Gin, Cigarettes, and Desperation: The Carson McCullers Diet

Gin, Cigarettes, and Desperation: The Carson McCullers Diet



I'm a big fan.

Fart fart fart &c.., oh - and higher selves...

'FART FART FART OWF DE AUTOBAN.  FART FART FART OWF DE AUTOBAN. FART FART FART OWF.....'
'No, he's not cured yet.  Put him back in, and give him an extra knee rug,'  I shouted to Geoffrey, through the hole in the wall.  I shouted because I was on the settee, with my feet up, picking my nose and reading the letters page of the 'Daily Bugle', and Geoffrey was Outside, by the Ersatz Sweat Lodge, which we'd built by the Old Midden, from a kit we'd bought from Val Nark's eco-health-shop.
'Right-oh.'
'And turn the dial up to 'red'.'
'Okey-doke.'
'And make sure you close the door properly this time.  We don't want any heat to leak out, like it did before.'  Not to mention his tiresome singing, I thought to myself.  But I didn't say it out loud. Which is unusual for me.
'Like it did before, when it was YOUR turn to close it by the way.  Anything else?'
'Pick up a barrel of best brandy, three pounds of baccy, some tea-bags and a bag of jellybabies when you're passing the tunnels.  Oh, and a pint of milk.  Make that two.  And a tin of Campbell's meatballs - I feel like having something different for tea.  I'm going to curry them.'
Anyway.  As you'll have gathered, if you've been following things recently,  Tuppence has been suffering from an intractable fever and pickled onion flavr Monster Munch addiction after his stay in gaol; on the advice of Val Nark we built an Ersatz sweat lodge for him to stay in till he's cured.
So far there's been no change in his condition, except that he keeps singing any Kraftwerk song which includes the word FAHRT,  phonetically, in a heavy and terrible German accent.
We're not sure how long the cure is supposed to take - there was nothing in the instructions and Val was a bit vague time-scale-wise. 'Just till he's better, for God's sake!" she barked.  "Now go away and use your common sense.  I WOULD say consult your 'higher selves' using hazel rod divining twigs, but I know you've not got those.   Higher selves, that is, not the twigs.   The twigs are available to buy in my shop, prices starting from £10.99 per individual twig.  You two idiots, with your persistently oafish refusal to address your vile processed meat, alcohol, salty snax and baccy predilections will probably remain on the basest, crudest and most repulsive level for the rest of your unnatural lives.  Anyway I've sixty pallets of flapjacks to ship to North America and I need to focus.'
'Level?  Level of what?'
'Spiritual development, of course. An ability to commune with your higher selves.  Me and Dave do that all the time, of course, what with us being vegan and having an eco-business and living in yurts and all.  But you two never, ever will.  Be able to, that is.  Now sod off and let me get on.'
Oh dear.  Higher selves though?  I was intrigued...
'Just get me the Monster Munches and I'll be right as rain,'  a thin voice wailed as Geoffrey secured the flaps and thumped the pegs into the ground with a mallet. 'I'm bored in here.  I know it's meant to be hot and dark and sweaty and it's all for my own good but I'm fed up now - please let me out.  And if you don't let me out, rest assured that I'll wreak a horrible revenge...you know I will....'

Next time....Tuppence finally gets out of the sweat lodge, and Geoffrey and I run away from him and his wrath, on the pretext of setting off to find our higher selves.....

Jock Mckay Aka Jack Mckay (1930)

My late father had a habit of saying 'Aye aye, Jock Mackay' during lulls in conversation.  I'd no idea that there really ever was a Jock Mackay, but good grief here he is on Youtube, in the 'flesh', and wearing a delightful 'double tartan' outfit that I can imagine might appeal to the Tupfinder General.  Someone kind on Twitter pointed it out to me.

Wolves - Howling - In Nature

From one Woolf to another....

The Recorded Voice Of Virginia Woolf

The Ersatz Sweat Lodge

Tuppence's fever is still raging and we haven't found any Monster Munch.

In desperation, we turned to Val Nark in the hope that she might give us some of her 'own-made'.  Of course, given her plans for stocking her farm shop freezer with choice 'Spring lamb' (see recent posts),  we knew that she might give us advice that would finish him off.  But we were prepared to run that risk.

'Tuppence is diseased Tuppy,' said Geoffrey, flapping from mantlepiece to window to arm of settee, and back again, as he always does when he's anxious, 'And what's more he's pumped full of Lem-sip.  He's not organic any more.   Val won't want him in her freezer.  I'm sure of it.'

'All right.  Let's bite the bullet and go up to the tourist car park.  She'll probably be in the post office yurt today.  I think it's her day for posting out orders from her Ebay wholefoods shop.'

'Try creating an ersatz sweat lodge of course,'  snapped Val, when we turned up, shame-faced and nervous. 'And ply him with Junior Aspirin.  The Monster Munch carry-on is simply the ravings of a spoilt and horribly precocious child, and must be ignored at all costs. Don't you two have ANY common sense? Not that I need to ask. You're as thick as two short planks. Three, probably.  If not four.  Or indeed five.'

'I've already given him my tartan knee rug.  And we've got him on a Lem-sip drip,' I replied,  dander up.

'Yes the laudanum didn't work,' added Geoffrey, 'We thought perhaps an opium tabloid and some senna tea...well perhaps not the senna tea...'  I gave him a look, and he fell silent.

Val gripped a piece of string between her teeth and glared at us as she ripped the last piece of brown packing tape from its cardboard roll.

'Oh stop being pathetic and get on with it. I've six boxes of goji berry flapjacks to send out to valued customers in the next post and I don't want any bad feedback. Some of us DO have a life you know!'

And she padded barefoot across the multi-coloured rag rug flooring to the back of the yurt, and an untidy pile of books which Dave sells - or tries to - online.  'Here.  You owe me five pounds and think yourselves lucky I'm not charging you postage.  I know you haven't got the money on you and I know you think you'll get away with not paying me.  But you're completely wrong.  I will hound you until I get my money and I am not put off by extortionate Small Claims Court charges.  It's the principle that matters to me.  I expect to be paid tomorrow morning at first light.  Now go away.'  She threw us a slim, tattered, paperback volume entitled 'How to Cure Everything with an Ersatz Sweat Lodge',  by Mrs Stanley Wrench, dated 1933.

More on what we did next,  later...........

or find more Tales in my e-books, on Amazon, here...http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sea-Penguin-Part-Five-Selections-ebook/dp/B00FW19E0Y/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_img_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=1HAYA6ZJ8R7A2B0XRWNX

Monster Munch, and the Lack thereof

Tuppence's fever reached a crisis last night.  It seemed to occur after an argument we had about who was really responsible for getting him out of gaol.  Geoffrey and I brought the gelignite,  and set the charge...
'But I sawed through my shackles Uncle Tuppy!' shrilled Tuppence. 'If I hadn't done that you'd have had to do it and you simply wouldn't have coped with the bending over!  Not with your dicky back that you're always going on about.'
And with that he fell back on his pillows, exhausted.
We'll have to find some more Monster Munch (pickled onion flavour) and find them fast.  But where?  Over in her health shop yurt Val Nark sells an 'own-made' version, adapted from a Betty Crocker recipe,  alongside her flapjacks and her sesame snaps, but that won't do, obviously.  What we need is the 'real deal' - a Walkers multi-pack, crammed with salt, sugar and chemicals.  Hopefully then my nephew will get the Roses back in his woolly little cheeks.
Yes - Roses chocolates.  He's partial to them too. Only the soft centres though.  He doesn't like caramels or anything with nuts.

More updates from the sick-bay later.

Find plenty more Tuppy and Tuppence tales here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kate-Smart/e/B008MFK3NE/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1422011440&sr=8-1

Today's Walk - Loch Clunie (again)

Loch frozen over (all but), geese huddled on the far side, buzzards keening to each other in the freezing cold.  Lots and lots of snowdrops.
Blue sky reflected in the ice.  The air was very still.  We threw stones onto the ice and there was a ringing echo.
I go here a lot and I've described this place before, so I won't go into it all again.  Click on the links below if you'd like to know more.

The Monster Munch Crisis

Tuppence has been ill with a mysterious fever ever since we busted him out of gaol.  The symptoms include 'ennui', extreme 'lethargy' and an inability to eat anything other than ham sandwiches with the crusts cut off, and huge amounts of pickled onion flavour Monster Munch.  He's been tucked up with four hot water bottles and a Lem-sip drip, and bundles of spiral-bound notebooks containing his Gaol Diaries.  He's been entertaining himself and fighting off the 'ennui' by reading them to us as we sit solicitously by his sick-bed.

'Here I am, stuck in gaol.  Or what passes for gaol in this godforsaken place. It's a cave, right at the bottom of the cliffs, with an iron grille across the entrance to prevent my 'egress'.  As if! They obviously don't know me.
Only half an hour ago I was chained to the wall - all four legs, shackled and padlocked together by a gang of sniggering rats.  The very same gang of rats who used to pedal bikes to power up my moog synthesiser during gigs at the Puff Inn, and who cheered me along during numerous nefarious-style adventures (see e-books for details).
Fortunately they're so dense that they failed to guess that I happened to have a miniature Swiss Army knife hidden between my teeth and my cheek.  As soon as they left I manoeuvered its saw attachment to the front of my mouth and in a trice I was free.  The rusty iron crumbled under the fine Swiss-made steel of the saw, and...'

'Oh DO hurry up and get to the bit where we burst through the iron grille with a carefully-calculated charge of gelignite!' Geoffrey interrupted.

'No.  Not until you fetch me some more Monster Munch.  There's only one bag left and if I don't get a constant supply I'm likely to relapse.'

Geoffrey and I exchanged glances.  We had obtained our Monster Munches from Stormy Petrel along at the Puff Inn.  'That's your lot chaps,'  he'd said.  'All I've got left are some dry roasted nuts and some scampi fries.'
'Till when?'  we'd asked,  aghast.
'Till the next lot comes in to the tunnels of course.  You two know where I get my supplies.'

Of course we knew.  We knew only too well....smuggling,  and shipwrecks....and...

'Tuppence might have to make do with Val Nark's sesame snaps and yogurt 'n' goji berry flapjacks till the next high Springs,' gasped Geoffrey,  'And I don't think he'll like it.'

'Who would?'




More on this later...

Tuppence has two 'Diaries' written.  One is his 'When I was Away Having Adventures All on my Own by Myself' diary, and the other is his 'Gaol - and How I Busted Out' diary.
As a matter of fact it was me and Geoffrey who 'busted him out', but I don't like to nitpick so I won't mention that again.  Except when I get around to telling you all about it.

In other news,  Val Nark has written a recipe book, aimed at the 'gourmet vegan' market.  Oddly enough it doesn't mention anything about 'Spring lamb',  multiple bird roasts or any of the other so-called 'free range' meat-related products secreted away at the bottom of the Farm Shop freezer.
Expect to see it for sale on Amazon very soon.

More later.

The Dark and the Deep (Part Two)

Find Part One here (or further down the page if you don't want to click on the link.)

Awful news.  Terrible events.  Tuppence is in gaol (or 'jail' if you must be all 21st century about it).
He's currently 'on remand' but things aren't looking good.
'We're going to have to either fix the jury or nobble the judge,' I said, biting my hooves.
'What?' said Geoffrey, slapping me across the knuckles.
'Ouch.  Pass me the vodka (we're on vodka just now, as that's what Sanity Claws left us at Yule, as he sped violently across the skies in his bean-tin chariot, dropping his load in his usual alarming fashion.  It wasn't what we asked for;  of course it wasn't.  It's NEVER what we ask for.  In all the years I've been writing letters to Sanity Claws, I've never ever got a single thing that I - )'
'TUPPY!  Concentrate!'
'Ooops.  Sorry Geoffrey.  I started to drift.  I'm just so annoyed about the vodka thing.  He knows full well I dislike it and yet That's What He Brought.  Or rather, dropped.'
'Will you please stick to the matter in hand?  Like your nephew's incarceration-style predicament, and your responsibility as his only surviving male relative, to DO something about it?'
'I think I'm finding it too stressful to think about that Geoffrey.  I'm trying to blot it out by dwelling on my resentment about the vodka.'
'Your resentment isn't putting you off drinking it.'
'No indeed.  And why should it?'  I sighed.  I knew that Geoffrey was right.  I'd have to Do Something to help Tuppence.  After all, he's helped me out of several tricky situations in the past (see any of the e-books for details).  And it wasn't as if he'd done anything terribly bad.  He'd only kidnapped the Narks, for the very good reason that they were planning to butcher him to sell in their farm shop in the Spring.  Unfortunately, or not, depending on your point of view - and mine tends towards the latter - he isn't letting on where he's keeping them.  And if he's in gaol, and nobody else knows where they are, they might starve to death.  And that could lead to a charge of murder - or manslaughter, at best.  And murder is a hangin' offence, Hereabouts.  And so is shoplifting, dropping litter, putting your washing out on a Wednesday, eating chips, farting in an enclosed space without opening a window, blowing up empty crisp packets and bursting them, smoking cigarettes At All - to list just a few offences that have suddenly appeared on the (previously empty) Rocky Outcrop Statute Book.  After eons of being extremely mild-mannered and liberal, we've found ourselves Under the Cosh of a highly illiberal regime.  All of a sudden,  we don't mess about.  At least, not in the way we used to.  More of that, later.  In the meantime,  we can't have Tuppence strung up.  .
'There's only one thing we can do,'  I said, standing up and draining my glass, then flinging it into the fireplace. 'We're going to have to bust him out.  Fetch the dustpan and brush Geoffrey and clean up that broken glass from the fireplace, and I'll get the gelignite from under the stairs.  Let's kick some BUTT.'

More later....................
'

Gandalf's Fist - Gardens of the Lost

Inspiration: Only Connect

Looking through my work on now-abandoned website Shortbread Stories I came across this, which I wrote for their blog three years ago.



Kate Smart's Blog › Inspiration: Only Connect | Shortbread

The ineluctable process of life has to be the basic, primary resource and inspiration for any creative person.  No matter how abstruse the work, it will emerge through the constantly-shifting prism of the author's life and experiences as an organic being;   the author who is living and growing and developing as a unique spirit among other organic beings, all doing exactly the same thing.

Is any thought or idea original, therefore?   Of course.  There may be many common experiences and many things that resonate because of our shared humanity but we also experience the world as individuals and respond to it accordingly.  The way that we express ourselves is unique, because we are all unique beings.   Isn't it such a joy when you find something written that does resonate, and makes you feel less alone on the planet - and maybe a bit less weird?  Conversely as a writer, it is marvellous when a reader responds to something you have written, and you get a sense of the power and strength, and the potential for good, of that shared humanity.   “Only connect”, as E.M. Forster famously said.

Then there is the matter of the interaction between the conscious and the unconscious mind.  We are deluded if think we can manage our minds; we can't.  And thank goodness for it, because otherwise no decent creative work would ever be made.  The unconscious is a powerful force that will irrupt through the membrane of the organised, conscious mind, and there is nothing that we can do to prevent this.  It recharges us, stimulates us, disturbs us – sometimes frightens us – and keeps us spiritually alive.  This is the part of us that responds to bodily memory;  a dream-world of shadow and chaos behind the world of language.  The sharp pang in your heart produced by the expression glimpsed momentarily  in some stranger’s  eyes as they stand on a railway platform as your train gathers speed and disappears forever;  the poignant yellow of a woman’s dress as she moves through a crowded square on a summer’s day, that reminds you of something that feels oddly significant but that will forever elude you;  a glimpse of a certain type of stubble in the damp,  rotting fields of late autumn that makes your flesh creep disproportionately, but you have no idea why.   This is the site of phobias, repression, and pain; and also of pleasure and wonder.   It responds to the sensory, non-verbal world, and makes us feel.  What is that discomfort, that strange pain?  Where has that come from?  Why do I feel this way?  What does it remind me of?  Why now? And when you sit with that for a while, it might come to you why, and you might be able to write about it. 

And even if you never find out why, you might end up writing about it anyway, despite your best intentions not to.

Two of my favourite writers are Colette, and George Orwell.   Both were staggeringly productive, and both wrote very openly from primary experience.   Among several other subjects, Colette drew upon her work on the stage to write vivid, fictionalised accounts of theatrical life, and also wrote a beautiful book about her mother, Sido.   Her inspirations were people, relationships, love, cats, food, nature.   Orwell wrote famously about politics and society, and drew on his own experiences living rough, for example, for essays, magazine articles and books such as Down and Out in Paris and London.  His Diaries are a joy to read in themselves, and you can see how his work evolved  from those daily notes. 

I have been trying to narrow down my own sources of inspiration; there are many.  Everything really, which is the point I was making at the start.  Everything is an inspiration.  Just being alive in a world of people, most of whom are very strange indeed, I’m pleased to say.   We’re bombarded by conversations,  language, relationships, and the general ghastliness and wonder of life.  My work as a mental health counsellor some years ago, talking to people with a huge range of human anxieties and dilemmas provided me with a particularly fascinating insight into a certain dynamic.   Another rich source nowadays is the internet;  there is no longer such a need for a writer to listen at keyholes or eavesdrop in cafes; reading other people’s “time-lines” and online “convos” is a very similar activity, which you can do from the comfort of your own  fireside.

There are different layers, aren’t there, to inspiration.  There is the surface layer of the here and now, and then there are background layers of past experience that colour one’s perception of the present.  And then there are the marvels of books, films  and music.

I have always been a music fan, and my long-standing preference for Led Zeppelin definitely colours my writing.  I went through a phase of listening to Gregorian chant and Hildegard of Bingen in an effort to improve my mind, but it didn’t last. 

And like most people, my inner world contains a range of favourite childhood books, TV,  films, and so forth.  I was lucky to grow up  among  the beautiful  scenery of highland Perthshire and part of me will forever be in a half-imaginary, half-real world of endless summers,  dusty schoolrooms, laburnum bushes, lush wooded hills,  lochs and rivers;  inhaling the mysterious smell of greasepaint at free dress rehearsals at Pitlochry theatre, then “stalking” the best-looking actors with my friends and scaring them half to death in that feral, anarchic way that groups of twelve year old girls sometimes have.  Sounds idyllic, but of course life is rarely just as it appears.  Which is just as well, for writers.

Sometimes the bumpy parts  are the most interesting and rewarding, in the end.  But that is not always the case.   Overcoming adversity – or not - now there’s another source of inspiration for many.  Do you write about reality?  Do you change it, to make things turn out the way you wish they had? Or do you bury the lot in a denial-fuelled fantasy world?  Whatever the case, it’s all come from you.

Read more: Kate Smart's Blog › Inspiration: Only Connect | Shortbread 

The Dark and the Deep (part one)

'The dark days Tuppy....why can't we dig ourselves out?'
'Because we're getting older, Geoffrey, and as you get older it becomes more and more difficult.  And besides - sometimes, you go too deep......'
'Have we gone too deep, Tuppy?'
'I don't know.  Remember when we went to the centre of the earth, and right through to Australia, and waved to Doug McClure on the way back (please see Sea Penguin Part Four for details, if you're interested)? That was deep.  About as deep as deep can be. And we came back.  But that was a few years ago. I'm not sure if we could do it now.'
'Do you think that if we went on a health and fitness regime, that might help improve our energy levels?'
'No.  That kind of thing never helps.'
'We could ask Val Nark for some detox tips.'
'No we forking couldn't Geoffrey. Aren't you forgetting that she's gone over to the dark side?  What about the multiple bird roasts and the Spring lamb carry-on? (see yesterday's post for details, if you're interested).'
'Just because she's selling them it doesn't mean that she's partaking of them herself.  She could still be vegan.'
'Oh come off it.'
'She's got to keep body and soul together somehow, and you said yourself that the flapjack market has collapsed.  She's had to diversify in order to survive.'
'She didn't have to diversify into m-m-meat.  That's US Geoffrey.  I don't understand why you've any sympathy for her.'
'I s'pose you're right.'
'I AM right.  Now stick the kettle on.  My head hurts.'
'We can worry about the dark and the deep tomorrow?'
'Yes.  Preferably through a comforting blanket of mind-numbing psychotropics.'

More later........

It's All Over.....thank goodness.....

Well, that's it over for another year.  The feasting, the merry-making, the false jollity, the hangovers, the upset stomachs, the heartburn, the angst, the self-hatred, the guilt, the disappointment, the loneliness, the boredom,  the ennui, the bad memories,  the regret, the overspending, the falling-comatose-on-the-sofa-at-all-hours-for-no-reason-that-you-can-think-of and so forth.
Not to mention the chucking-people-off-cliffs custom, which as any reader of Sea Penguins Parts One to Five will know, happens with stomach-churning regularity Hereabouts, and most especially at Yule, when the person voted Most Unpopular in the annual Yuletide poll, gets chucked 'over-the-top'.  But more of that later.
Or perhaps not.
Geoffrey and I are well-past-it, of course, in terms of forced jollity merry-making;  plus, we are sufficently self-aware to know that we're known locally as miserable and stingey 'old-git-style-personages', who dislike 'company', so we kept a fairly low profile.  Not entirely, therefore, but largely, through choice.  Tuppence usually turns up for Yuletide luncheon (extra-large sausages, marinated for three days in the cellar in our own absinthe-and-sage micksture, twenty-five apiece, all neatly threaded and roasted on a spit with M &S fish-fingers and windfall russet apples in between, just for the aesthetic appeal - we don't actually eat 'froot' Hereabouts, as regular readers will know).  But he's getting older now, and this year he decided not to join us. Instead, he borrowed my waterproof trousers, my tinderbox, a jar of beef paste, four loaves of bread, three tins of spaghetti hoops and the Tupfinder General's old army tent, and went off to have an adventure Out in the Wilds with some of his so-called friends - more of that later, if he returns.
Geoffrey has been feeling especially paranoid this year due to the current bizarre fetish for 'multiple bird roasts'.  And well he might.  The Narks have jumped on the bandwagon.  Back in November they turned one of their yurts into a 'farm shop' and started taking orders for an organic version, using 'locally-sourced, free-range meat', and stuffed with seaweed and hunza apricots.  They even put a blackboard outside, with prices. Fifty quid a pop,  apparently.  Yet they won't specify which 'locally-sourced' birds are involved.
'As long as it's not me I don't care Tuppy,' he sobbed. 'I don't want to end up in the middle of a Russian doll-style fowl-fest, rolled and frozen in a box with several of my friends. It doesn't bear thinking about.'
'So much for their so-called vegan lifestyle with their herbal tisanes and their aduki bean rissoles.  They've gone for the meat dollar Geoffrey - and that tells you all you need to know.  I'll never sample one of Val's goji berry and raw oat flapjacks again, not even if she gets down on her bended knees and begs.  So help me I won't.'
'I doubt if she'll have the brass neck to make flapjacks now Tuppy.  Not after soiling her hands with multiple bird roasts.'
'I wouldn't be too sure Geoffrey.  It's follow the money with those two.  You'd think butter wouldn't melt what with their Peruvian hats and their rustic hand-knits, but really they've no scruples.  For now the flapjack market has bottomed out, but who knows - in the Spring it could rise again and she'll be flogging them as fast as she can bake 'em. She'd probably start a flapjack sweat-shop if she could.'
'Tuppy.'
'Yes?'
'Brace yourself.  I've heard rumours that she plans to sell....I'm awfully sorry to have to say it, but... Spring lamb...in the Spring,..in her farm shop...there will be a big special promotion on at Easter,  apparently.'  Geoffrey pressed his hankie to his mouth and cried a little.
'Well don't fret Geoffrey, because that won't affect me.  I'm well-past the lamb stage,'  I replied briskly, pulling the tartan knee rug tighter over my arthritic...knees. 'But we should plan ahead and warn Tuppence as soon as he returns.  He's an adolescent now but in her warped eyes he might just qualify as a lamb.  Luckily, he's very resourceful, and handy with his pistols ( see previous e-books for details http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kate-Smart/e/B008MFK3NE/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1) , so he should be able to protect himself, if need be.'
'But that's the point Tuppy.  Why should he have to protect himself?  Why should he have to live in fear?  It's not right.'
'Of course it's not right Geoffrey.  Many things in life are not right.  But what can we do?'
'We must think of something Tuppy.  We can't just give in.'
'We'll never give in Geoffrey. But for now let's fortify ourselves with a snack and a nap, and perhaps a mug of that nice French brandy you got me for Yule.  We can think about life's trickier side after.'

More Later....

Meanwhile, please help yourself to Sea Penguins One and Two for free today and tomorrow (27th and 28th) via this link to my Amazon page.  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kate-Smart/e/B008MFK3NE/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1


'