and Queen have another vacancy for suitors for an eligible daughter or son” they were very politically correct in this far off land, “your application will be re-considered without further correspondence.”

What Charming didn’t quite understand at the time of his youth was that the ruling classes needed to mix the blood a little every generation or so. You see they had a problem with daughters growing teeth like those found in a horse’s mouth and sons having absolutely no chin but very pointy noses that made their faces look like large arrow heads from the side. A bit of rough helped them to bring back more normal looking babies from the royal delivery suite.

Sometimes, if the competition was won by the Tarquinesque prince, then the princess would begin taking long walks in the woods looking for a man with a chopper. This would upset some of the women in the villages because of, well obvious reasons really. The village prostitute would be worse hit at these times because trade would obviously go down when a future Queen got pheromonal. So everyone sacrificed something so that one way or another the little princesses and princes would have chins and normal sized teeth.

Anyway, our Prince Charming was not a happy soul given he was married to a harridan who spent all her time with her grotesque bag of a mother. He always regretted having not done his research because as every father would normally tell his son “Look at the mother if you want to know what your future wife will look like when she’s older.” Charming never did this and if he had he may have noticed that the Queen was always dressed in long black clothes, had half a dozen cats following her everywhere and was forever stirring things like dead bats into a large metal bowl over a fire of logs in the middle of her kitchen floor.

Later in life and long after he had married his beautiful but cold princess, he sometimes saw his mother in law filing the warts on her nose before she put on her makeup in the morning. Now that may have been a clue to have followed given the opportunity. But there you are, we never listen to the right advice and we often end up repenting that mistake at our leisure.

Charming had had years to dwell on his mistake and he often remembered that fateful day when he went to sign up for the Quest as the competition was titled. That advertisement was so enticing:

The King of Far Away Land

The magnificent and benign ruler of all that stands between his castle and the nearby border with other lands of little consequence

Is pleased to decree a competition

Hereby know as the Quest

To find a suitor of noble or woodcutting birth

For his beautiful daughter, Princess Layanyone

(having the dark eyes and coarse wit of the local plumber which is not inherited and is pure coincidence)

Candidates must be able to demonstrate the following:

Ability to slay dragons

Aptitude for solving nonsensical riddles

Loyalty to the King who has no obligation to reciprocate

Grovelling and endless gratitude for the opportunity to marry above his station essential

The young Charming met all of these qualities but having missed a lot of his schooling due to pursuing dragons and wolves in preparation for this day, got his mother to fill in the form. His mother, of course, like all mothers embellished the application and described her son in such glowing terms he walked the application.

On the day the competitors met before the King and his court, Charming was dressed in his best blue quest suit. It had puffy up shoulders, gold and silver embroidered patterns in the satin jacket and a red and gold piping down the trousers with balloon like hips. His mother had made the suit though and not wanting to think about her son’s dangly bits had forgotten to sew in a fly so that he could take a pee without pulling his pants down and squatting like a girl.

The young man who was all of sixteen at the time felt so proud of his fine garb that he strode into the courtyard like a peacock only to be greeted by loud laughter from the crowd. The problem was that because he didn’t read very well he missed the clause in the letter that specified the dress code for this particular meeting and his competition had arrived on horseback and in armour. He looked like a refugee from a medieval gay pride march and felt like giving up there and then.

Obviously he didn’t give up. He didn’t let anyone see the tear in his eye either but he did learn a valuable lesson; he began to hate his mother with a passion for being so low as to have not known what to dress him in for his debut, and as everyone knows looking down on one’s parents with contempt for their low social rank is a prerequisite for moving up the social ladder.

Soon he learned to hate his father as well. Joe the woodcutter was bound to fall out of favour with his son given his propensity to describe the royal swan meat at banquets as “tasting like that roast rat we had for lunch last Sunday.” The poor old fool was only trying to make conversation by engaging in discussions on comparative cuisine and at the same time complementing his wife on her remarkable cooking skills in making rat taste like swan.

There was no doubt that the pursuit of the quest was one of the most exciting times of Charming’s life. All those years of practice and study of riddles began to pay off. What with all the following clues that led to the forest of goblins, through the swamp of demons and to the witches lair guarded by the biggest dragon of all time; of course it was an adventure to remember.

An adventure made even better when after he had cut off the dragon’s head with the axe his father had hidden in his rucksack after his sword had become embedded in the dragon’s breast; he looked round and saw his competitors dragging their sorry butts out of the swamp with their armour all rusty. “Now who looks like a puffter” he thought.

The warm glow of victory was soon to be diminished a little though when his conquest and prize, the Princess Layanyone insisted that he carried her back through the swamp and forest on his back because she didn’t want to get her James of Choo (cobblers to the rich) shoes dirty. All the way back he heard her whinging in his ear about her hair getting messed up by those branches and how her legs ached as he held them too tight when crossing the dangerous ravine on the rope bridge.

His mood wasn’t helped by the continuous sound of the black hearted prince making the chinless one and the frog laugh with continuous jokes about winning a poison chalice to drink from for the rest of his life as they walked behind him; or in the frog’s case hopped.

The wedding took place almost immediately he returned the princess to her father’s castle. It was if they had to make sure the contract was fulfilled before anyone had the chance to change their minds and given a day or two more, Charming just might have done that.

Charming’s head was all confused but being a simple boy was soon tempted by all the glories to come and all the compliments he was receiving. Since he was muddy and his clothes were a bit messed up he was glad to be offered a royal golden shower before the ceremony. Unfortunately for Charming he misheard what was said and though he was going to shower in a golden bathroom and not get pissed on by his future in laws so he accepted the offer with relish.

All through the wedding ceremony and the celebration party that followed, Charming could smell the consequences of his eager acceptance of the offer of a royal flush. As the temperature got higher his sweat mingled with the drying urine and what was left over from the swamp until by the end of the evening he was royally ripe.

The royal golden shower was to be the metaphor for what was to become his life. From day one he was made to know that all his role comprised of was being around and looking good at the royal parties and balls.

At first things weren’t so bad. Everyone was interested in his tales of adventure and for a while he didn’t tire of telling the story of how he had cleverly interpreted the witch’s riddle before his competitors had even got their head round the first line.

He would go on to describe in detail, with actions as he flashed his sword, how he forged his way through the dark forest; how he struggled through the foul smelling swamp that lay on the edge of Far Away Land to confront the wicked witch, dodge the lighting bolts she threw at him and pierced her heart with his rapier.

Then he would pause for a moment as the gasps of the ever diminishing audience before describing in gory detail how he crept up on the sleeping dragon who was guarding the beautiful princess at the foot of the tall tower she was incarcerated within. The eyes of the courtiers attending to his every word would open wide, not blinking for ages as they imagined the horror of the huge green monster issuing fire from its nose as it snored oblivious to its approaching nemesis.

Charming, capturing the moment, would then hush his voice and act out the final moments of the dragons life. First creeping slowly across the floor with his sword to hand and then stabbing into the air and shouting loudly as if to wake up the memory of the dragon’s scream as the blade pierced its side and sank into its chest.

Then as the dragon reared itself up onto its hind legs and spread its wings to block out all sight of the sun, it began to stagger with Charming’s sword embedded deep into its heart. And now the tail was almost over but Charming was still in danger as the massive weight of the beast fell to the ground missing him by inches.

The part about when he rescued the princess from the tower was often skimmed over since all she could do at the time was complain about being hungry and not having her make up bag with her.

When he was younger and a new prince, he was able to exploit his new position to the hilt and his conquests among the women of the court and of the courtyard were many. Breaking hearts was to become a way of life for a short time but then that fizzled to an end. Why? He couldn’t say for sure if it was he or they who became disillusioned with the shallowness of a life of going from one bed to another and never really knowing those he bedded.

But soon, as with his female conquests, everyone in the court had heard the story the story of his conquest of the dragon and knew it word for word. It was when the only people who would hear his tale and still gasp were the servants and the boys down the pub where he began to spend his lonely evenings away from the fancy conversations of the King’s court. Soon it dawned on him that he was a one trick pony and he didn’t really fit in.

Now, although the King liked to think of himself as a wise man and a fair ruler, the best that anyone ever said of him was that he wasn’t that bad for a despot.

Things were not good in the kingdom and the rule of the King was increasingly through fear. The King didn’t know that his army was really under the control of his wife and her fancy man, General Clampdown, and so had no idea that the world he ruled was ruled by such terrible force.

Not that he cared much either so in some ways that made things worse. All the King was concerned with was living the life of a very wealthy man; how he acquired and maintained that wealth was of no consequence to his thinking or his conscience.

To maintain the rule of the army the people were taxed on everything the Queen could think of. Peasants were taxed on all they grew having to pay up to fifty percent of all crops and new livestock; merchants were taxed on all earnings and on how many miles they travelled to do their business; horse owners had to give twenty percent of all manure to the royal gardener. Nothing escaped the royal taxman.

As time went by the people became restless and the talk was of rebellion. But the Queen has spies all over the place and soon all conspirators were put in prison to await public execution and each was sentenced to death by the axe.

The terror of the time was tangible in the air as Charming walked through the Kingdom; or more to the point staggered home from the pub in a drunken stupor. No one would talk with him anymore. His family had long been disowned by him and now all the fair-weather friends in the pub didn’t want to know him because he may go back to his wife and tell her what was said and in turn her the Queen.

Charming was caught between a rock and a hard place. He no longer fitted in with his previous life of simplicity in the village and nor did he fit in with the royal court. Now he didn’t even fit in at the pub where previously his endless credit had ensured many an audience for his heroic tale. And what was waiting for him when he got home? Not a welcome from a beautiful wife that was for sure since the princess had grown to the proportions of a carthorse with the temper of a viper protecting its nest.

One evening when Charming got home, he heard muffled voices coming from his mother-in-law’s bedroom. Intrigued, he decided to listen more closely only to discover that a plot to overthrow the King and kidnap him in his sleep was in progress with the chief conspirators being the Queen and his wife who would inherit the throne with him as her ineffectual consort.

He had no love for the King and was going to do nothing to protect him but decided that very evening that he had to get away from the nastiness of court life and seek himself. The next morning Charming had found some old clothes and a sharp axe and he was off to earn his living as a freelance woodcutter.

There had been no time to put a business plan together but he didn’t care. His idea was that he would wander from village to village and work only for his food and board. A life of riches had proved to be distinctly unfulfilling and now he was going to go back to his roots and deeper.

In his time of wandering the country looking for work and cutting down trees he built quite a reputation. He was fast, he was hard working and he would employ all his sword fighting skills to make his work entertaining.

As his blade flashed he would spin round chopping now at this side of the tree and in one fluid motion at the other. Trees would fall as if an enemy defeated but respected by a superior force.

Nobody knew anything about the stranger but wherever he went he was received as a friend. People were happy to invite him into their homes where they would talk about life, loves, pain and joy. For the first time in his life he began to feel happy and at one with himself.

But that happiness was tinged with the sadness of knowing that the people lived in terror and poverty. The food people gave to him they could hardly afford and without even knowing it risked their lives for harbouring him now that he had been declared a traitor by his wife who was now Queen.

A new choice was before him. Just like when he made his decision to wander the kingdom as a freelance woodcutter, now he would wander as an agitator for change. There was no plan, only drive and the determination to win or lose fighting for something worthwhile and now all his training as a dragon fighter would come into its own.

Travelling through the countryside from village to village, Charming trained up all the villagers in combat techniques. Soon the taxman’s caravans delivering all their ill gotten gains to the new Queen were themselves taxed. Soldiers caught unawares by angry villagers were forced to give up their arms and armour then forced to walk back to the castle naked to be flogged for cowardice by the Queen’s guard.

A revolution was in progress and the leader was an unknown man of great skill who was inspiring a fight against tyranny. The Queen and her wicked mother were livid and ordered their whole army out of barracks to find this insurgent. They knew they had to end this with the humiliation and death of their unknown adversary.

But the army they had once depended on was now an unhappy bunch of men who had been paid only in insults and punishments. They too had come from the villages and were now being used to oppress their own people. The two Queens had made a big mistake because once out of the castle gates to a man they threw off the shackles of the tyranny they had been part of and joined the rebels.

In a very short time the rebel forces had won a resounding victory and the two Queens were dragged before a people’s court to stand trial for their crimes. The King was found hiding in the tower where he had himself been held in luxury incarceration not even knowing he had been kidnapped. He was never the brightest of kings at the best of time and as long as he was pampered he had no idea of what was going on.

It was pure pleasure for Charming to see the looks on his in-law’s faces when they saw that he had led the rebellion against them. Like traffic lights, although they didn’t have traffic lights in Far Away Land in those days, their faces went from a red embarrassment, through a grovelling lighter red to a very sick green as the sentence of death was announce to be carried out immediately (and before any of his secrets could be revealed).

Within moments, three heads rolled across the floor in front of the two thrones and Charming smiled as he wiped the blood from his otherwise shining axe blade.

So, like all tales from lands that are far, far away there is a moral to our story. But what could that be?

Perhaps it is “As you move up a ladder, don’t lose sight of where you climb from.”

Maybe, it’s “Don’t try to get above your station without doing a bit of research.”

Could be though “Don’t piss on a man with an axe to grind.”

Charity was beside herself as she sat at her kitchen table sobbing inconsolably. Her friend, Nothingbutquestions was trying to comfort her to no avail.

“What’s happened Charity?”

Between sobs were wails and cries of anguish but eventually she was able to squeeze out some words, “It’s Faith and Hope, they’ve left me.”

“They’ve left? Where have they gone?”

“I don’t know. I just heard a door close last night, then I heard another slam and they’d gone.” She nodded at a chest lying open in the corner of the room, “And they’ve taken all our opportunities with them.”

“The opportunities? You mean they’ve taken Equality, Employment and Education?”

“All of them. And you know something else?”

“What?”

“I saw Future yesterday. I’ve not seen her for ages and when I saw her the other year she looked really bright. Now she’s looking bleak and grey. Why do you think that is?”

“You think I can answer a question like that? I haven’t even seen any decent Answers for over a year now. I keep asking what’s going on? But all I get is a load of guff from Daft or Evasive Answers.”

“I thought something was going wrong for a while and I asked them what it was along came Daft Answers who said that it was because I was having an affair with Dave ‘n’ Nick.”

“Dave and Nick?”

“Yes, you know? The Coalition twins. Nick tends to live in Dave’s pocket so you don’t see much of him.”

“Why would they think you are having an affair with those two then?”

“It’s because they keep saying that they are going to give loads of business to me and Voluntarysector. They’re not going to pay us but Faith and Hope think there’s a special deal where we are going to run every public service there is.”

Nothingbutquestions nodded as if a light had been shone onto the problem, “Except, that is, the stuff that can earn loads of money for their old mate Privateinvestor?”

“That’s right, he gets all the cream and we get the dregs that can’t be funded.”

“Do you think we should do something about this then?”

“I think we should go down to the shops and buy a fight.”

So Charity and Nothingbutquestions decided there was a fight to be had and set off to the out of town shopping complex to see what they could find. As they stepped onto the street they encountered an ill wind blowing no good news. Nogoodnewspaper front covers were being blown down the roads like tumbleweed into the faces of the people who braced themselves for each new blow from successive headlines.

BAD NEWS – “Crime Rising”

GOOD NEWS – “Cost of Policing to be Cut as Redundancies Take Effect”

BAD NEWS – “Indirect Taxes to Rise”

GOOD NEWS – “Rich People Hardly Affected”

For a while they waited at the bus stop but soon realised that no buses were running that day due to rising fuel costs and falling subsidies. For a moment they reflected with nostalgia about how once upon a time you would wait for a while and then three buses would come at once. Now there were only three buses for the whole town.

So heads down and into the ill wind they began to walk to the shopping centre passing pound shops and charity outlets holding closing down sales on the once thriving high street. As they passed the Weaver’s Arms with its boarded up windows, Charity commented “I remember when we used to go in that place and meet up with lots of really decent people. You remember them don’t you?”

“I’m not sure. Who were they now?”

“Well there was Joe Vial, that French guy, Bon Ami, and that old bloke who knew everything, Taproomlawyer. He said things would get bad if we kept on spending like money meant nothing.”

“What happened to them anyway?”

“I think that some new people started coming in. You know like Red Undant and Opportunist Dealer.”

“What difference did that make?”

Charity looked thoughtfully at the sky for a moment as she recalled how things had changed. “I think that what happened was that Red came in and spent money like it was going out of fashion for a while and that Opportunist guy came and sold him lots of white powder to help him come to terms with the loss of his job.

“Soon the place was full of grey people in shabby clothes selling DVD players they’d got from burgling houses and using the money to buy stuff from Opportunistic Dealer. Bon Ami and Joe Vial just went out the door and the police closed the pub.”

Walking on, the friends approached a wooden bench and on the bench were three sisters, Des Pondency, Des Pair and Des Peration. They looked awful with their sad, pleading eyes and hands held out in a permanent yet unspoken cry for help – or cash, whichever was handy.

Nothingbutquestions was concerned about getting too close to the trio of gloom. “Don’t you think we should cross the road in case we catch something from them?”

“No I don’t. It was always my job to help people.” With that Charity placed a shiny silver coin in the hands of each of the sisters and watched their eyes sparkle for a tiny second before going dark again as if a light had flickered into life only to die almost instantly.

“Why do you keep doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“Why keep giving losers money?”

“I do it because I believe in the good that lives in us all.”

As she said the words she felt Hope and Faith touch her heart for just an instant. In that moment she felt warm and strong and her next step forward began with a spring.

Eventually the pair came to the shopping complex and it was vast. Massive car parks were packed to capacity while the people shopped away their fears.

When they entered the centre they looked around and saw rows of shops as far as the eye could see on three floors. There were Chain Stores, Chain Store Seconds, Designer Shops and even Designer Label Shops.

“Fancy a shop that sells labels” Charity wondered aloud.

“Where are we going to find a fight in this place?” Nothingbutquestions enquired.

“I don’t know but I remember some wise words from when I was very young nearly two thousand years ago when this bloke said ‘Seek and ye shall find.’”

But the search bore no fruit and they decided to leave. As they walked out of the doors they could see Des Pondency walking towards them and they began to feel sad.

Suddenly a huge tattooed man jumped in front of them and hissed “You looking for a fight?”

Charity smiled and shouted, “Yes.”

“Well you’ve been looking in the wrong place. I’ve got some really good fights…. do you want to pick one?”

“What kind of fights have you got?”

“I’ve got fights for something, fights against something, a few fights for the hell of it and a couple of drunken fights outside a pub. I wouldn’t recommend them though – hardly a punch lands.”

“What about a fight for something? That sounds positive.” Charity was beginning to bounce on her toes and punch into the air.

“They’re good but you usually need a cause. Have you got a cause to fight for?”

“I’m not sure. I used to have a cause but I lost it a while ago.”

“I’ve got a few of those lost causes. I found them hanging round the park the other day but I’m not sure they’d be right for you.”

“Why not? What’s wrong with them?”

“Nothing much…. bit of jading, cynicism and fraying round the edges but you have to remember they are already lost.”

“I don’t know what to do. I mean there’s so much to fight against and I’m not sure I could afford all those fights in one go. I wish I had Faith and Hope with me to help.”

“Look, I might be doing myself out of some business here but if you want my opinion it’s not a fight you want just yet.”

“But we need to fight. We can’t let the Coalition Twins keep stamping on us.”

“You’re missing the point. You want to fight but what you really need is a fighting spirit first.”

“And you’ve got one for sale?”

“You can’t buy a fighting spirit. You have to acquire it, nurture it and grow it. Once you get that, Faith and Hope will come home.” As he spoke his tattoos turned into words that formed answers to all her questions and she knew what to do.

She looked beyond the answers and saw Des Pondency turn on her heel to walk away with her head down. In the distance she saw her old friend Future and a faint light came from her face as she began to glow, just a little, once again.

END