Man flu and literature
Current mood: bummed
Category: Writing and Poetry

I don't know what it is about flu, which is often ridiculed in men, I've had it maybe four or five times and unlike a heavy cold has such overbearing psychological impact that I've grown to dread it. It's the rollover lottery of depression and leaves you spiralling down in that heady mix of wallowing self failure and an inability to actually enjoy anything. I mean anything, an you ache and cough and your skin hurts. But there are some rewards in the hallucinatory shivery bed clothes. Firstly, I've lost nearly a stone in weight. That should be packaged up for folks. Buy your flu here, double strength, max strength flu with combined emaciation. Secondly, it always causes a kind of degraded life assessment, the kind when you think everything's gone wrong, everything is awful and you need to take up a new career, like highwayman or corporate drone in some faceless cash-ridden, advance-spewing trade publisher. Yeah, I could really go that. Let someone else pay the goddamn bills for once. So there I was down my lowest ebb, in fact less an ebb more a kind of stagnant low puddle, a smelly one loaded with dead memories, and I started thinking about the po biz and writing and the silly factions and nepotistic back scratching, the prize fixing, the militiaristic lauding of some talent, like old farts playing their pawns on the literary chess-scape. And for a moment I thought, well, that's it, I've really had my fill, someone else can try breaking new talent, broadening the art, I'll go back to being a writer and see if I can find a way to ride the gravy train. But this self-hating phase has now passed, so the damn virus must be leaving my worn out bod, and I feel refreshed enough to remember that we just have to keep going, that there's no giving up. That we will win through because we will just never stop. If that sounds vaguely combative, I guess it is. What so often helps indie publishers to succeed is sheer bloody-minded tenacity. As the fug of flu recedes, I can see that more clearly. All I have to do now is find time to get a private life back and write and write and write.

Currently reading : Lolita By Vladimir Nabokov Release date: 13 March, 1989

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FLU = IPA
Current mood: sick
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

The whole family has been wiped out with flu this week, and losing a week means losing momentum on another two books, given we publish on average around two a week. Like buses, they actually tend to come in convoys. So amid the phlegm and spittle and medieaval bile of the week in bed, we were rather pleased to receive notice that we've been shortlisted for an Independent Publishing Award for the second year running!

Me and Jen in bed this week

I can't tell you how thrilled I am by this. Salt is very much nose to grindstone for most of the year and last year was one of the toughest times of my life, but it paid off. The business has doubled in size and trade sales tripled. Neither Jen or I think it'll get any easier, but being recognised for our innovative, risk-taking work is absolutely terrific. Here's what the judges said:

NIELSEN INNOVATION OF THE YEAR

Salt Publishing made the shortlist for finding new ways to increase sales of its poetry and short stories despite tough market conditions,through online marketing, partnerships and brand development. "Salt is bucking the trend in poetry by growing its sales. Its innovation in lots of small ways adds up to a major achievement."

Currently reading : A Painted Field: Poems By Robin Robertson Release date: 06 April, 1999

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44 not out
Current mood: indescribable

This week saw the arrival of Sandra Tappenden's Speed and its reminder to make haste in preparing for the Salt party this coming Thursday at Foyles in Charing Cross Road, London. However, turning 44, as I have (images of precipices, split ropes, wild ice), can have a relaxing and ruminative effect on one's constitution and all sense of urgency. Now, although I am prone to a little bit of lassitude, I'm more of your common or garden workaholic. Anyway, we're not talking about languishing, or even lolling, but certainly lying about considering poems and poetry, history and departures – all fittingly self-indulgent for middle aged men, even slightly corrupted ones. Over the past five years, since ditching corporate life, there have been plenty of gains and losses: the gains can be mainly measured in the 56 pounds I've put on (a rather horrid side effect of working from home, like seeing the refrigerator as an extension of my gob), and the losses have been mainly my poems and my time. As I lie on sagging sofa or our dog-chewed bed I am perplexed by this consideration that there may well be some perverse relationship between time, weight and writing. Still, I'm suitably encouraged for this week's publishing bonanza, as we expect of our latest anthology, A Room To Live In, edited by Tamar Yoseloff, to arrive on Thursday just before we head off to London to coordinate the evening's readings and hopefully have some fun. Fun has been in short measure this year, it's all been about dull Jack and his labours, and here we are at the end of November 80 titles in to things and feeling, well, quite exhausted really. The sales growth looks good, and heaven knows I spend enough time checking the figures every hour of every day; but, even with the fillip of improving sales and profits, nothing quite takes the sting out of not writing. No one will take much comfort in remembering my lifetime's contribution to ecommerce, or ONIX bibliographic messaging, still less for XML workflows or document type definitions. I spent my thirties having several splendid mid-life crises, quiet English ones of course, but now I'm in my forties it seems ludicrously repetitive to go through such endearing pursuits again. Where next, and how? I like the idea of some louche departure except I keep getting professionalized by my peers, drawn into being all grown up and adult about writing, when most of the impulses are actually transgressive and dissenting. It is, after all, best to be naughty in life. I've missed my last four birthdays, so I'm extending this one for a few days, and I shall return to feeling guilty about late books and launches, new publicity initiatives and dawn 'til dusk marketing on Monday. Or Tuesday, perhaps.

Currently listening : Mozart: The Violin Concertos; Sinfonia Concertante By Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Release date: 08 November, 2005

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Chapter 5: The Gnashing of St. Worthless's
Current mood: lethargic
Category: Writing and Poetry

5

The Gnashing of St. Worthless's

The wolves were on the move, clanking around the town, snatching at anything on two legs which resembled a school child, their hissing boilers blew steam from haunches and knees and paws, flakes of rusting iron fell from their bodies as they prowled, and every few minutes they raised their truck-sized heads into the cool breeze to howl, sending surging walls of sound across Toils Bay to echo back from the cliffs.

The streets of Blebsbury were broken behind them: cars burst and crushed, lampposts twisted, trees snapped in two. The pack was sniffing every roof, checking for something, and as the screams emanated from each dormer window, the great beasts tore off the tiles and peered in to see who had been dreaming the night before; who had been dreaming among the toys and comics and games consoles, now cringing in their jim jams below the dripping jaws.

* * *

All through the morning van loads of journalists had been pouring in to film the invasion. Sandy Bucksford had been on air for five minutes reporting the latest position of the wolf pack, when a rusty set of fangs had descended on to the nation's television screens and nipped off his head. There had even been a plume of blood. The anchorman had looked a little peeved, chewed his lips, rolled his eyes and moved on to the weather. More rain was coming.

Major Hugo Tweed was sat in the Blebsbury Police Headquarters; after dodging through the reporters and their cameras and cables, he had driven around the iron beasts in his mud spattered Defender and was now sat holding an ornate china cup to his enormous pink lips, blowing intricate ripples across his Earl Grey tea. He oozed self-sufficiency and stoic refinement.

In front of him, pacing wildly, was Alfie Skinner, the Chief Constable. Every inch of his four foot frame was clad in creaking black leather. In his gloved hands he twisted a black riding crop which he sporadically cracked on his thighs as he stomped about the office, huffing and puffing.

All about them were portraits of South American dictators and on Skinner's preposterously large mahogany desk stood the black marble bust of his own countenance, nose in the air, as if about to call the ranks of his officers to attack the muddled people of Blebsbury. Something he had long wished to do.

"You know, Hugo, there's an opportunity to be seized here, an opportunity to make some money."

"I can't imagine."

"Let these wolves soften up the rabble and we could have a field day here."

"I simply can't imagine."

"In fact, if we can somehow harness these bloomin' animals, maybe we can take control of the whole caboodle. Maybe we can use them, Hugo."

"Well, if you must."

"Hugo, we could take over everything. Every single thing. Think about it, every citizen in chains, under surveillance, tagged and swabbed, and in the database. We could have identity cards brought in! We could shoot the buggers if they don't toe the line!

"Alfie, you have that now, thanks to the P.M., you can shoot any civilian you like, you don't even have to say you're sorry. I think what you really want is the appreciation of the community."

"Eh?" Alfie choked.

"The appreciation, Alfie, drawn from their consolidated savings and investments resting in your bank account. And mine, of course."

"Genius, Hugo. By the way, Eva mentioned Myrtle had turned seven today?"

"I think she has, yes."

"We'd better get her somewhere safely out of town. The rest of the sprogs can take their chances with the iron snappers. I'll send a few of the boys over"

"It's all taken care of, Alfie. I've sent a few squaddies to pick her up. We've commandeered Scumble's house on the cliff top to set up HQ."

"Good, good. Now then, let's plan how we get these stinking rust buckets to obey the law and stop eating all the bloomin' assets."

"Leashes, Alfie. We need very large leashes."

"Or what they want," whispered Alfie.

"What they want?"

"Yerrsss. What do they want?"

"Children, I rather think."

"Yerrsss, I mean, no. There's something else. Something else."

* * *

Vic and Sanjit were bundling sack after sack of Gussy Ponies into their camouflaged Landrover. Stood beside them on the cracked pavement, arms crossed and face filled with cake, was Myrtle Tweed. She looked positively incensed at the turn of events, her Great Day disrupted by child crunching mutts.

The wolves had already passed by, leaving the house and Myrtle untouched. However, Eva Tweed had fainted on top of the Aga just as the first pneumatic paw had crashed down on her Audi coupé leaving less vorsprung but plenty of technik spread across the lawn. She was now slumped in the passenger seat of the military off-roader, wrapped in a cashmere shawl.

As far as Vic and Sanjit could tell, every house in the street had had its roof torn off and the pavements were littered with blue teddies, yoghurt cartons, cheese strings and the plastic muscled torsos of some toy military has-beens pressed into the gravel.

* * *

Not more than five streets away from Myrtle's grimace, the wolf pack had circled around St Worthless's. They were standing tall above the trees, beside the recycling bins, next to the boiler house, from their fangs hung pairs of trainers and the odd school cardigan. Wave after wave of the school run was being munched. Large 4×4s were swooping down the street, driven by grizzled, half asleep and conspicuously uninformed Blebsbury mothers. Each in turn bumped up the kerbs and park criss-crossed on the muddy verges, bringing Reception, Year One and Year Two to their rather tricky ends, and along with them, came the snorting, coughing, sticky members of Miss Timple's class, wiping their noses on their anorak sleeves before walking into the dark rusty entrances they found positioned before them.

The wolves were gnashing their way through the every class, and each uncombed mother was simply driving up with dish after dish of delicious children, all individually wrapped. It was a simply marvellous meal.

As the children waved goodbye, car doors slammed shut and the automatic mothers swung away, bouncing down the kerbs, completely oblivious of the abbreviated morning lesson their offspring had just learnt. Off they went, diesels sputtering and weaving through the street, heading back to fresh pots of coffee, OK magazine, and the latest day time news. However, news was increasingly in short supply as the headless reporters lay before their crews on the outskirts of Blebsbury. Fewer and fewer journalists were prepared to make the journey from war torn global hotspots to the certainty of headless headline news in the wolf capital of Europe, they'd rather take their chances with the Christian militias.

* * *

"'Ow exactly did you escape 'em, Sweetheart?" asked Vic.

"I didn't," said Mytle crossly. "Where's my cake? Have you eaten it?"

"I wouldn't dream of eating yer cake, Darlin'. I think yer've 'ad most of it, and yer wearing the rest."

"Tell you what, innit" added Sanjit. "Bet you never dreamt all yer mates would be eaten by wolves, innit?"

"I never dream," scoffed Myrtle. "You don't need to dream when you have everything. You'd better have picked up the party bags, too."

"We did, Darlin', but I don't fink anyone's coming to yer Birfday party now."

"Well, not in one piece, innit."

The two squaddies laughed, and Vic slammed his foot to the floor and sped on, over the speed bumps and debris, along the empty roofless streets.

Eva Tweed stared blankly ahead beside her daughter in the bouncing old Defender as it growled and grinded it's way through the smashed suburbs, past tattered drives filled with smashed tiles, on and on, whizzing through the bleached, decrepit estates and their boarded concrete precincts (complete with marine insignia), and finally, out past the first drowsy farms and up and up towards the purple hills beyond the white carvings of the pack towards Vincent 'Gully' Scumble's cliff top studios where the hysterical theatre of painting had been replaced by a hysterical brigade of crack commandos.

Below them, the town was turning slowly into some vast mincing machine. Suitable only for dreamless, cake-filled daughters, thought Eva, as the car drew up beside a fleet of olive and sand coloured troop carriers. All consideration of worldly goods and children's parties had faded with the momentous flattening of her Audi. Eva merely opened and closed her mouth like a resolute fish out of water. A cashmere wrapped fish filled with half thoughts, but a fish all the same.

* * *

"Don't touch the canvases," cautioned Vincent as Eva and Myrtle stepped wide-eyed through the door. He was looking ashen-faced and unusually paint-free, even his hair was groomed. Nevertheless, for the first time in years, Vincent looked quite genuinely possessed, inwardly vexed, as he busied himself along the corridor past the backpacks, grenades and mortars and submachine guns into the lounge where several dozen commandos, face-painted, sweating, swollen commandos, were back-slapping each other and singing songs:

'Gully' Scumble's in the Jungle

Eating mango stew,

Wearing leeches out of reach his

Face a purple hue.

Vincent was oblivious of the mockery as he left Eva and Myrtle to the screaming charms of Sergeant Sudge, whose face looked like a sullen limpet.

Vincent was lost to a fresh imaginary world of moving images, sound and vision. His recent forays into Blebsbury had made his surging storm canvases seem rather dull and silly in the face of real metal monsters, chomping everyone who stood in their way. Vincent was artistically in transition, swirling between boiling kettles and fetching pots of tea and Bourbon biscuits, he had already begun to plan his next London show; it was to be an extravaganza of desolation using juddering video installations. He was shifting allegiance from Neolithic wolf carvings and seascapes to films of blasted townsfolk, their roofless homes, and especially their disappearing children, swallowed whole and lying deep in the bellies of the wolf pack. It would be metaphor for triumphal unfettered capitalism. Though he'd need to brush up on politics he felt, to achieve the full effect. For Vincent, politics was the dog on the lead of aesthetics.

He imagined filming towering images of angular red buildings in a black and yellow urban waste, bent and twisted cars were spewing their suburban cargoes of children into a sky filled with automatic jaws. In his mind, great crescendos of violins and tympani rose like thirty foot waves in the bay and he saw the iron paraphernalia of wolf intestines like some vast network of dank tunnels, gradually filling up the camera, and all living creatures swallowed up, peering and leering in the dripping salt-washed interior of the wolves, a rusting eternal prison caught for the Turner prize, or at the very least a garret-clearing purchase by Saatchi. He was made.

Vincent saw images of thousands of tiny schoolchildren (extras from Clumpsford, given the dwindling numbers in Blebsbury) blindly stumbling through the interior chambers of the wolves, lost, searching through their strange dream journey, moving from metal tunnel to tunnel, until they finally came upon the very heart of the wolf world, a dark ruby barnacled heart, pumping and pumping and pumping great sluices of sea water through wolf artery and wolf vein, filling the screen with immense roaring torrents drowning out any orchestral score, and with it all thought of trivial beauty and solace. The children could no longer hear their dreams, and were transfixed in the raging blood flow of the wolf's purpose. It would loop endlessly in the white chamber of some Cork Street gallery.

"Where's the bloomin' tea 'n' cake, you paint snorting smearer," came a shout from the conservatory.

"Just coming, Sergeant Sudge," shouted Vincent, mentally seeing the grainy footage flicker across the walls of his studio.

Yes, painted purple seascapes were definitely out. He needed a mountain of video footage, of moving crimson, ferrous colours, colours of the deepest metal night; a lit up world of this blind dream, where the colours of gluttonous wolves and vengeance could be cast upon a thirty foot white wall, along with Vincent Scumble's name and biography, in a small Perspex box, stuck waist high for the London art scene to bend and peer at. He'd bring Dorothy and Sylvia to the opening first night, for old time's sake, but also to gloat at the transformation from subsidised middle class seaside art mart, to latest Brit art icon in a single selling season. South Bank here I come, thought Vincent.

* * *

Hunched above the Bourbon biscuits and fruit cake, Sudge had gathered the men about him and was busy briefing the teams on weapons and tactics. It was the very height of military cliché.

"Noose, you'll take the anti-tank missiles and move in North with A team, split up and take positions here and here. Goose, you'll move in West of town with B team and take out the power station."

"Paar stashun, Sarge?"

"They can't eat what they can't see, and we're goin' in at night, Goose."

"Can't I blow sumfin up, Sarge? It ain't a show wivvout some blastin'."

"You blow up the power station, soup brain."

"I fought you said take it out, Sarge?"

"You're not taking it to lunch, you cream cake. That means boom boom, bells and whistles. Ikea everything."

"Ikea everything?" questioned Goose.

"Flat pack the whole lot," said Sudge.

"Sarge," came a whining query.

"Yersss, Noose."

"Why does Goose always get the demolition jobs? I never get ter blow fings up."

"Noose, your teams will isolate and terminate each wolf moving east. Finito Benito. Savvy?"

"Er, why, Sarge?"

"Why what?"

"Ice cream and termite the wharf."

"Noose is stiw a bit deaf from last week's ops, Sarge," confided Goose. "One mortar too many."

There were giggles in the ranks from Vic and Sanjit.

"Gimme strength," Sudge leant in close to Noose's painted sweating face, lifted his chin and howled at the paint-spattered ceiling, then drew his forefinger slowly across his throat. "Understand?"

Noose looked blankly at the ceiling, then lowered his eyes and slowly opened his scarred charcoal-coloured lips to show three tiny teeth in a wild maniacal grin of recognition. "Sorted, Sarge."

Right, thought Sergeant Sudge; Noosed and Goosed.

Currently listening : Come to Daddy EP By Aphex Twin Release date: 21 October, 1997

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The Naming Convention
Current mood: giggly
Category: Writing and Poetry

The Naming Convention

The vinyl chairs are empty. Each wears
an arse print, like a ram's head, fading.

The canteen fills with the musk of lamb.
Music falls around us like a suit of ash.

The ninth presentation suddenly begins
with a heart singing to its daylight corpse.

The muddy congregation also sing
like macaques in the brilliant canopy.

Our mouths are tunnels into this auditorium.
Our eyes are watches from Changi airport.

Each speech opens with gold tigers
and pink lakes; a sunset of yellow spiders.

The klaxon yawns its head off
suddenly reciting honoraria to the night shift.

The corridors fill with gartered youths.
We fail at a wall of doors, slamming them

this way and that, banging them shut
at the start of our naming convention.

Everyone applauds. Above each exit,
the signs say IMPEDIMENTA with a green smile.

We begin waltzing, corkscrewing ribbons
in decaying light. News has spread

of the congress of Ernesto and Christina,
splayed out in the server room

polishing the lino with their tireless love play.
We imagine the moisture in red

tributaries, those interlacing greasy limbs,
those salty ears, the tidal gums and no teeth.

Currently listening : Joshua Bell ~ Sibelius · Goldmark - Violin Concertos / Los Angeles Philharmonic · Salonen By Jean Sibelius Release date: 22 August, 2000

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Happy Snapping Challenge
Current mood: weird
Category: Art and Photography

It's a Bank Holiday Monday here in the UK and it's not letting us down — rain, and lots of it, some of it coming through our roof as an extra bonus.

But here's something to brighten things up — we at Salt have a new, exciting challenge for you. And the reward? Certain fame!

What we'd like you to do is send us a photo or a short MPEG video (max 30 seconds) of you with a Salt book or Salt author in an interesting location, or indeed, in your normal location which will, no doubt, be interesting to the rest of us. Rather cheesy, I know, but what the heck. We'll post entries on the Salt website and Salt's MySpace. Send them to images@saltpublishing.com

Go on, get a clickin!

Currently listening : Ma Fleur By The Cinematic Orchestra Release date: 17 May, 2007

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Chapter 4: The Howling
Current mood: hungry
Category: Writing and Poetry

4

The Howling

Imagine if you will the life of the wolf. For centuries he has been persecuted, driven from copse, salt marsh and moorland, by arrow and pike and fire. From the rich grey machine of his furred body his howls have entered the dreams of men. His fangs have shone in their nightmares, too, glistening in red jowls, below a furrowed snout, snapping and snapping. Like a thin vapour or shadow his shape held men in terror in the chill fogs and coastal mists of England. But year by year, men encroached upon his hunting grounds, until the wolf's claws fetched upon the skulls of his own cubs, and he ate his children to survive the lean winters. Then with stags and boars and bears, he was driven from the great woods and coarse farmers cleared the valleys to sow their winter barley. Each passing season, through the warring centuries, the forests grew smaller and smaller, until only a few wolves were left. These final raving animals, so fuelled with hate for all mankind, were hunted for sport. Their skins would be hoisted like tattered flags. Their species was all but gone.

Now imagine that in the forge of the wolf's heart there was a rage so intense, so fuelled by justice and retribution that it turned the wolf's eyes into orange flames, turned his very skin into flames of rust red fur, and he steeled himself to survive, to survive at all costs and so marched into the ocean to sink into the briny waters at the edges of the world to wait for a new millennium, for an age where he could return and seek revenge. Where he could snatch the human children and feed upon their dreams. He would populate the coastal plains again and drive men into the forests of their decaying industry and pin them there forever.

* * *

Albert had had a long day at the office; he had rushed from desk to desk to ensure that The Procedure was put in motion. The Planning Administration's greatest weapon was speed of execution, though normally this was the sheer length of time it took to make any decision, a veritable age that took its toll on the ignorant citizen, laying waste to most endeavours. If a job could take an hour, then it must take a week. If a problem with a garden shed or lean-to could be solved with a simple phone call, then Town Planners should take a month to make it, and only to determine a period of wide consultation. This was all part of The Procedure, established over centuries for the benefit of each successive administration.

But today had been exhausting; starting with Form 244, before his morning tea and crumpets, he had initiated a court action preventing the erection of temporary domiciles without appropriate County-wide notice period; he had filled out, in triplicate, Form 88C, seeking the action of the town bailiffs to remove discarded farm machinery from common land and permitted paths. He had trudged from floor to floor, from great wooden door to great wooden door and had hammered on the scuffed gloss magnolia of each one. He had entered every panelled, musty room to relate the outrageous details of the scrap iron wolf to each officer and official.

But perhaps the most important deed of the day had been to commence proceedings against his colleagues in Arts Administration, taking out an injunction against the construction of creative installations which encroached upon public highways; the wolf was, put simply, illegally parked, and Arts must be to blame.

All this, he felt, would ensure that the proper focus was brought to bear among the Town's Councillors including the Mayor, Betty Bundle—to discover the perpetrators and bring them to justice, or at least to burbling submission. But most of all, he wanted the huge iron crate removed, so that he could complete the sale of Number 13 Bulmer Street and retire to sunny Clumpsford, just fourteen miles along the coast, in a trim little plot with a Windermere caravan ready and waiting for occupation. The gnomes were safely packed, and tomorrow the Bailiff, the Council Refuse Collectors and the Traffic Wardens would turn up and begin their jobs and that would be that.

He gulped his cocoa and peered across at Mabel. She had not spoken all evening; she was sat bolt upright motionless in her chair, positioned at the window, curtains open on to the black winds and sodium lights. Her hair stood out in spiky grey clumps, her mouth was hanging open and her eyes looked like two tin pie dishes with the crusts still on them.

* * *

Myrtle Tweed began another long vigil through the night. Tomorrow was her Great Day; presents had been arriving in large brown parcels and the children at St. Worthless's Primary had all been primed to make their way to Sasha's Bingo Hall for an afternoon of dancing, puppetry, cake eating, dressing-up and of course the tumultuous 80 decibel screaming competition: only girls allowed.

Yes, it was all prepared, but tonight she would remain dreamless, for her eyes were staring into a golden future, a future peppered with pink Gussy Ponies and, more importantly, a permanent green fog of jealousy for Bony Bridget in Miss Timple's class.

* * *

Once again the rains pelted the town, the earth rocked and gasped beneath the sluices of the streets. The purple and blue hours passed and clouds swirled like murky grey bath waters emptied down the plug hole of Toils Bay. Had we been standing on Gun Hill we would have seen green flashes and lightning staggering its way from zenith to turbulent seas. Vincent would have had a scene so terrifically full of electric weather he would have had a heart attack flinging himself at his canvases.

Within it all, beneath the booming winds, the tolling bells and the bursting esplanade, there was another peculiar, haunting sound. It was almost like a scream of pain. The howling had begun, and if we had listened carefully, we could have heard the clanking and grinding of great iron limbs, surging through the waves, reaching and struggling from the smashing tides onto the beach and could have heard the steady metal progress of the monsters as they began their climb up the huge cliffs of yammering birds and seen them cut their path across the Neolithic carvings towards the sleeping town and its ignorant inhabitants. By morning, as the lemon skies opened over the silver bay, they would be standing like giant sentinels at every entrance and exit.

* * *

And so it was. The pack had arrived. Albert Crudmeyer, a little tired and stressed, pulled on his beige overcoat and did up the tortoise-shell buttons. He stuffed the last crust of toast into his mouth and reached for his car keys next to the brass starburst mirror. He opened the door a little gingerly and saw the great rusted paw still in situ beside the silted roof of his Escort. His eyes tightened in his face, and then he saw, just over the rooftops in Gusset Lane another rusting dredger, hanging in the air. His eyes nearly came out of his head and he choked on a crumb. He rushed out, throwing up his arms, his briefcase and his copy of The Messenger, papers burst into the air and drifted up in a cloud of official ink before catching the wind and drifting down the hill.

Albert spun round and round and round, and at every point on the horizon; all he could see were giant angular rusting frames. Frozen and suddenly menacing, he began to doubt the ability of the Arts Administration to arrange this. This, it seemed to Albert, was something else entirely. He looked back over his shoulder, and there in the window was the terrified head of Mabel, like a grey sunflower perished on its stalk. Her mouth open, her eyes swivelled towards Albert. He could just make out the last two words. The dead.

He stumbled out to the car, kicking papers to left and right and stood beneath the formidable head, shaking his fist. Suddenly, without warning the giant head sprang to life, the red eyes glowed and the long snout bent downwards, bit Albert in two and snapped back into position. Albert's legs crumpled and fell over on the pavement; the shoelaces on his brogues were tied in neat double knots, just in case they came loose on his feet, which they never would again.

It was in this manner that mad Mabel Crudmeyer learnt that where disasters were concerned prophecy always takes precedence over procedure.

* * *

At half past nine, the Refuse Collectors arrived to clear the street, they had six wagons with giant wire-framed trailers in tow, stinking and spewing out old bean tins and shards of smashed bottles. Their route had been blocked on several occasions by lengthy traffic jams and it had been difficult to see any way forward. Nevertheless they had been briefed by the Guvnor to get the job done and were all primed to clear the first great wreck of wolfish art, and so they had motored down every rat run and smashed through every alley to make their way to the scene of the illegal dumping outside Albert Crudmeyer's home.

Close behind them a dozen Traffic Wardens were lurching through the parked cars of Dulcy Street and Hard Lane, they were checking every tyre to make sure that none were touching the kerbside, checking every permit to ensure it was correctly displayed on the left hand side of each windscreen; their ticket pads were held before them like a reason to live, which in each officer's case was entirely true.

Suddenly a white van coughed and spluttered into view and battled its way up the hill, its rusting wing mirrors were smashed and bent, its windscreen bore a sun visor stating criminal intent in giant orange letters. It rocked and bounced up the pavement and came to a stop, perched between the plane trees, halfway up the pavement. Out of its rear doors burst out a group of men the size of chest freezers, dressed in black bomber jackets and tight black jeans. Their boots were laced up to their kneecaps and on each left toe was painted debt and on the right, collector. Their shaved heads bristled in the sun, and from their ranks, a towering ogre of a man pushed forward and snapped off his glasses to stare about the scene, on his glistening jacket was embroidered bailiff in pink threads with little silver sequins.

Each group had arrived at Number 13 at exactly the same moment and here they gathered in a formidable circle to stare at the pair of bloody legs in the gutter, with their neat shoes and double bows. This was certainly not an everyday occurrence. They stood with empty faces and blinked at each other, and then with a chiming and clanking of great chains and a hiss of deep boilers, the metal frame above them shuddered and sprang into life. Snicker snack! Snip! Crunch! In a few gulps the men were gone and the street was free from further assaults from the municipal forces of the Town Council.

* * *

"Have you got the telly changer?" shouted Oscar, as he squeezed in beside the Formica breakfast bar, peppered with cigarette burns and circles of tomato sauce.

"I've not, love, no," replied Nancy from the shower.

"Local news sez there's been some kerfuffle or sommint, up at Spotty's place I fink. I can't mek it out."

"Turn up the volume, Love."

Oscar grimaced at the thought of having to move again, especially to change the telly, but he stretched up and tapped the box to see the blue volume bar inch its way to the right of the screen and the commentary grew louder.

". . . his laces had been neatly tied. Commander Alf Skinner, said there was no apparent motive for the attack, and is asking people to keep an eye out for anything suspicious."

Oscar coughed into his mug of tea. "What does he think the blinkin' wolf is?"

"What does it say, Petal?" shouted Nancy.

"Sommint's gone down at Spotty's and Alfie Skinner wants us to look out fer anyfin' suspicious-like."

"The soggy-brained trout! Is he blind or 'as 'e bin on the razzle agin?"

The telly showed a spinning blue globe; portentous percussion and sawing cellos announced a recap of the main headlines.

"The news today, with Ivor Thomas and Trudy Haines," the box bellowed. "Gabby Rusford, Minister for Arts, has declared that fish are the future of the nation's cultural identity. In Asia, the war in Turkmenistan has seen government forces take control of the country's oil refineries near Ashgabat; the Prime Minister has offered to invade. And in Blebsford, site of Neolithic carvings and fish paste production, an unidentified terrorist arts group has unleashed several Wolves of Mass Destruction. The town's inhabitants are being asked to stay indoors, whilst the army is recalled from manoeuvres to take control of the situation."

Oscar looked vacantly at the screen and considered the ramifications; he tugged his white beard and reached for his dentures.

"Nance."

"Yes, Gorgeous."

"Dry yer beehive and fetch yer 'elmet. We're goin' 'untin'."

"'Untin'? It's bin banned, Chuck. The dogs have all bin let loose on't moors."

"I know, Darlin', but we're not 'untin' foxes. We're goin' after wolves, Nance, there's a whole pack of the iron chompers loose on the streets."

Currently reading : The World Doesn't End By Charles Simic Release date: 14 March, 1989

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More Storm Wolf shortly, here's an office poem
Current mood: busy
Category: Writing and Poetry

The Copier

Please welcome to the land of pins.
We have no room for disgrace here.
Songs die. The Board find that their sins
are reproduced without despair.

The copier's dead and Grimshaw
has his belly out parading
round the stinky vents, counting raw
childhoods with gas men. That's the thing

about gas men, they creep inside
these bouyant offices and hide
and fart like some fat Pekinese
or council Buddha on his knees

still fastened to the LCD
while we wait for toner to melt.
Years crawl in and steal our lazy
circulars, leaving us this felt

maze and the pension fund with its
wounded fountain at the centre.
We are its suited spirochetes
yearning for the cash of grammar.

The machine slams its carcass back
and forth to sew this shiny crack
as it matriculates and peels
each career with exhausted gills.

Its sighs stack up the anecdotes
of the third floor and car parking.
All day it defecates and notes
our wisdom in smears like a king

or spy whose quack philosophy
and sentenceless grey garrison
emit the creak of memory.
We know fate is repetition.

Grimshaw tucks his pubes in smartish
as the diatribe resumes. "Wait
for it to clear," he says. His wish
duplicates. We are all too late.

Currently reading : The Voice at 3:00 A.M.: Selected Late and New Poems By Charles Simic Release date: March, 2006

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Chapter 3: The Arts Administration
Current mood: dirty
Category: Writing and Poetry

3

The Arts Administration

Over in the lime and tangerine offices of D wing, on the upper levels of the great flint and granite building of the Town Hall, Dorothy Abena Dansoa Ndugu and Slyvia Khan were thumbing through the latest issue of Art Smash. Together they were responsible for the town gallery, theatre, library and dusty folk museum, as well as every community initiative involving dance, drama and crotchet. Besides these great responsibilities, which they administered with stupendous generosity—quite literally flinging money at the troops—they were also responsible for more than two dozen writers and nearly thirty painters and sculptors, and each one of them, it seemed to them both, was completely insane, especially the poets.

Flicking through full page photos of Hungarian Ballet in Barnsley and Thai Duck Painting from Stoke, Dorothy came upon the latest news from Government. The Minister, Art Smash reported, had declared that there was to be a new Whitehall initiative, a vibrant thrust for today's coastal arts communities and their administrators. Dorothy's eyes narrowed. Today's issues were less about 'community' or the 'hydrogen economy' and more about fish stocks and fish derivatives.

"Fish stocks," scoffed Dorothy. "Are we back to soup metaphors again?" "Oh my gawd," said Sylvia. "Imagine the creative consommé of youth culture." "The British broth of the built environment," said Dorothy. They both giggled at the thought of further examples on the subject of whelks and salmon paste sarnies.

The article went on; fish, it was deemed, were to be considered an important part of the nation's heritage and as such it was felt that artists should be strongly encouraged to generate stage works, musicals and installations which carried forward the positive imagery of fish in all aspects of contemporary society. Fish were in; hydrogen was out.

On the desk in front of them, their black steel in-trays dully shone. Desk pads showed irate squiggles around key dates in the arts thrust of the office. Tuesday's karaoke at the Dun Pig was highlighted in gaudy blue as a Community Realisation Event, or CRE. The Wednesday night bingo at Sasha's was circled as an Arts Totality Event. But by combining the two, the people of Blebsbury would "create" (the two would paint quote marks in the air to stress this point) a new experience of their future, allowing them to fully participate in the life of the town, with the opportunity to innovate and fully realise their unique potential.

At least, that was what they had written in their January Marketing Plan, which had been approved by central office, along with its two million pound budget. Now it was all going to go on bloody fish.

* * *

The phone rang and the caller display announced crumpmeyer on line three. "Oh no, it's Spotty, Dot."

"Don't pick it up," she yelled.

"I'll have to or he'll pop across and talk about his blinkin' retirement do and I'm not going to that."

Sylvia picked up the phone which immediately squawked and barked in the air. "Flipping heck, Albert, turn the volume down, please!" shouted Sylvia. She pushed the handset under her ear, held it in place with a hunched shoulder and began to pick the skin around her inch-long fingernails. Her eyes were rolling like golf balls in her thin face.

"No, we are not living in Toyland, Albert. No, we do not enjoy arts anarchy; I bloody wish! Yes, we do plan and consult on all public sculpture and every installation." She suddenly stopped picking at her cuticles and went silent, staring wide-eyed at Dorothy.

"Pardon me?" she said. "A wolf? What, like a big hairy dog thing? Where? How large? No, it flipping wasn't us, Albert."

The phone went down with a bang and Sylvia rushed across to the chrome hat stand to grab her shawl and the purple bobble hat, complete with large woollen dreadlocks. "Come on, Dot," she said. "We've got to see this."

* * *

Out on the cobbled square with its diamond shaped patterns the two Arts Administrators stood together. Sylvia looked like an equatorial flower with her crimson miniskirt and green and black polka dot stockings, her silver shawl and, of course, her purple bobble hat, complete with large woollen dreadlocks. Dorothy offered an altogether different fashion experience for the people of Blebsbury, with her voluminous Ghanaian dress she had the appearance of a colossal trifle. She wore a gold pill box hat and shoes like coal scuttles. But for now the 'Dynamic Duo', as the rest of the Town Council knew them, were standing in dumbstruck silence, like security guards in the white halls of the town gallery.

There above them on Bulmer Street peering down over the flats and aerials was the dripping wreckage of some fantastic public art. It was simply too good to be true. Anarchy had truly come to Blebsbury and it had ten foot jaws and four paws.

"I can't believe it," said Dorothy. "It's simply gorgeous." Now, for Dorothy art was always either gorgeous or totally naff, and the wolf had passed the acid test.

"It's very Anthony Caro. Don't you think?"

"It is. Very."

"Or perhaps a bit Eduardo Paolozzi."

"Yes. A bit Eduardo."

"But more Caro, really."

"Who on earth arranged the installation," said Sylvia. "It must have taken a team of fifty to get that lot into place."

"You don't think it's Vincent, do you?"

"It can't be. I mean, he's a bit, well, provincial, isn't he?"

"Oh I don't know, he's certainly not fish paste, Darling. More a case of sautéed red snapper than cod fillet, I'd say."

"But he's always done those wild seas and tilting mountains and, of course, wolf packs."

"A bit David Bomberg, though."

"Indeed."

"Out of his league?"

"I honestly can't imagine he'd pull this off, but why don't we ask him?"

And so it was decided that a visit to Vincent Scumble was in order, necessary in fact, to establish whether his cliff top studio had been converted from 2o foot oil paintings to welded metalwork, from psychic seascapes and wolf packs with thick impasto, to the stark displacement of industrial rust. They spun around in a cascade of colour and excitement and marched back through the revolving doors of the dour building to grab the chequebook and head for the car park. It was time for some investigation, and some huge creative spending. Art had never been such fun.

* * *

Vincent 'Gully' Scumble, as he preferred to be known, was gazing out to sea through the large plate glass windows of his white studio. All around him were vast piles of pebbles and driftwood, white skulls and plaster of Paris and conch shells. The floor was crusted with great clods of oil paint and the dusty tables were covered with bottles of turpentine and squashed tubes of paint, like a graveyard of creative impulses, or a stage set.

The sea was steel grey, and over it moved sudden brilliant splashes of light, as if the sun had dropped on to the ocean and was skittering across its cool surface like solder on a hot plate. He stood in full theatrical painting mode, ready to explode into activity, ready to hurl great globs of paint against the canvas which hung, already dripping, from the wall. He was dressed head to foot in a white boiler suit, and from his body stuck out great clusters of paint brushes, of all shapes and sizes, as if he had stuffed a large dirty porcupine in every pocket.

He threw back his mane of blonde hair and twisted his head to one side to view the sprawling purple and yellow work which awaited him. Suddenly, and with considerable violence, he hurled a handful of vermillion paint at the wall, it exploded across the scene, and Vincent dived after it with paint brush in hand and scraped another Neolithic wolf into the blistered surface. "Aha!" he bellowed. "There you are!"

At that precise moment, mid-wolf, so to speak, the doorbell rang and Vincent, rather startled, glanced into the mirror and hurriedly rubbed some further paint into his hair, for the drama, of course. He strode down the hall and gazed through the rippled glass of the door at what for a second could have been one of his own canvases. He opened the door, and there stood his greatest benefactors, Dorothy and Sylvia, and his eyes tightened into a suspicious glare.

"How delightful," said Vincent.

"Kiss, kiss," mouthed Dorothy, into the air each side of Vincent's head. "Mwah, mwah," replied Vincent, with similar detachment. Sylvia, rushed forward and placed a great wet smacker right on Vincent's mouth. He drew black spluttering and blinking wildly.

"Darrrling," drawled Sylvia. "I simply had to rush over to congratulate you. It's simply marvellous."

"Er, oh, super! I mean thank you, vewy much. It's weally vewy good of you."

"How did you pull it off, Darling."

Vincent was a little confused with pulling it off, especially given the fact he was usually pouring it on. "I weally just appwoached the pwoblem as I always do. The sea's gweat wage welled up in me, and then, it just happened, wight there on the canvas. Old Wolfy made an appeawance and off I go."

"Excuse me?"

"I scwape them in, ladies. Scwape them in. Savagely, of course."

"We're not talking scrape, Vincent. We're talking scrap. Gorgeous rusting piles of scrap, to be precise."

"Oh weally, and what's that got to do with me; pwecisely?"

"Oh stinking fish paste!" blurted Sylvia. "It's not him."

* * *

After tea and crumpets, and plenty of ecstatic description of welding and rivets, not to mention extremely large sums of money which just had to be spent, Vincent was put in the picture and sat rather dejected as the evidence piled in that he had been upstaged by Arts Anarchists, and that his violent surging canvases were, in fact, rather timid beside a forty-foot high iron wolf.

"It sounds splendid. Weally splendid. In fact, I think I ought to take a peek at the beast myself." The three rose from the sagging sofas and headed out of the studio, waving keys and coats.

Dorothy and Sylvia scrambled into their tiny Fiat, and Vincent squeezed a crash helmet on to his sticky mane, tossed one leg over his 50cc moped and began pedalling down the drive. The little machine popped and gargled into life, and off they all went, on an artistic mission over the chalk hills, past Burke's Farm, over the fords and weirs and down towards Bulmer Street. Neither party made speedy progress, but within a short drive they were parked in the prissy street, with its plane trees and willows, staring up into the white sky with its phenomenal metal monster.

All three lowered their heads together and turned their faces to the right. There, nose pressed to the glass, was Mabel Crudmeyer, looking rather disturbed, mouthing something to them above the crotchet work and knick-knacks.

"What's she saying?" asked Dorothy.

"I can't make it out," said Sylvia.

"She says they're coming for us," added Vincent.

"Who's coming for us?" said Dorothy.

"The dead," said Vincent.

* * *

Back at Room D33, the two administrators sat excitedly fumbling through their Rolodexes, business card after business card tumbled around the black steel hub. "We simply have to find them, Sylvia. We need to find every artist and studio assistant responsible for the creature and fund them to create an entire pack of wolves. They're simply marvellous. Spectacular. Extraordinary. Pity about Vincent, though. He seemed rather rattled by it all, didn't he?"

"Well, he's such a softy, really. Did you see the Cerulean Blue smeared on his head? Quite neatly smeared, I have to say. Anyway, he'll survive; that cheque for five thousand quid seemed to settle him."

The two were furiously flicking at cards.

"How about Percy Latchet, he does metal," burbled Dorothy. "He's sheep, Sweetie, not wolves."

"Alison Topping?"

"She's wire fish, isn't she?"

"Denise Gaffney!"

"Tortoises."

"Oh my gawd, we'll never find them."

"We've got to; the future of Blebsbury is at stake. If we botch this, we'll be doing Gilbert and Sullivan for all eternity." The two bent into the task, spinning contact after contact around the wheel, phones at the ready.

Outside, the sky was beginning to dim, and to the West, purple clouds were forming on the horizon, not unlike Vincent 'Gully' Scumble's magnificent canvases. Small dust piles were whirling around the Square below. Burger cartons and paper bags began to spin around the empty benches, and hung in the air for a moment, before darting sideways like distracted dancers. A second storm was coming in, and with it the answer to Dorothy and Sylvia's creative dreams, and the end to every child's.

Currently listening : OK Computer By Radiohead Release date: 01 July, 1997

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Chapter 2: The Ancient Wolf Pack
Current mood: blank
Category: Writing and Poetry

2

The Ancient Wolf Pack

"Ooh arrghh," yelled Black Bob Tripp, "Aye, arrghh," agreed Ben Kelly. "Oi, hwwarrgh," added Emmelius Budge. "Nuffink!" shouted Mad Dave, and so it went on, and on, all around the waxed oak tables, in front of a crackling log fire with its tar black pots and bellows. The doors had only opened at 6 a.m., and yet the room was already full. Despite the scooters lined up outside, and the early morning lorries swishing along the esplanade, the smoking interior could have been from another century, an age of furled canvas and extraordinary knots, and carved ivory and blubber.

All along the wooden benches of the Dun Pig Inn there were further coughs, a great deal of spitting and much too much oohing and aarrhing, more even than an eighteenth-century schooner could have borne beneath its wind-lashed sails and a year spent chasing whales and pirates. Here they sprawled, slapping the table tops, a dozen ancient sailors, surrounded by the fading pictures of yawls and ketches, and each old tar seated behind glass after glass, pint after pint, of Buster's Best and Gizzard's Rum. The sun had risen, and so the drinking day must surely have begun.

Brown rafters hung low above their bearded faces, and they rocked and slapped the decks of the table with more gusto and fewer teeth each passing hour, though admittedly the teeth weren't being knocked out, but rather had fallen on the table, and lay there on their glistening plates: yellow tombstones on little pink treasure islands. There was nothing to choose between them, really, with their collarless shirts and great red braces, here they sat, the Blebsbury Branch of the Articulate Mariners Association, Eastern Division, and every man jack of them a shocking old faker, just like the Dun Pig itself.

Not a man had been to sea, with the single exception of Mad Dave, who had once spent a season shelling prawns on a boat moored off Spiggot's Cove, but he had been terribly sick every night and had been redeployed to shore work at Fadden's Frozen Food, until he forgot to turn up for a week and was sacked, again. Not one of the roaring pensioners had raised a net nor hoisted a single sail. Yet as Black Bob often remarked, "The navy's in the man, even if the man ain't in the navy." Which kept them all nodding in stern affirmation before another tray of foaming beer arrived in the broad strained hands of Jack Strales, the hirsute landlord of the Dun Pig.

Big Jack banged each beer glass down and placed a dozen polystyrene cups between them, each filled to the brim with shining fat cockles and winkles, all swimming in vinegar. "How's that then, Gentlemen?" bellowed Jack. "Nuffink!" said Mad Dave. "Now then, Mates," shouted Black Bob. "Let's toast the ripest bloomin' landlord the Pig has ever seen!" "He's the only blinkin' landlord the Pig's seen," belched toothless Ben Kelly. "The ol' tax dodger burnt the Pusser's Inn down, an' this place 'as only bin open fer two munffs!" There was sudden silence, until big Jack leaned forward, his belly pushing two men aside, and he winked in agreement. "Hawr, hawr, hawr!" the table guffawed, and the winkles and cockles spilled out beside the tooth picks and ale. "Nuffink!" said Mad Dave, and so the day began, with the welcome embrace of old shipmates, fresh from the Clepp Estate, and with much chewing tobacco and a very great deal of beer.

* * *

In a dark brassy corner of the Dun Pig, Nancy Tunes raised her beehive hair-do, to show her face. It was a vast pancake of a face with flat features and lavish amounts of mascara and rouge. She rolled her eyes upward and scoffed at the old duffers sat beside the fire. She had watched them arrive like giant puddings wrapped in their grey duffle coats, wobbling on their rasping Vespas and Lambrettas, with each scooter bedecked with chrome pipes and mirrors like a plumber's nightmare.

She eyed each portly pensioner intently, but he was not amongst them. The love of her life, Oscar Ludge, had not yet arrived for his morning ablutions. "Oiling the wreckage," he called it, and she would sit and wait for Oscar to appear and hope that this day would finally see him persuaded of her tireless devotion and endless sonic talent as the best pub singer in Blebsbury. But she knew that Oscar was torn between them, torn between Delires Bung, Dizzy Endecot and herself; more than a love triangle, it was an erotic parallelogram, and you can ask your teacher what that means.

Now as it happened, just as Nancy was working through some notes from Too Much Too Young, there was a gargling commotion outside and Oscar wobbled into view, hurtling towards the flint walls like an eighteen stone green knight with a fur hood. His parka was covered in patches and badges, and he wore drainpipe trousers and two-tone shoes with tassels. Oscar was the leader of the Articulate Mariners and was the very best expression of its ethos of drinking days and ska music and eternal resistance to anything, and I mean anything, planned. For Oscar, planning was a sin, and days should proceed through habit and lethargy and cantankerous obstinacy. But today, there was a slightly startled look on Oscar's face, and as he unwrapped his white scarf and pulled off the helmet from under his hood, he looked over his shoulder back up towards Gun Hill and shuddered for a moment before smoothing his beard and hobbling in to the roasting tap room.

"Owright, me ol' Duck," said Nancy.

"Owright, Gorgeous," replied Oscar.

"You looks a bit troubled, Love. Whazzup, Darlin'?"

"Aw, nuffin, Truffles, there's just this great bloomin' wolf thing stood up on the hill. It looks as if Spotty Crudmeyer has gone an' got 'isself a guard dog or summint. Summint big like."

"A wolf?"

"A wolf."

"On the 'ill?"

"Yup, at the top."

"Jes yer normal wolf, like?"

" Well, a bit bigger, really."

"Bigger? In what way bigger?"

"About the size of the Town Hall, actually." Oscar stood looking out of the lead windows, staring across the silver harbour up towards the chalk hills. There, glistening in the morning light, were the great carved outlines of the Blebsbury Wolf Pack. They had been there since Neolithic times and no one knew of their real meaning. They were hunting for something unseen on the mottled hills. No further figures had ever been uncovered, though archaeologists had tried for years to find the prey. Every year the day trippers poured in to eat crab paste sandwiches and wander along the curving lines of haunch, and ribs and jaws.

"A giant wolf," said Nancy.

"An metal one, I fink."

"Aww, a metal one. Right you are, Handsome. Listen, Love, fetch us over a nice Campari an' soda would you, I'm bleedin' parched. I had a bookin' in here last night and had to do thirty renditions of Blank Expression for the bride and groom."

"Right you are, Nancy. Jes let me say 'ello ter the lads and I'll sort that straight."

With that, Oscar waddled over to the great bashing horde of the Mariners and tugged his foot long beard. "Good mornin' girls!" "Haawwr, hawwr, haawwr!" the table bellowed back. "Nuffink!" shouted Mad Dave and glasses were raised and chimed together as Oscar sidled off to the bar to order the largest rum he could.

"Whazzup wiv 'im?" slurred Ben.

"He looks like a slapped haddock," said Black Bob, the town's oldest, oiliest mechanic.

"Reckon he's bin at the funny pills agin," offered Emmelius. The others all nodded.

Oscar turned back from the bar with new found poise and a pint in each hand, one of rum and the other of Campari, with a small turquoise umbrella poking from the top. "Now listen up, girls," he said. "There's summint not quite right in Blebsbury."

"Whazzup, Oscar?" the Mariners questioned.

"I took the Earling Road in this morning."

Nancy winced in the corner, for she knew that Dizzy lived on the Earling Road.

"I took the Earling, right, and there was summint funny en route."

"What?" The boys commanded.

"There's a stonkin' great wolf up there."

"He's definitely bin takin' the funny pills agin," whispered Black Bob.

"There's this wolf, and he's as big as a dredger and none too pretty. He must be made of iron or summint. I don't know if it's Spotty Crudmeyer's idea of art, or wevver it's some leaving gift for his coming departure, but it's up there looking at us and I've got a feelin' that summint's not quite right wiv it."

"Never," whispered Emmelius. "What terrific powers of deduction."

"Nuffink!" added Mad Dave.

"An iron wolf?" queried the rest of the crew, looking rather incredulous. "Well, I never. Has he got Red Riding 'ood wiv 'im?" shouted Cuddles Maloney. The table burst into laughter, and Oscar tugged his beard and wandered out of the front door, letting in a cold draught of salt sea air. One by one, the Mariners stood up, found their sea legs and struggled to the door.

It was a strange sight, there on the esplanade outside the Dun Pig stood the entire crew, great big lumps of men in bizarre dress with the Great Union flag on the back of each one. "There," shouted Oscar, and the crowd looked up and saw, for the first time that day, the enormous wolf, crusted and orange in the daylight.

"Blaahhrdy 'eww!" They all shouted.

* * *

Emmelius had returned from the sharp breeze of the street, leaving the gawping granddads to consider the Wolf. He was the only member of the Articulate Mariners to have no children, which he suspected had helped him to retain his faculties in his dotage, for he was free of any little tykes, and that was how he liked it.

He scraped a stool along the floorboards and sat beside Nancy and her flat Campari. He adjusted his braces, letting his stomach settle onto his knees and stared in front of him, sucking air through his dentures. "No one must find out, Nancy. Not yet. The time's not come fer the pack to ride."

"Look, Emmelius, as long as Oscar's mine after it all, I don't care about the bloomin' pack."

"He's all yours, Love, all yours. By the way, 'ave you always loved 'im?"

"Pretty much, I s'pose. Well, at least since we was at the Tech togevver studying delinquency."

"Delinquency?" said Emmelius.

"We've got degrees in it, Chuck. It was part of the remedial expansion of educational opportunities for the working classes, which the Labour Party forced through parliament in the summer of '96."

"You what?"

"Oscar has a Masters."

"Well, Masters or not, the pack is rising, Nancy and we will need to be vigilant. Very vigilant."

"I'd rather vegetate, Chuck. But don't worry, I know the part I have to play. Tell me, Emmy, how did you come by your name, I've always wanted to know?"

"Well, my real name is Derek, Derek Mullard, an' all frew me school days, such as they were, I was teased for bein' Mullard the Dullard. Soon as I left at thirteen and started workin' at Fadden's shambles, I decided I wanted to 'ave a fresh start in fish paste, so I had me name changed by deed poll to Emmelius Budge. I read a lot of Dickens in those days and I kind of thought that it sounded a bit Great Expectations. You know, Nance, with that name I rose to the rank of Supervisor. Before retirement I was Head of shrimp."

"You chose that name?"

"I certainly did."

"It says a lot."

"It does."

And with that, the two gazed blankly ahead with entirely different impressions of the fact and pondered on the coming changes for the townsfolk of Blebsbury as well as their mysterious pact.

There was a long pause, Nancy lifted her Campari and took a sip.

"This town," she sang wistfully.

"Arr, arr," hummed Emmelius.

"Is comin' like a ghost town," whispered Nancy.

Currently listening : First Impressions of Earth By The Strokes Release date: 03 January, 2006

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