The White Wraith

For all those so inclined, here is my new book, bright and shinny and available to download HERE in an INSTANT! SH.

The First, Again, Because it Sounds Good

A verb. A verb? Don’t scream a verb at me, I wouldn’t know what one was if it grew teeth and decided to bite me on the bottom. Not that a verb should want to do such a thing, from what I hear they are the more quiet, retired and reserved members of the literary world. But saying that one did, in all essence of the suggestion, wanted to sink gnashers into my arse, I would have a jolly firm word to say about it. I Just wouldn’t be entirely sure what that word was. Sure, it all seems like fun, the dreamy sun basking in the bluebell sky, casting lashings of warmth down on your pasty thigh regions. But when push comes to shove, shove comes to picking the bugger up and hurling him off a bloody tall cliff, preferably a white chalk one, just in keeping with the tradition of the damn thing. SH

The First

As it was said, or was not said to me, the world is one man’s blunderbuss as it is another man’s buttered toast. You can try and mix it all together, wield it forth as a sharpened weapon, or if you like it can be enjoyed at your leisure. It needn’t surprise me or you that anything that’s said nowadays can be labeled as genius or complete bollocks. It centrally has nothing whatsoever, a cormorant’s fart on Tuesday, to do with what was said or written, but is graded by what others say back about it. You’re typical tripe is still typically tripe, but the guided in gold legend that is created for it by a plethora of thirteen to fifteen year olds it taken as market standard. I wish I’d had the time to banty on more about this, but I probably will, so lest yourself move away from your cotton trousers for the day, I’ll pick this up another time. Indeed. SH

Opinion.

Opinion. When you take some time to think about opinion you come to think about what it is and who it serves. What good does it do for one person to criticise another, no matter how horrid their actions. Even if there actions be not horrid, maybe trivial or commonplace. What profit does it then feed to compound this by running down an action that in all essence will not do anyone any great harm? Does anyone, and especially those being the subject of it, care about another’s opinion anyway? If they are of a particular thought pattern anyhow, what someone else thinks doesn’t shake them at all, and if anything only strengthens their resolve to continue on just as they are, surely then circumventing the whole intention of an opinion against them. I suppose these examples fit more into the category of critical opinion, since opinion itself does not have to be in essence critical. Although any opinion will almost always be, by some definition, contrary to the thoughts and beliefs of at least one other. People are quite happy to say that they ‘hate’ Justin Beiber, or that they ‘hate’ Lady Gaga. The fact that these people have never met these celebrities seems irrelevant to their qualifications to voice a firm opinion of them, despite the lack of information they have to make have an intelligent one. So to have an opinion about opinion, what does that involve? Is it even possible without opening a wormhole of consciousness in the back of your brain? Who knows. But it’s only my opinion. S.H.

You Suck

The glue, it seeped like molten lava, down the page and onto the floor. Alas, he had done it. My homework was ruined. I was going to be dead. The slimy bastard, his nose so high and ugly told tales of perceived excellence, just stood there with a mask of innocence slapped there on his face. If I were a buzzard, or a tiger perhaps, or even a mouse, anything with claws enough to be used I would have ripped that mask and skin with it too clean of that putrid little skull. His thinness bothered me. His shadow bothered me. His presence bothered me. There was nothing I could do. S.H.

The Bullet

When will that elusive one turn up, when will that gun be fired and the bullet caught between the teeth? Lord, the government and the guy who works at the supermarket only knows. I’m sure they don’t really, but saying it makes me feel better. A long time spent on a short trip, that’s what it feels like, the long way round to the shops. Three times. Make that four. And then you forget to buy the tea bags, so you have to go back. Twice. Oh life what twisted fun you must be having with us all. Glad you’re enjoying yourself, leave the back door unlocked for me, would you? Thanks, you’re a star. SH.

Huffington Post and Self Promotion

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/neil-ayres/how-well-do-we-really-wan_b_1281507.html?ref=uk-culture I think to stick out from the crowd in literature does not require the public to KNOW you, but to KNOW OF you.

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Totally forgot what I was going to say ... There I was, all excited to get words down on screen and POOF! It's gone. Never mind, all will come back to me. It always does in the end.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

It seems that Keira Knightly may have been blissfully dragged into a decent film role for once. Given her previous choices and track record it looks like Steve Carell might just have pulled off the impossible and put her on the road to a good'un. Check out the trailer and let me know what you think. Toodle pip!

Get up you useless waste of - oh, mother, it's you ...

Drip off, take shelter, walk along, just ride. Why he decided to utter those four strange two word phrases at that particular time was a bridge too far for my meagre comprehension to wrap around at such an early hour in the morning. And by early I mean 11 am. And by 11 am I mean 11 AM! It's funny how sleep seems to take on a rather tragic character when you forget to meet him after work for drinks. He gets annoyed. Sleep would rather you met him, on time (or near enough) in all your splendour (or lack there of) and when the sun doth shine, precisely EACH and EVERY night. When you miss an appointment he’s been known to shake his head in fettered pity and sprinkle out simple words into your ears like ‘pleb’ and ‘tool’, just when you were thinking of getting to know the guy again. SH.

Sky

He threw his hands up high in the air, as if trying to hold the sky in place. SH.

Blank

His face was blank; a colourless poster, a starless night sky.

Lost Tweet

This is from a tweet I twittered earlier in the year. I don’t know what I was on when I wrote it, but whatever it was I clearly need to find some more!

Under the darkest moon,
Beneath the smouldering leaves,
The grasses burning in snow,
Wrapped by feathered sheet,
She sleeps in a frigid bed.
S.H.

Captain’s Speech

I hereby declare, for all those fettered and not, to go among the sun on this of all the days, to seek their tidings, to grasp their glories, and to reach into the abyss of all that was hence before unknown. Yorkshire follower make yourself known, to the skies, to the trees, to the trampled grass that lays in wait for battles of far off days. The paths you tread now are worn to the bone of the earth by those within thousands of years past by, their victories no less potent in the hearts of us all than those which you forge each day to the next, a lift of your hand like the lift of their sword. Let the bleak day come and have it cast away like sea water spattering off your bow, a luckless thing of ash and ruin. Today let you be free, free to seek what tries so desperately to hide from your ever weary eyes, what has outrun your fingertips like the stag from the hunter’s bow. Lest this day be forgotten, and forever will it be remembered, in the tails of old and the songs of children, this is the day we take the air back, the space we dwell within, and keep it there until and ever again we may be needed to snatch it back from whichever daemons’ foul grip. S.H.

The Hero Walks

A gentle walk across a sparking bridge. The trees leaning over the banks like nosy neighbours gave a shuffle, as if they were quickly trying to change their position while I wasn’t looking. I gave them roughly three more seconds of my suspicion before my path began to openly crave my attention. The Sun was falling towards the western hills and kicking its last few rays across the freshly showered bridge, the stones like glass that had been stained with bronzed and coal colours, all mixed around with a painters brush. The river ran, as fast as it could, below my feet, fleeing, it seemed to me, a deathly foe placed higher up and deeply set in the mountains. S.H.

Help, I'm going to be sick.

Help! HELP! I'm going to be sick! This I said, I screamed, internally, old people next to me snogging. On the Tube platform, crowded and buzzing, they latched onto each other like great octopus tentacles round a stray fish. I had to, so horribly, my stomach pitched and rolled so, look back three times, and still they were there, in frozen and horrendous still life. Public is no place for such a thing to be displayed, and certainly not so close to me, in a place so public, by two people nearly twice my age. No prudish thoughts are in my mind, I can assure all of that, but this was truly creepy. Sorry, but I can't write any more about it, the longer I do, the longer my dinner has to plan to reacquaint itself with the light of day.

The Deepening Fog Pt. 3

The kill had been sloppy, I'd known it, but it had been so long since I had had to use any of those skills, any of that training, that I just did it. But I would have to refine things from now on, I knew that, and hope my first slip up was my last. If I was to find her again, there was nothing that could go wrong, it had to run like machinery, every time, when I had to, I had to do it right. A blackening tinge began to fill the edges of my view, and I wondered if I should again chance another rest. But as I ran on the darkness continued to slowly flow over everything, like an inky drizzle, and I knew it wasn't fatigue. Night was coming. Slinking up behind me like a ghoul after my skin. But the darker it got, the better off I would be. The darker it got, the less would my pursuers be able to see me, and more able would I be to see them. S.H.

The Deepening Fog Pt. 2

The fog grew thicker still, falling from the sky in blankets of mist. I trundled on, with more fervour than I would imagine my body was able to sustain. It stared to groan, to pale, and I didn’t dare think about the storm now on my face. The forrest turned this way and that forever, a mass of muddy leaves and blackened oaks all I could make out. My vision gave in to small fits of blurriness and I had to slow down, rest my hand against a tree, and collect what little breath I had left to my lungs. I went on for who knows how much further more before I realised the birds had ceased their singing. There was something else that rang around them, calling them to catch their breath, and I didn't dare to drop my pace after that. I knew they had found the body. They were coming for me. S.H.

Ribbons and Lace

There is nothing to weep for, the time has long past us by. There is nothing to stamp on, the the creatures have scampered away. There are no tassels on the edges, no ribbons lined with lace. The day is off, tomorrow is on. Cross your heart, hope not to die, no precious words, no useless cry.

The Bitter Salts

The bitter salts are left to flutter like flickering lights, highjacking the wind to throw their shards at new homes. Formulate, if you will, and interview for yourself in ten years time. What would you say? Would you even need to say anything at all? Would one look at your decade plussed counterpart be enough to answer all your queries? Not a breath nor word need to be uttered but a look that says you’re going to be fine. Better than fine you’re going to get what you need, what you long for more than want.