12 Days of Christmas – # 5 Nick Spalding

Oooh, it’s getting closer! #5 on our countdown to Christmas!

Today’s writer needs no introduction (but I’ll do it anyway!). The fantastically funny (and rather handsome) Nick Spalding!

Nick Spalding on the joys of Christmas presents…

In what is a spectacularly obvious piece of lazy recycling, here’s an excerpt from my first comedy memoir ‘Life… With No Breaks’ all about the joys (or otherwise) of gift giving at Christmas. Enjoy!

 

I’ve received some extraordinarily silly presents in my time.

I seem to have one of those personalities where people think I like quirky and strange gifts, normally purchased from gadget shops.

Would you believe a friend once bought me a kite? When I was thirty two?

I’m all for staying young at heart, but do I really need to express it by running round the park on a windy day, trying to get a kite in the air for more than three seconds?

There I am, wondering how long it will be until my hair falls out of my head, grows on my arse and gets thicker in my ears – and I unwrap a gift more suited for a time when I was as hairy as a cue ball and still thought Batman was real.

The epithet written on the card that came with the kite said:

‘For when you want to get high!’

Stunning.

The kite went in the shed and I conveniently ‘lost’ the friend’s phone number for a while.

Because I’m a writer, I tend to get presents related to that pursuit. Nothing useful though, like a new keyboard to replace the one I’ve broken the letter B on, or a book telling me how to write a best seller.

No, I get bought quirky things.

Like a pen with a radio in it.

Yes… a pen with a radio in it.

How desperate for friends have you got to be before that sounds like something you’d actually want?

Small earphones extended from the pen on a cable, which was slightly too short to be used without bending your head over to one side, looking like you were a tad mental.

I gather the person who bought it for me – a relative this time, so no chance of severing ties – thought I might enjoy the chance to write flowing script and listen to the radio at the same time, all from one convenient device.

And who could blame them? After all, it’s not like it’s possible to do those things easily and efficiently any other way, right?

Hmmm…

Singing socks.

They were a good one.

You put the socks on, pressed a button on the side and they warbled a tune at you. The song in question was ‘Tiger Feet’ by Mud (which is available on Spotify, I believe).

The socks had a badly stitched picture of a tiger on them. The small electronic device that controlled the whole thing rubbed irritatingly against your skin.

I wore them – once – for the delight and edification of my wife, who found the whole thing hilarious.

I can’t really blame her. There I was, standing in my new socks, with a seventies rock song wafting from around my ankles and a green flannel dressing gown covering my modesty.

The expression on my face could best be described as perplexed.

At this point, it’d be nice to launch into a tirade about the companies who produce this crap.

I’d like nothing more than to vilify the fools who sit in product meetings and decide upon the latest crazes to fill our shops from floor to ceiling and drain our bank accounts with frightening rapidity.

But I can’t do that because it’s not really their fault.

It’s ours.

The simple fact is, if we didn’t keep buying this crap then they wouldn’t keep making it. If we didn’t keep buying pens with radios, singing socks, cardboard moo machines – or any one of a thousand other completely useless items you’ll find in the shops – then these people would stop producing them. They’d then find more constructive things to do with their time, like inventing flasks that keep the contents hot, or office chairs that don’t make your arse numb.

Have you noticed the kind of stores that sell this stuff only exist for a short period of time before disappearing into the ether?

They usually spring up at Christmas in otherwise disused shops, promising quality presents at rock bottom prices. They’re generally manned by people who are on day release from minimum security, or haven’t been caught by the police yet.

They tend to get out of town long before you come back, wanting to complain about how the novelty indoor fountain you bought for your auntie Jenny has stopped working and started making disturbing farting noises in the middle of the night.

There are many reasons why we keep buying these weird and wonderful gifts, but mainly it’s because they make Christmas shopping a whole lot easier.

Unless you’re buying for children – who are happy with anything, provided it’s plastic, brightly coloured and incredibly expensive – it’s hard to come up with gifts that aren’t as dull as ditch-water.

I’m as guilty of it as anybody.

My father is the kind of man who’s always had the money to buy what he wants and the sense to know what he doesn’t. Therefore, purchasing presents that elicit any kind of positive or heart-felt appreciation is next to impossible.

This makes the Christmas Eve shopping trip even more of a nightmare.

The amount of time I’ve stood in front of the gifts section at Boots, wondering whether to buy dad a ceramic miniature garden gnome or bathroom set – you know, the ones that invariably contain shower gel, talc, deodorant and an amusingly shaped bar of soap – doesn’t bear thinking about.

I’ve settled for the fairly stress free option of buying him a bottle of whisky every year. He may not appreciate it, but he’s normally so pissed by the time I talk to him, it sounds like he does.

A small, guilty part of me thinks I’m turning him into a raging alcoholic. I’m convinced at some point he’s going to decide I’m trying to kill him in order to get my hands on an inheritance.

I might swap to cigars in the next couple of years. Give his liver a rest and his lungs a wake up call.

My mother, bless her, is grateful for whatever I buy and I love her for it. She keeps everything.

There’s a dusty box in her bedroom closet that contains Christmas cards written by me at the age of seven.

I had a look through them once. It disturbed me that my handwriting hasn’t improved much.

Much like my father, I have a distinct inability to show gratitude when I receive an unwanted or ridiculous gift. I have a big problem with what I like to call the post-unwrap pause.

This is the time when you’ve successfully unwrapped the present enough to see what it is and registered the fact it’s the worst present in history. You then have to fake a look of gratitude at the wizened old carbuncle of a grandmother who bought it for you.

It’s very difficult.

I find myself making a rather high-pitched keening noise, accompanied by my face twisting horrendously into something approximating joy and surprise.

I’ll then come out with a comment along the lines of:

‘Oh! Thank you, Gran! I was just thinking the other day it’d be nice to write and listen to the radio at the same time.’

To me, I sound about as convincing as Hermann Goering’s defence lawyer at the Nuremberg trials, but she seems to take what I’m saying at face value, concludes the festive transaction with a kiss, and a short anecdote about how she was passing The Gadget Shop, saw the offending item in the window and immediately thought of me.

It’s a lot easier to open presents when the giver isn’t in the room with you. You can safely express your feelings about the quality and suitability of your new possession by swearing at it, or burying it at the bottom of the garden beneath the miniature gnome.

Bearing this in mind, I’ve resolved to open my annual Christmas haul from now on in the toilet with the door locked.

___________________

Enjoyed that, did you? Then why not buy the whole book? Available on the Kindle and in paperback at AmazonUK:

If you want more Spalding in your life (and who doesn’t? …well, my ex-wife for one), why not buy the rest of my books here

They all make excellent Christmas presents.

…for every member of your family.

…buy them two copies each just to be sure.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Tee hee. Oh, Nick, you are a one!

Come back tomorrow for a FIRST for SM0D&L! The one and only Mark Williams (yes, my partner in crime) will be popping across to entertain you!

Saffi

Thirteen ghosts: A collection of spooky tales for Halloween (Part One)

Ooh, it’s my absolute favourite time of year again. I love it. End of September and into October, Autumn (or as my American friends call it: Fall).

“Yeah, me too,”  I hear you say. “The nights pull in, the leaves turn all sorts of glorious colours before taking their final descent to a frost-kissed floor and early morning mist hangs around the hills like an ethereal spirit.” Er, no. *screeches to an abrupt halt*

(Well, yes, obviously, but not on this occasion.)

No, those aren’t the reasons that I love this time of year. I love it because I LOVE being scared. I actually like being frightened.

Whaaa? Yup, it’s true. Love it! Well, in small doses at least. I will always remember that feeling as a child when a teacher or relative told a spooky story. When you started painting and drawing scary pictures at school and planned your Halloween costume. For us, it was always the same. A black bin liner each, a tube of foil, some glue and a turnip. I think we may have depleted my ma’s talc and flour stocks too in order to make our faces deathly white; wonderful  memories. We would sit for hours cutting out moons and stars and sticking them on our costumes, arguing over who was having the largest swede/turnip (obviously, it should have been me, because I’m the oldest) and begging my parents to let us go out on our own. In those days, you could – not so much now, but a host of fabulous memories that I will treasure forever. It was probably also the time that I realised I was a bit strange.

When all the other kids were crying because an over-enthusiastic dad had answered the door without a head, I used to wish that the night would last forever. I would retire to bed from a fruitful night of Trick-or-Treating, armed with sweets that had probably been hiding in the back of our neighbour’s cupboards since the Christmas before and a carrier bag full of small change, tired, with hair still spiked from a concoction of sugar and water and a smile on my face. Waiting, patiently in the shadows for the witching hour. Hardly daring to breath, wondering what would happen when midnight came. Would I see a witch whizzing past on her broom or hear the sound of a useless limb being dragged across the roof as the undead walked the earth? Hear the cry of hell-dogs braying at a full moon whilst cats stole breath from sleeping children and turned all the grown-ups into pumpkins? Well, as you can probably guess, none of that ever happened, but I felt like it might and that is the magic of Halloween. Enjoy.

Following over the next few days are some brilliant stories or posts that I thought you might like. Happy Halloween. And just remember, that stooped, hairy-faced witch with the fake wart that you thought was your Aunty Irene dressing up after too many sherries, might just not be all as she seems.

First up is the wickedly funny, Nick Spalding:

The perils of trick or treating & How to alienate a million Twilight fans

At this happy time of year I’m reminded of an embarrassing episode in my childhood when I went trick or treating dressed as a Knight Of The Round Table. I was going through a stage of loving everything related to King Arthur, so the idea of sallying forth in my own set of armour delighted me immensely.

Lacking the skills or materials of the average thirteenth century blacksmith I spent the best part of a month putting together the costume, which was entirely made out of cardboard. Hours were spent slaving over the design. Further hours were spent cutting out breastplates, greaves and helmet. Weeks were spent trying to clean the cat after it got in the way of me covering the entire ensemble with grey spray paint. When it was finished the costume was a monstrosity of such epic proportions I could barely lift the bloody thing. If the real knights had to walk around in this kind of stuff it’s a wonder they ever had the energy to anything chivalrous like saving damsels in distress from belligerent dragons.

Nevertheless, off I tottered into the gloomy late October evening in my multi-piece armour, ready and willing to liberate everybody I could find of their sugary confectionary.

At home, stood in a heated lounge, the armour had felt uncomfortably warm. I’d therefore decided it was best to wear nothing underneath other than my vest, pants, socks and trainers. I hadn’t factored in the biting British autumn wind and rain outside, of course.

Surprisingly, it turns out cardboard is not good at fending off the elements. By seven thirty I was blue with cold and half the costume had fallen off with a wet plop. Local residents were somewhat taken aback to open their doors to a hypothermic ten year old in a pair of Batman underpants and soaking wet cardboard helmet, streaks of grey paint running down his shivering arms and a look on his face that suggested an imminent slide into soul-destroying madness.

By the end of the evening I’d bagged a good haul of sweets, but I suspect most were obtained largely out of pity.

Anyway…

To celebrate Halloween this year, rather than dressing up and embarrassing myself in front of the neighbours (I’ll save that for Christmas) I’ve released a new horror short story to Amazon and Smashwords.

In what can cheerfully be described as a blatant attempt to appeal to readers of a popular genre, this one is all about vampires.

Proper vampires, mind… ones that are big, nasty and don’t fall in love teenage girls at the drop of a sodding hat.

In fact, that’s the gist of the whole story really:

FEEDBACK – A VAMPIRE STORY

Be careful who you write about…

Keating the vampire used to love the stories that humans would write about his species. They had endlessly amused him – and allowed him to operate safe in the knowledge nobody believed he existed.

Madeline De Martine had changed all that though.

From terrifying, bloodthirsty creatures of the night… to maudlin, effeminate idiots obsessed with pubescent American girls, De Martine’s blockbuster romances had irrevocably ruined the image of the vampire as far as Keating was concerned.

So tonight he’s paying the multi-millionaire writer a visit, to offer some constructive feedback and show her the error of her ways…

Available at:            

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Smashwords

I got the idea from a conversation I had with a friend a few weeks ago. He’d made a valiant, but ultimately doomed attempt to watch Twilight, finally giving up right around the time R Patts started to twinkle majestically in the sunlight, making that miserable looking girl with the bug eyes go all gooey and misty-eyed.

Having spent a good twenty minutes bemoaning the way in which vampires are treated these days, I wondered aloud what a ‘real’ vampire would make of it all… and lo and behold the idea for a story was born.

I would apologise to Stephenie Meyer at this point, but she probably wouldn’t be able to hear me from the top of that mountain of cash.

Happy Halloween everybody!

Thanks Nick! Brilliant!

Next onto the darkened stage of SMoD&L is the wondrously named Leonard D. Hilley II. Take it away, Leonard…

Why I Love Halloween

From an early age I have always like the spookiness of Halloween.  I was four years old the first time I was exposed to Halloween trick-or-treaters.  I remember my grandfather grumbling about all the kids crossing the street and hurrying from house to house to fill their bags with candy.

When someone knocked on the door, my Dad told me to answer it.  I opened the door to a skinny clown-masked kid and all I did was stare at him, wondering why he was dressed like that.  On top of this I had to part with some of the beloved candies in the dish for a strange clown?  It hardly seemed worth it.

Halloween became more endearing the older I got.  Not for the candy.  But for the dark, mysterious sensation of the unexpected.  My brothers and sisters loved telling ghost stories late at night.  We read scary comics like Witching Hour, Tales of the Unexpected, House of Secrets, and House of Mystery.  Some nights we scared ourselves into sleeplessness.  We held hands before we eventually fell asleep, assuring one another that if something tried to take one of us, the rest of us would awaken and fight it off.

In my early teens, a friend and I explored an old abandoned house as dusk settled.  No one had been inside the house in over twenty years.  The floorboards creaked when we walked.  The smell of mildew and dust filled the air as we sifted through old letters and junk from the 1940s.  Even though we were the only two in the house, there was that strange feeling that we were being watched.  It was eerie.  When the old house foundation settled or the wind brushed a tree branch against a window, we turned around quickly, thinking someone had stepped into the room.  But no one else was there.

It is these experiences that are part of the reason I write dark novels.  Fear is exciting because it elevates a person’s endorphins and gives a rush of excitement.  Putting that type of fear on the page isn’t always an easy task, but I try.  And for the most part, readers tell me that I succeed with packing emotion and horror into my thrillers.  To receive such feedback is satisfying and humbling.

Happy Halloween!

You can read Leonard’s books on Amazon and B&N:

Links here:

Predator of Darkness: Aftermath

Beyond the Darkness

The Game of Pawns

Devils’ Den

Many thanks, Leonard and I am soooo jealous of your name!

Next up and last, but not least today, is the lovely Ruth Barrett. Come on, Ruth, let’s hear from the girls!

Ah, Halloween.

As a kid, this was my favourite day. Oh sure, I loved my birthday and Christmas– but Halloween had that sinister je ne sais quoi about it. I have to admit: I was a morbidly imaginative child. I loved disguises and darkness and running around to different houses all decked out with cobwebs and glowing jack-o-lanterns. The candy horde was a bonus. Just thinking about it now, I can almost smell fallen leaves on the damp streets and the chill in the air that meant the seasons were turning.

Morphing into my teen years, I was fascinated by Ouija boards and trying to speak with the ‘other side’. I voraciously read horror novels, particularly John Saul, Peter Straub and (of course!) Stephen King. I remember being so very freaked out by scenes in some books that I threw them across the room in fright. It was delicious.

What is it about the visceral attraction to being spooked out that keeps lovers of the macabre so hooked? Even now, I am drawn to the darker side of things. Why? In everyday life I am friendly and cheerful. I like order, calm and bright sunny days. Real violence and horrible situations repel me… and yet, I wear black head to toe most of the time. I look at everyone around me and wonder what disguise they are wearing, what mask they use to hide their inner selves– because all of us have secret sides. Sinister sides. It’s in our natures. When kept in perspective, ritualizing the Dark Side with harmless outlets like Halloween, scary movies, horror novels, comic books, S&M, role play and gaming keeps us sane and perhaps exorcises our personal demons.

And that larger, far more serious question hangs over all the fun and games: as we all live, so must all of us die. And then what? That must be the strange attraction– the fear of the ‘undiscovered country’ lies at the heart of Halloween. The pagan festival of Samhain– when the veil between worlds grows thin– used to be a time to celebrate harvest and honour our departed ancestors. Life and death. Light and dark. To embrace the fear of the unknown and make it a cause of celebration. We’ve lost that. Now kids dress up as Spiderman and eat mini chocolate bars until they feel sick.

In recent years, I’ve had real brushes with mortality. Three times, in fact– and more than just a casual visit. I have truly fought to fend off the grim reaper. It gave me new insight, and even a bit of added Sight at times. I am aware– like a cold hand on the back of my neck– that there is that Other Side standing parallel to us at all times. Waiting for us to notice. Or trying to get our attention.

Next time you have that feeling– that there is something in the room– turn and face it. Say hello.

Happy Halloween!

Ruth Barrett is the author of Base Spirits- a new supernatural thriller with a historical core. It’s available in e-book format at:

Amazon Kindle

Smashwords

Nook

Paperbacks are available through Stratford, Ontario independent booksellers:

Fanfare Books– fanfare@cyg.net

or Callan Books–  jcallan@orc.ca

Books can be personally inscribed by request before shipping, with a bonus postcard!

Please follow Ruth on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/LadyCalverley

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Spirited-Words-Book-Co/101014656667433

Blog: http://ruth-barrett-spiritedwords.blogspot.com/

Wonderful Ruth and thanks to my first three guests. Not only have you captured the essence of Halloween brilliantly, you have made me feel a little less strange.

More wonderfully weird tales tomorrow. Don’t be late!

Saffi

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