“And you’re even later!”

That was our first introduction to Mr Murphitt, the teacher for our ‘A’ Level Economics class. It was our first week in the college, and we were still finding our way around. Mr Murphitt’s classroom happened to be on the top floor of a very old building. I went through the door first, around 15 seconds after the start of the lesson, thereby eliciting that first remonstrative bark. John, hard on my heals, arrived a couple of seconds later. Hence the second exclamation.

Mr Murphitt spke with a cut glass English accent, real old school. It sounded incongruous to us because he gave every impression of being a socialist rather than having old school English values. I found out (I can’t remember how), that he was, in fact, an anarchist, and had fought in the Spanish Civil War against Franco’s fascists.

His teaching style was, one might say, eccentric. If someone gave an incorrect answer, he would respond along the lines of, “I say, when you arrive home would you mind digging a hole in the back garden and burying yourself?” Hardly politically correct, even in the laissez-faire days of the 1970s.

If pretty much everybody was giving wrong answers, he would say to the class, ever the polite Englishman, “I say, would you mind awfully if I had a nervous breakdown?”

When someone had the audacity to say, “But it says so in the textbook”, he would say that the textbook was wrong, and would then offer to tear the offending page out.

(While this sounds quite preposterous, I discovered many years later, as an Economics teacher, that textbooks often did contain errors.)

He made no effort to learn students’ names, and so called all the girls Agatha and all the lads Henry. It was quite amusing to see a sea of heads bob up when he said, “What do you think, Henry?”

For some reason, he knew my name, possibly because I seemed to have an affinity towards the subject and always gave the correct answer.

Well, always apart from the time when so many people were giving the wrong answers that, after a string of statements like, “I say, would you mind burying that textbook when you get home in case someone else finds it and is corrupted by it?”, and “Would you mind terribly if I had a heart attack?”, I was afflicted with helpless, but silent, laughter. The boy in the row in front of me was quite tall, so I was hiding behind him. Suddenly, Mr Murphitt, genuinely exasperated, said, “Terry, do you know the answer?”

As it happens, I did. But when everyone turned to look at me to discover why I had said nothing, they were greeted by the sight of me with tears streaming down my face, no longer able to contain myself, and not at all able to answer.

I thought my time had come and that Mr Murphitt would either collapse right there on the spot or throw me out. But he started to laugh as well.

A past exam paper included the question, “Why should we decimalise our currency?” (This was before 1971.) I asked him what the answer was and he said “If that comes up in the exam, just write, ‘Don’t know, have gone for a walk.’” I said “But I can’t write that, can I? What’s the proper answer?”

He then spent ten minutes giving me a well-informed response about the real reasons behind the move, as he saw them.

He would sometimes come out with things which sounded outragous, but which on reflection made a lot of sense.

For example, he once said “Accountants think that profit is a surplus. Accountants are wrong.”

He was right, of course. Economists count profit as a cost from the point of view that making a profit is (usually) a necessary condition for staying in business, and therefore a cost.

I heard from another teacher that when Mr Murphit retired, his leaving speech began:

“I realise that it’s customary on occasions such as this to say how much one has enjoyed working in the place. Well, I’ve been here twenty years and I’ve hated every bloody minute.”

Sad, yes, but also diabolically humorous.

He then went on to launch a diatribe against Golda Meir, the Israeli Prime Minister at the time, thereby offending many of the members of staff, most of whom were Jewish .

You may well be wondering whether or not I succeeded given Mr Murphitt’s rather different methods of teaching. As it happens, I did very well in the exam, despite the first love of my life dumping me just a few months beforehand, and went on to gain a BA in Economics, then a Post-Graduate Certificate in Education and, later, an MA in Economics Education, and taught the subject for over twenty years.

I think an honest assessment would be to say that I found Mr Murphitt’s approach amusing, and refreshingly non-conformist. I can’t say he inspired me, because I already loved the subject.

But — and I realise that this will come across as damning with faint praise but I think it’s an important consideration given how awful some teachers can be — at least he didn’t put me off Economics for good!

A couple of teachers did inspire me. Here are the articles I wrote about them:

And, just because I’m in a shmaltzy mood, here is a fictional inspirational teacher:

Thanks for reading!

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The first time I saw Gloria was in July 1968. My best friend Benjamin and I were hanging about outside a disco in Golders Green, NW London. There was an amiable crowd of young people chatting in groups, and I Heard It Through The Grapevine by Marvin Gaye was blasting out from the building. And then Gloria appeared. She had a beautiful face, and long black wavy hair, and she was wearing a minidress over trousers, something I’d never seen before. She seemed to know everybody.

But she didn’t know us.

To be honest. it didn’t occur to me to try to get to know her. Perhaps, like Eddie Cochran, I had the feeling that she was out of my class or, like the subject of the Girl From Ipanema, even if I had summoned up the courage to smile at her, she wouldn’t have even noticed. Or, perhaps despite seeing that she was beautiful, I wouldn’t have considered her to be my type. She was an extrovert, I an introvert. might it had worked out? Her yin complementing my yang? Would she, the poetry in motion that she was, become my Venus in blue jeans?

I will never know, because although each week when Ben and I went to a disco, Gloria was there, one day she wasn’t. Maybe she became engaged. Maybe her family moved away. All I know is that we never saw her again.

Thinking about it now I can’t help recalling a line from a Bob Dylan song called One of us must know (sooner or later). He says that when he saw her say goodbye to her friend, he assumed she would be back soon: he didn’t realise that she was saying “goodbye” permanently. (See the lyrics here, specifically the second verse.) It is such a poignant verse, and from a writing perspective it is a great example of “show don’t tell”, because it conveys the sense of loss and lost opportunitie without actually saying it.

Muddy Waters once opined that you can’t lose a girl that you have never had. I think he was wrong. You can, or at least you can lose the opportunity to start a relationship with her. As Joni Mitchell said, in so many words, it is only once something (or someone) disappears from your life that you realise what you had.

Notes

The first thing to say is that it would be an astonishing coincidence if her name really was Gloria. Benjamin and I decided to refer to her as Gloria on the grounds that it was more efficient to say, ”I wonder if we’ll see Gloria this evening” than “I wonder if we’ll see that girl in the mini dress over trousers and with long, dark, wavy hair.”

The second thing to say is that I never actually entertained any romantic feelings in relation to “Gloria”. I am pretty sure that had I have done, then as desperately nervous around girls as I was back then, I would have found the courage to get talking to her.

Thirdly, the reason for writing this post is that I often find myself wondering what became of Gloria. I wanted to write a vignette that, in its own way, might serve as a tribute to a girl who made our Saturday nights more enjoyable just by our seeing her.

Finally, I’ve mentioned quite a few songs in this post. It’s an eclectic collection: early rock’n’roll, pop, rock, blues, jazz and folk. Here are links to these songs should you wish to listen. I’ve included two versions of I Heard It Through The Grapevine, and the version of Gloria is the one featuring John Lee Hooker rather than the original played by Them. Enjoy. The songs are featured in order of appearance.

I heard it through the grapevine

The Marvin Gaye version:

The School of Rock version: This includes three good guitar solos. I prefer the young lady’s solo to the ones performed by the boys. They seem to be concerned with technique, whereas she appeasr to be trying to tell a story.

Something Else, by Eddie Cochran

A story of grit, determination and perseverance!

The Girl from Ipanema

A tale of unrequited love

Poetry in motion

To be honest, the only thing I like about this song is the title!

Venus in blue jeans

Ditto!

One of us must know (sooner or later)

The verse quoted above always makes me feel sad.

You can’t spend what you ain’t got

I’ve started it more less after some person has finished talking about it.

Big Yellow Taxi

And finally, the girl who inspired it all…

Gloria

Well, I hope you enjoyed this bit of shared self-indulgence!

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I was pondering a number of different topics to write about, and discarded each in turn because they were too negative, too half-baked, too whatever, when I happened upon the article that follows.

How did I happen upon it? I was trawling through the vast Freedman Writing Archives for inspiration. Such trawling is a sort of variation of Mae West’s observation: keep a diary and one day it will keep you.

So, I thought this article would be reasonably entertaining, interesting and relevant, despite having first been unveiled to my eagerly awaiting fans no response whatsoever in 2009. Sigh. I’ve updated it slightly.

While I am on the subject of archives, I have decided, possibly as a temporary experiment, to take away the automatic paywall option. This means that all the originally free articles in this vast treasure trove are available again. The originally paid-for articles remain untouched. I also intend to include sections in my free articles for paying subscribers, now that Substack has made that possible.

But enough of this persiflage! On with the newsletter.

Terry

Technology-authorised insanity

I offer this rant partly to get things off my chest — I think I now officially qualify for the title “grumpy old man”, even though I don’t much care for the “old” part —but even more so as a topic which parents might like to discuss with their kids, if they can prise them away from Tik-Tok for five seconds, or teachers may like to raise with their students. The basic question is, I think, is technology being used inappropriately, or intrusively or even, ultimately, ridiculously?

I visited my local supermarket yesterday and decided to use the self-service check-out. This is a very advanced service which seems to require there to be at least two members of staff on hand at all times in order to sort out the problems it comes up with. If I tell you that I, of all people1, have developed what amounts to a phobia about using it you may get a sense of how awful I think it is most of the time.

It isn’t that the problems which arise are terrible in themselves, just that it’s so embarrassing when a line of people is building up behind you. And that’s another thing: it works perfectly when nobody else is around....

Just to put the positive side to the equation, I will admit to having found it much faster, sometimes, than the normal check-out, and it is undoubtedly more fun. There is a video game-type display showing you what to do, and a voice which guides you though the process. That voice is female and was chosen, I am certain, to sooth the nerves of people such as myself and thereby prevent acts of vandalism directed towards the machinery.
But yesterday even I was floored by a message that appeared on the screen.

Before going any further, I have to inform non-UK residents that we in England have reached the point where anyone who sells anything is scared to death of being sued. Thus it is that if you buy a drink from a fast food outlet you’ll see a notice on the cup informing you that the contents may be hot -- even if you’ve purchased an iced tea. On foodstuffs, just about everything contains the warning, “May contain nuts”. Bizarrely, bags of nuts do not come with such a warning. I must contact my attorney....

Even food which could not possibly contain anything even resembling a nut comes with the caution that it may contain traces of nuts, or that it was processed on machinery that may once have been used to process nuts.

Medicine packets list every single possible side effect of the contents therein. So, if three years ago someone took one of these tablets and then two weeks later his left leg dropped off, one of the possible side effects listed will be “May cause leg to drop off.”

Back to the supermarket. The way it works is that you scan the item, then drop it into a plastic bag. The item shows up on the screen, then you’re ready to put the next one on. One of the items last night was a box of painkillers. I scanned it, dropped it in the bag, and then had a warning message appear reading something like: “You have bought painkillers. You cannot buy any more unless you are authorised to do so. Are you authorised to do so? Yes/No”

Authorised? By whom? My mother? The store manager? I pressed “Yes” and it let me continue. In discussion with my wife we decided that it must be the store’s way of protecting itself against prosecution by the families of people who decide to end it all by taking an overdose of painkillers. Presumably such people are too depressed to think about buying one huge box, buying several small boxes in several shops, or just to press “Yes”. Perhaps there is some law that states that nobody is allowed to sell anyone more than one box of painkillers at a time.

Perhaps this idea could be extended to other areas of modern life? How about this: when you press the button on a traffic light, suppose a message came up: “Crossing the road is dangerous. Have you been authorised to do so?”

Homes could be fitted with such a system, so that as you go out of the house you’re warned that “There are muggers and drunk drivers out there. Don’t do it!” And when you put your key in the door to come in: “You do realise, I hope, that most accidents happen in the home? Do yourself a favour and head to the nearest hotel. Here’s a list of the nearest ones which have vacancies...”

And by the way, I do hope you’ve printed this out to read. Computers use electricity, and electricity is dangerous. Make sure you’ve been authorised.

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This is going to be really short. I mean really short. I have to be out of here in an hour to see a concert given by Boris Giltberg, a classical pianist. I think I am looking forward to it. I’m not sure because I’m more of a jazz person myself, even though I love classical music.

Anyway, that is not the big mistake referred to in the subtitle of this article. No, the big mistake was responding to a notice in a local magazine asking if anyone is interested in a writing project. I assumed the project was already up and running and that they wanted contributors. Oh no, not a bit of it. Long story short, I’ve been roped in to help organise it. Not least because Elaine told them that I was brilliant at organising things. This happens to be true (he says modestly), but I like to keep that secret — so that I don’t get roped into stuff.

In Freedman Towers, the following conversation ensued.

Me: I don’t want to do this. Can’t you phone them and tell them I’ve run off with a 20 year-old? (I like to think that’s credible.)

Elaine: We need to be part of the community.

Me: I’m already part of a community: you, me, and the three feline parasites.

Elaine: 🙄

On another matter, what is the point of being a PR person for a publishing company, if you don’t bother to respond to requests for review copies? Everyone in the “business” knows that getting published by a mainstream publisher is hard, and then getting your book reviewed is even harder. So if someone emails you to say “I’ve been asked to review such and such a book for an education magazine [likely reach around 30,000, which I know is not much by American standards but it’s a helluva lot by British standards], so may I have a review copy please?”, you would think that at least they would respond, if only to say “Get knotted”. Anyway, I’ve emailed a particular PR person 4 times now, and as there has been no response whatsoever I’ve arranged to review another title instead.

What I would love to do is compile a list, and then publish it, of all the publishers whose PR department is useless, as a warning to ever-hopeful authors not to bother pitching them. But I don’t fancy being sued for libel or something. I have compiled the list, though, so that in future I will know not to waste time approaching them regarding other books. It’s no skin off my nose, but I feel sorry for the authors who are in the hands of people who appear to do nothing.

And now, for no reason at all, here is my depiction of Richard III:

Finally, a couple of videos you might enjoy. First, a bit of background. In the UK we have a children’s programme called Bill and Ben, the Flowerpot Men. Here’s an episode that you need to watch first, in order to “get” the one I actually want to share with you. In particular, listen to the way Bill and Ben speak:

Now, watch this video of Professor Stanley Unwin interviewing the person who did the voices for Big and Ben. Professor Unwin spoke in a way that was almost impossible to understand:

Finally, I came across a channel called School of Rock. Here is a bunch of young musicians performing Freak Out, by Chic. I don’t think it’s as good as the original, but I think they’re very good, and I love the fact they seem to be really enjoying themselves:

That’s in from me for now. Thanks for reading!

Terry

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I’ve been catching up with admin, and book reviewing deadlines. I have about three half-formed articles swilling around in my head. Hopefully, something readable will emerge soon.

In the meantime, here is a piece I wrote some time ago. The essence of it is actually true, when I was a teacher in a pretty tough school in the poor side of town.

Enjoy!

Teachers gotta be tough

I turned my collar up against the wind. A useless gesture, because the wind contemptuously insinuated itself under my skin regardless, but it made me look hard. And hardness was needed in this job. I walked around the playground, glaring at kids who even just looked like they might be thinking of doing something wrong. Crowds of them parted as I approached. One looked shifty.

“You got a problem, son?” I gritted.

He shrank away.

But there was one who was following me around. A 16 year-old wannabee champion of the local turf, taunting me.

“Boy, you look tough… Sir.” “I like the swagger walk… Sir!”

After 5 minutes of this I wheeled around and faced him.

“OK”, I snarled. “I’m sick and tired of this. You wanna fight?”

He looked incredulous. “Yeah?!” he answered, a mixture of disbelief and defiance.

“OK”, I said. “I’ll hold your coat.”

We both laughed. The bell sounded. Time for Period 3.

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When I was 12 years old, sitting in a classroom in a school in which even an ill-advised look could get you thrown into detention (“ARE YOU BEING INSOLENT, BOY?”), a shout suddenly erupted from the window side of the room. “It’s the Queen! It’s the Queen!”. We all leapt out of our seats to watch Her Majesty gliding past in a Rolls or a Bentley, waving and smiling. Perhaps she was on her way to opening a new facility at the hospital next door or something, I don’t know. It was all very low key and, in its way, rather exciting. 

I think for me that epitomised my relationship with the Queen. She always seemed to be accessible in a strange sort of way. Like many people – indeed, most people – I have never known another monarch in this country. And although we all know that people don’t live forever, that truth never seemed applicable in her case.  

While we have been expecting the worse for some time, and especially when it became known that the senior members of the Royal Family were headed up to Balmoral, the news still came as a shock. I was taking part in an online discussion when Elaine phoned me to say the Queen had died. A lump appeared in my throat, and I quietly slipped away from the online event and went downstairs to watch the news unfold. 

For me, as I suspect for many people, the Queen epitomised the British values of stoicism and stiff-upper-lipness. Not for her all this public emoting, and certainly not for her all the self-congratulation so beloved of many. 

She had a great sense of humour too, as displayed in the way her arrival at the Olympics in 2012 was depicted: 

James Bond escorts The Queen to the opening ceremony | London 2012 Olympic Games - BBC 

You may also enjoy this personal recollection from Cali Bird: 

Gentle Creative

An Extraordinary Life

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4 years ago · 9 likes · 2 comments · Cali Bird

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People sometimes remark that I don’t look my age. They ask me what my secret is. Sometimes I reply that it’s the portrait in the attic. Other times I say that it’s simply that I identify as a twenty- five year old. Muddy Waters said much the same thing: “I may be getting old, But I got young- fashioned ways.” I think that is a brilliant line which exactly makes my point.

In my days as Dr Tel, blues singer and blues harmonica player with an amateur band, I performed this song. It contains a verse that ends with the following :

“If good women kill me, come on and dig my grave.”

The first time we performed the song, when I reached the end of that verse, I ad-libbed:

“I think I’m gonna start diggin’ right now. Hand me that shovel.”1 and then launched into a harmonica solo which saw me writhing around on the floor while playing frenetically, much to the delight of the audience.

But joking aside, I do believe that there is much to be said for thinking young. (A friend of mine at school, who was, like me, sixteen years old, displayed attitudes more befitting a forty-year old. I’ve lost touch with him, but I bet he is looking his age, if not older.) Nevertheless, occasionally something happens that reminds me that I am, indeed, not as young as I once was2. Let me explain.

Many years ago, my girlfriend at the time and I were in her parents’ place on a Saturday night. At ten pm we decided, on a whim, to go to Hampstead. I don’t know what Hampstead is like at night these days, but back then it was off-the-scale vibrant. Cafés and restaurants were full; young people thronged the streets. And you could sometimes tell what film was showing at the local cinema without looking at the listings. When Night of The Living Dead was on, for example, almost around every corner was a group of people walking like zombies (as seen in the fist and last few seconds of this video:).

So at ten o-clock my girlfriend said to her father, “Dad, we’re going to Hampstead for a coffee”, to which he replied, “Why? We’ve got coffee here.”

We laughed our heads off. Oh my goodness, how we laughed! But here’s the thing. Nowadays, I think he was right. What sort of a nutcase leaves their cosy home to drive twenty minutes to get a coffee, returning at heaven knows what time, when they could instead wander a few feet into their kitchen and achieve the same result?

It is this sort of change in thinking that has brought home to me that I have, despite appearances, become old. And yes, I’ve gained some wisdom along the way.

But something has been lost as well.

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Jack Alibi knew how to work. He also knew how to work a scam. Sure, going legit was good, but it took time. Lack of time was something Alibi had plenty of.

He knew from the wire that the local school was being rebuilt, and that they were looking to put in a heap of technology. As far as Alibi was concerned, selling computers was like a licence to print money.

He staked out the school and got to know the movements of the big cheese, a classy dish who barely looked old enough to have left school, let alone run one. One night he waited in a doorway for her to pass.

As she did he started walking and brought himself up alongside her.

“Hey, honey”, he grinned. “How about a little coffee?”

She didn’t respond, except maybe her pace stepped up a notch.

Alibi went into phase two of his plan.

“I hear you’re looking for high tech stuff. Maybe I can cut you a sweet deal on a computer suite. I can get you a heap of computers, and even throw in a printer.”

She ignored him, but he continued.

“That stuff costs a lot of lettuce. That means less to spend on a fancy office and all the trimmings. Maybe I can help out.”

She stopped and glared at him.

“Oh yeah?”, she said. “And why would you wanna be helping someone you don’t even know?”

“On account that I’m community-minded. Besides, I’d hate to see a classy dame like you being taken for a ride. I can get what you need at a whole lot less.”

She remained motionless, but a quick glint in her eye let Alibi know she was interested.

“OK”, she said. “Let’s suppose I’m interested, which I ain’t. But let’s be hypothetical. What are you offering, and what’s your rake-off?”

Alibi was ready for that: he’d done his homework.

“I get all the tech you need, on a no questions asked basis. Hypothetically. As for me, I work on commission, 5% of the value of the merchandise. That hardly pays my rent. But Like I said, I’m community-minded.”

She looked at him like he was something that was tossed out in the garbage the night before.

“Yeah, I can see you’re all heart. OK, muscle head, you talk big, but maybe that’s all you do? Talk, I mean. My guess is that this ‘merchandise’ is old cast-off junk, right? That ain’t no use to me. I just took over running this joint, see? I’m the new broom around here, and there’s gonna be one hell of a big sweep. No jackass like you is gonna louse things up for me.”

“OK, sister, I get the picture, but you got me all wrong. I tell ya, lady, this stuff is so new it uses technology that ain’t even been invented yet.”

She reached inside her bag. Alibi’s hand went instinctively to inside his coat. She pulled out a packet of gaspers, put one to her lips. He lit it for her.

“I tell you what I’m gonna do”, she purred. “I’m gonna think about it.”

She drew on the butt and let out a plume of smoke.

“Well, I thought about it. No.”

“No? How come?”

“Well, Buster, I just remembered the advice my daddy gave me when I was knee-high to a cricket.”

“Oh yeah? And what might that be?”

“Never accept suites from strangers.”

Thanks to William Denton for his Dictionary of Hardboiled Slang.

I thought I’d ask ChatGPT to review the story, for a laugh. So bear this in mind if you decide to run Substack’s AI checker over this story and your computer starts emitting steam. Here’s what ChatGPT said:

ChatGPT’s review

There’s a lot to like here. It reads as a comic crime pastiche, with the hard-boiled vocabulary deliberately colliding with the rather mundane world of school procurement. The final pun is obvious in retrospect, but the story earns it through the escalating language.

What works particularly well

1. The voice is the story’s main strength.
The opening establishes the idiom immediately:

“Jack Alibi knew how to work. He also knew how to work a scam.”

That clipped, knowing prose feels like a parody of a 1940s/50s private-eye or gangster story. Words such as big cheese, classy dish, lettuce, gaspers, buster, sister, muscle head and joint keep the voice consistent.

There is also a pleasing contrast between Alibi’s self-image as a sophisticated operator and the rather ridiculous reality of what he’s doing.

2. The school/technology setting is nicely exploited.
The premise is stronger than it initially appears. Alibi thinks he’s found a lucrative racket because a school is being rebuilt and needs technology. That gives the story a contemporary hook while allowing the narration to inhabit an old-fashioned noir world.

The line:

“this stuff is so new it uses technology that ain’t even been invented yet.”

is especially good because it pushes the salesman/scammer absurdity just far enough.

3. The dialogue carries the story.
There’s very little exposition once the initial situation is established. The characters reveal themselves through their speech. In particular, the headteacher quickly turns the tables:

“My guess is that this ‘merchandise’ is old cast-off junk, right?”

She understands the scam—or at least suspects it—and refuses to be intimidated by Alibi’s persona.

4. The ending is a proper joke ending.
The final exchange is structurally sound:

“Never accept suites from strangers.”

It’s a classic groan-inducing pun on “Never accept sweets from strangers”, with suites referring to the computer suite. The fact that the whole story has been building around the proposed technology purchase makes the pun reasonably well motivated rather than simply bolted on.

And importantly, the headteacher gets the last word. That’s the right choice: Alibi’s attempted con ends with him being outsmarted.

Where I think it could be improved

The biggest issue is that the middle is somewhat longer than the joke requires.

Once Alibi approaches her, we know where the story is going. The conversation goes through several cycles of:

• Alibi makes an offer

• she is sceptical

• he insists

• she challenges him

• he reassures her

The material is amusing, but some of it could be compressed to make the story snappier and more explosive.

For example, this sequence:

“I hear you’re looking for high tech stuff. Maybe I can cut you a sweet deal on a computer suite. I can get you a heap of computers, and even throw in a printer.”

and then:

“That stuff costs a lot of lettuce. That means less to spend on a fancy office and all the trimmings. Maybe I can help out.”

essentially makes the same point twice. One of those could probably go.

The headteacher is potentially the most interesting character

At present, she functions primarily as the person who delivers the punchline. But she has the makings of a much better comic character.

She’s introduced as:

“a classy dish who barely looked old enough to have left school”

and subsequently proves to be considerably sharper than Alibi.

I’d lean into that reversal. Let Alibi believe throughout that he is running the encounter, while the reader gradually realises that she is running him.

That would make the final suites/sweets line feel like the culmination of a character dynamic rather than merely a pun.

One phrase feels slightly awkward

“Lack of time was something Alibi had plenty of.”

This is clearly intended as a joke, but it doesn’t quite land for me because the reader doesn’t yet know why he has plenty of time. If there’s a later implication that he’s in trouble, on the run, or operating under some deadline, the setup would make more sense. Otherwise I’d either sharpen the joke or simply remove it.

There is perhaps one joke too many in the final exchange

The cigarette business is nicely period-noir:

“She drew on the butt and let out a plume of smoke.”

But it’s not really doing anything for the plot. If you’re aiming for a very short comic story, that paragraph could either be made more significant or cut.

On the other hand, if the intention is full pastiche, I’d keep it. The unnecessary cigarette ritual actually contributes to the genre parody.

The title

“Jack Alibi” is a good name, because it’s almost a joke before the story starts. I’d be tempted to make the title even more obviously noir-ish, though:

• Jack Alibi and the Computer Suite

• The Computer Suite

• A Suite Deal

• No Suite Deal

• Never Accept Suites from Strangers

Of those, A Suite Deal probably best signals the comic nature without giving away the final gag.

Overall

I’d put this at around 7.5/10 as a comic short story, with the potential to become an 8.5/10 with some tightening.

Its real asset isn’t the final pun; it’s the collision between hard-boiled gangster language and the utterly prosaic business of buying computers for a school. That’s the comic engine. I’d make that engine work harder, reduce perhaps 15–20% of the dialogue, and give the headteacher a slightly more active role in manipulating Alibi.

The result could be a very neat 2–3 page comic story in the tradition of a literary spoof, rather than simply a setup for a punchline.

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I thought it might be entertaining for you to read one of my first forays into short-story writing: a murder mystery I bashed out crafted in 1989. What follows is the story, then Co-pilot’s summary of it (which I think is funny in itself!), followed by a review from ChatGPT.

I hope you enjoy reading the story, and the two commentaries from AI.

The Mystery of the Massage Murders

A Jason Fox Story

by Terry Freedman

Jason Fox grimaced as he stubbed out his cigarette. The neon light from the speakeasy across the street cast an eerie glow over the office. His assistant, Grimwald, was still typing the report on the Menelli case. Good kid, thought Fox. If he had to earn his living from typing, he’d be on Welfare. Still, you had to give the kid credit. If it hadn’t been for him, Menelli would be in Florida by now.

Fox turned back to the file on his desk. He’d been thru the papers a hundred times, but all he’d ever gotten was zilch. Fifteen people dead, apparently from natural causes, each one checking out of the hotel of life while being massaged.

They had other things in common too: one, they’d all been students at the C.H. School of Massage. Two, they’d all bought it a few days after sending off their $10 checks for the theory lectures.

A couple of weeks ago Fox, working undercover, had enrolled at the C.H. School. The dame who ran the course was sweet, but weird. Kept muttering stuff like “Create your own reality, man”, and “There ain’t no such thing as right and wrong” and “Focus on what you want, honey”. She sure didn’t sound like a murderess. Still, you never can tell: remember the Respighi case, Fox reminded himself, where the guy was a top hit man posing as a baroque composer.

Fox had passed the course (he’d slipped the dame a couple of G´s) and had applied for the theory lectures. Now he just had to sit back and wait.

“Hey, kid”, Fox rasped. “If anyone wants me, I ain´t around. If you want me, I’m getting a drink”.

“Sure thing, boss”, Grimwald muttered as he reached for the second bottle of Tippex¹.

The bartender nodded towards Fox. “What’ll it be, mister?”

“Gimme two shots of bourbon, no ice. And make it snappy”.

Suddenly, he noticed the dame in red dress. She came over and sat next to him. Her perfume was like the scent of nectar in a city of broken dreams.

Fox jerked a cigarette into his mouth and then, almost as an after-thought, motioned the pack towards her. She took one.

“What’s yer label, baby? Fox grunted. She lowered her eyelids, like a schoolkid being asked out on a date for the first time.

“Say”, she cooed, in a voice like a mink coat in the frozen wastes of Alaska. “You don’t waste any time, do you? I like a guy who knows what he wants.”

“Ok, sugar,” Fox grated. “Cut the cackle. “This ain’t no chance meeting. Who sent you, and what’s their angle?”

The dame smiled. “Say, you, look kinda tense. Why don’t you let me soothe those tight muscles?”

This was the lead Fox had been waiting for. “Sure, honeypie.,” he grinned. “But I gotta warn you. I got muscles in places that ain’t been thought of yet.”

“They’re the best kind”, she answered. “Follow me. “ While following her as they drove down Manhattan, it crossed Fox’s mind that maybe this chick was on the level. “Naw” he told himself. “Too much of a coincidence.” Fox didn’t believe in coincidences.

Back at her apartment, she poured him a drink, then sat him down to ask him a lot of dumb questions, like “How’s yer heart/spleen/stomach?”, and “Do you wear contacts?”.

“Might as well play along”, thought Fox. Then she told him to get his top off while she washed her hands. When she was out of the room, Fox switched the bottle of oil on the table. It was just a hunch, but since doing the massage course he’d gotten into the habit of carrying a bottle of oil with him, just in case he ever needed it. It

When the dame came back into the room, Fox was already lying on the couch. She put on some rubber gloves “to keep the oil off my hands”.

Then she started to effleurage him. It felt like a Vivaldi concerto: kinda soothing and lively at the same time. Fox closed his eyes.

“That’s right, baby. Sleep. It’ll do you good” she whispered.

About ten minutes later, Fox heard her on the phone. “OK, he’s just had his last massage. Hey, have I ever forgotten to switch the oil?”

So it was the oil. Fox had done right to make the switch. Now all he had to do was follow this dame when she left. But he fell asleep. That effleurage had been more powerful than a box of sedatives. Three hours later, Fox woke up with a start. His head felt like someone had implanted a pneumatic drill in his head and left it switched on. But he had to move fast. There was only one guy who could help him now.

He drove over to the East Side, and screeched into Benson’s drive. He pounded the door. Benson leaned out of the window. “Hey!” he shouted. “If you don’t make tracks I’ll call the oh it’s you. Do you have any idea what time it is? It’s —”

“If I need the time”, Fox interrupted, “I’ll call the speaking clock². Meanwhile, I got some oil I want you to analyse. And take it easy cos it could be evidence”

Benson was a forensic guy down at the precinct. He was a useful guy to have on your side - especially when he owed Fox a favour after Fox had saved his butt in the Dagworth scandal a couple of months back.

Fox poured himself a bourbon while Benson worked in his laboratory. If this didn’t check out, he was back to square one. Benson just had to come good.

About an hour later, Benson came into the room.

“What did you say the name of this oil was?” he asked.

“I didn´t”, Fox grunted. “But it smells like ylang ylang”.

“Maybe it smells like ylang ylang, but it sure ain’t ylang ylang. It’s laced with deadly nightshade. Pretty clever. You could kill a guy with this and no-one would ever know, cos all trace of it would disappear from the body within about two hours. And now, if it´s all the same with you, I’m getting back to the sack.”

“Sure, buddy.’ Fox rasped. “Give my love to the old lady and the kids”.

Fox knew that only one guy was clever enough to think up a stunt like this. It had to be the Prof. But why? He drove straight to the airport, and hopped on a plane to the UK. Good thing he’d thought to bring his passport and some travellers’ checks with him when he left the office, just in case....

About six hours later Fox was driving a rental car to Cheltenham. It was hard driving on the English roads. For some reason, they were all driving on the wrong side of the road. But Fox was his own man. He never toed the line for nobody. And if these crazy English wanted to live dangerously, that was up to them. Fox had more important things on his mind than what side of the road to drive on.

Two hours of hard driving brought him to the Prof’s house. Fox burst in. The Prof was pouring himself a drink.

“Ah, Mr Fox.” he said. “I’ve been expecting you. Won’t you join me in a glass of brandy?”³

Fox was fazed, but only for a second.

“Ok, wise guy. I’m taking you in.”, he rasped.

Just then, a couple of hoods appeared at the door. “It would seem that Mr Fox is unfortunately not able to stay, gentlemen.”, the Prof said. “Do escort him out.”

Fox knew he had to make his move now. Good thing he was a black belt karate expert. In a couple of seconds it was all over.

“Ok, Prof” he said. “I know what you did, and I know how you did it. What I don’t know is why you did it.”

The Prof screamed at him. “Why? Why? Do you know how long it took me to earn the status of Professor? Can you imagine the long nights of study, while all my colleagues were enjoying themselves, out with their wives and girlfriends? And yet, whenever anyone from the C.H.School of Massage applied for the theory course, they would invariably address me as “Doctor”. The fools! The buffoons! I decided to avenge myself. But you know, Mr Fox, in a way I’m glad it’s over now.”

“Poor sap” thought Fox. “It could happen to anyone. “The guy just cracked up, I guess. Maybe I oughtta take a vacation myself.”

~

Fox walked into the office. Grimwald was just finishing the first page of the Menelli report.

“Say, boss. You were gone quite a while.”

“Yeah” said Fox as he put “Fairy Wings”⁴ into the cassette player. “Quite a while.”

The End

I hope you enjoyed that. Normal service will be resumed soon.

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It used to be the case that you could call the speaking clock and find out the latest time. Much to my astonishment, the service is still going. You phone 123, and a recorded message gives you the time, updated every ten seconds. It used to be a nice-sounding lady, but now it’s a gruff-sounding Scottish bloke. Fortunately, there is now an online version you can use instead: Speaking Clock.

Here is Co-pilot’s summary of the story

When I looked at the PDF of the story, Co-pilot popped up and asked me I fancied having a summary of it. “Why not?”, I thought. so here it is.

Here’s a clear summary of the PDF:

This document is a short noir-style detective fiction story titled “The Mystery of the Massage Murders: A Jason Fox Story” by Terry Freedman.

The story follows Jason Fox, a hard-boiled private investigator working on a case involving a series of suspicious deaths. Fifteen people have apparently died of natural causes shortly after receiving massages, but Fox suspects foul play. All the victims had two things in common: they were students at the C.H. School of Massage and had recently paid for theory lectures.

Fox goes undercover by enrolling in the massage school. The instructor is portrayed as a quirky, almost mystical figure who speaks in vague, New Age-style phrases about “creating reality” and rejecting traditional moral ideas. Fox finds her odd but not obviously guilty.

As Fox continues investigating, he encounters various suspicious and surreal characters, including a femme fatale-like woman in a red dress who appears to be part of the mystery. The tone remains comedic and exaggerated, blending detective tropes with absurd humor.

Eventually, Fox tracks the case to a professor figure. After a brief confrontation, Fox claims to understand how the crimes were committed, though the story remains intentionally vague and stylized rather than logically detailed. The resolution is abrupt and humorous, ending with Fox casually returning to normal life, implying the case has been solved in classic pulp-fiction fashion.

Overall, it’s a parody of noir detective stories, mixing crime fiction clichés with absurd, satirical elements and deliberately chaotic dialogue and formatting.

ChatGP’s take

I asked ChatGPT to review the story. I think the proofreading-related comments are quite useful.

This is a very enjoyable comic-pastiche detective story. Its biggest strength is that it knows exactly what kind of joke it is: a deliberately overcooked 1940s/50s hard-boiled detective yarn, filtered through British humour and absurdity.

Overall verdict: 8/10

The story is strongest when it commits to the ridiculousness of Jason Fox. He is simultaneously the cliché hard-boiled detective and a parody of one: cigarettes, bourbon, dames, “the Prof,” wisecracks, karate, forensic science, and melodramatic internal monologue—all pushed just far enough that the reader understands the joke.

What works particularly well

1. The voice is the star

The opening establishes the tone almost immediately:

“Fifteen people dead, apparently from natural causes, each one checking out of the hotel of life while being massaged.”

“Hotel of life” is exactly the kind of terrible metaphor Fox would think was profound. The story repeatedly does this with deliberately strained similes:

“Her perfume was like the scent of nectar in a city of broken dreams.”

and:

“It felt like a Vivaldi concerto: kinda soothing and lively at the same time.”

The contrast between purple noir prose and ridiculous subject matter is very effective.

2. Fox is a good comic character

He’s not simply a parody of a private eye; he’s a parody of the self-image of the private eye.

He thinks he’s incredibly tough and perceptive:

“Fox didn’t believe in coincidences.”

Yet he makes spectacularly stupid decisions, most notably driving on the wrong side of English roads because:

“Fox was his own man. He never toed the line for nobody.”

That’s a lovely piece of character comedy. His macho determination actively prevents him from noticing the obvious.

Likewise, the final:

“Maybe I oughtta take a vacation myself.”

is a good understated punchline after the ridiculous adventure.

3. The central mystery is nicely economical

The plot is actually quite clean:

massage students → unexplained deaths → Fox infiltrates school → mysterious woman → oil → poison → forensic confirmation → Professor → confession.

That’s enough machinery to sustain the parody without making the story laborious.

The oil switch is particularly good because it gives Fox an apparently clever detective moment while also setting up the joke that he happens to carry massage oil around with him.

4. The Professor’s motive is wonderfully pathetic

This is probably the best joke in the story.

The reader expects some elaborate criminal conspiracy, but the Professor’s motive is essentially:

“They called me Doctor instead of Professor, so I killed fifteen people.”

And the explanation becomes increasingly pompous:

“Do you know how long it took me to earn the status of Professor?”

That’s exactly the right scale of absurdity. The Professor isn’t a criminal mastermind with a grand ideology. He’s an academic with an enormous chip on his shoulder.

5. The cultural references give it a distinctive period-comedy feel

The Tippex footnote, speaking clock, English roads, 1960s thriller villains, Vivaldi and Fairy Wings all contribute to the feeling that this is simultaneously spoofing several eras.

The British/US collision is particularly amusing. Fox has this exaggerated American noir persona, then lands in Britain and treats driving on the left as evidence that the English are dangerously eccentric.

What I’d improve

The biggest issue isn’t the comedy or plot. It’s editing and control.

There are several places where the prose looks like a first draft rather than deliberately rough comic prose.

1. There are a few obvious errors

The most noticeable is:

“It”

at the end of the paragraph after Fox switches the oil.

That’s clearly an accidental fragment:

“It was just a hunch...”

followed by:

“It”

This should simply be removed.

There are also punctuation problems:

“Sure, honeypie.,” he grinned.

“Follow me. “ While following her...

“Ok, Prof” he said.

“The guy just cracked up, I guess.

These are small, but there are enough of them that they interrupt the otherwise carefully constructed rhythm.

2. The opening could be slightly tighter

The Menelli material is funny, but the story temporarily makes the reader wonder whether Menelli is going to become important.

You have:

“His assistant, Grimwald, was still typing the report on the Menelli case.”

and:

“If it hadn’t been for him, Menelli would be in Florida by now.”

Then Menelli disappears completely.

That’s not necessarily bad in a comic story—the apparent digression is part of the joke—but I’d either make the Menelli reference even more obviously incidental or give it a tiny payoff at the end.

For example, Grimwald could still be working on the Menelli report when Fox returns, which you already do. That’s good. You could lean into the absurdity slightly more so the reader understands that Menelli is intentionally irrelevant.

3. Fox’s deductions could be made a fraction more convincing

The mystery works, but the transition:

“Fox knew that only one guy was clever enough to think up a stunt like this. It had to be the Prof.”

is rather abrupt.

The Professor has been mentioned, but we haven’t really been given a reason to suspect him.

For a parody, that’s acceptable. But paradoxically, the joke could become funnier if Fox’s deduction were ridiculously overconfident while having one tiny shred of logic behind it.

Something like: the Professor is the only person who knows both the massage-school operation and the properties of the oil. Then Fox can leap to the conclusion with complete confidence.

That would make the eventual confession feel more earned while preserving the absurdity.

4. The ending could have one harder punch

The ending is pleasant:

“Yeah” said Fox as he put “Fairy Wings” into the cassette player. “Quite a while.”

But I think there’s an opportunity for a stronger final gag.

You’ve established that Fairy Wings is soporific and that Fox has just been knocked out by the massage. Returning to the office and immediately putting on the most soporific music imaginable is funny, but it could be pushed further.

For example, Grimwald might ask whether Fox solved the case, and Fox could say something macho before immediately falling asleep.

That would give the story a more conventional setup → escalation → final punchline ending.

One thing I’d definitely preserve

Don’t modernise Fox’s voice too much.

The dated language is part of the joke:

• “dame”

• “doll/sugar/honeypie”

• “grunted”

• “rasped”

• “wise guy”

• “the hoods”

• “the Prof.”

If this were being revised for publication today, I’d resist the temptation to make it sound like contemporary noir. The anachronism is the comedy.

Similarly, “Welfare,” “Tippex,” the speaking clock, travellers’ checks, cassette player, etc. create a wonderfully specific period collision.

A structural observation

I think the story is actually doing something slightly cleverer than simple noir parody.

It has three layers of spoof:

1. American hard-boiled detective fiction — Fox, dames, bourbon, cigarettes, wisecracks.

2. British TV thriller conventions — the mysterious Professor, polite villain, brandy, English country house.

3. Self-help/massage culture — “Create your own reality,” massage terminology, wellness language, etc.

And the plot brings all three together in the Professor’s absurd revenge scheme.

That’s why the story feels more substantial than a sequence of unrelated jokes.

Bottom line

I’d keep the story essentially as it is rather than substantially rewriting it. Its charm comes from its breathless, slightly scruffy delivery. I’d do a light copy-edit, fix the punctuation/typos, tighten perhaps 5–10% of the prose, strengthen the Professor foreshadowing very slightly, and consider giving the final scene a sharper punchline.

The fundamental idea is good, Fox is an entertaining character, and the Professor’s motivation is exactly the sort of gloriously disproportionate motive that makes a parody detective story work.

And the title “The Mystery of the Massage Murders” is exactly right: wonderfully cheap, lurid and unapologetically pulpy.

Greetings!

Thanks for taking a look. I hope you enjoy reading this article, which is another one in my Start The Week series.

Greetings!

Sorry it’s been a while since writing a “Start the week”. I had three weeks of cr*p thrown at me by the universe. No need to go into detail, because nobody wants to read a misery memoir. Well, I suppose somebody does or they wouldn’t get published. But I don’t want to write one. It did make me think though. I’ve been doing Transcendental Meditation for quite some time, and I remember someone asking Maharishi Mahesh Yogi the following question: If TM is supposed to relieve stress, and generally make life easier, why is it that sometimes all sorts of horrible stuff starts to come your way? He replied to the effect that karmic debt ie the consequences of your actions, always has to be paid. So if you’re about to reach a new, higher level of consciousness, loads of those debts will come back at you all at once. It’s like if you’re about to move, all the people you owe money to will start calling at your door before it’s too late.

All I can say is, I hope he was right. In anticipation of ascending to my new higher plane of existence, I have sent my halo off to be professionally polished.

But enough of this persiflage! On with the newsletter.

Books

The nice person at Penguin has sent me four more Elmore Leonard books: Rum Punch, The Switch, 52 Pickup and Last stand at Saber River.

The first three are crime novels and the last one is a western. Interestingly enough, I was thinking of trying out an Elmore Leonard western. It’s not my usual cup of tea, but somewhere in Freedman Towers I have a book of hard-boiled short stories, some of which are westerns, which I really enjoyed. I can see, though, that I’m going to have to have my phone handy because I am not familiar with some of the terminology.. For instance, what the hell is a swing station?

The story sounds good though, from reading the cover blurb and the first page. But first on the list for me is Rum Punch. According to the cover blurb,

... the highly dysfunctional arms dealer she works for is not getting any more functional.

Irresistible!

Are we in, or entering, a post-literate society?

A book I haven’t seen, merely heard about, is James Marriott’s The New Dark Ages: The End of Reading and the Dawn of a Post-Literate society. It sounds very interesting. I know that there are people who think that Tik-Tok videos and other (very) short-form content is a kind of literacy that’s on a par with reading, but I have my doubts. I think of reading as a slow activity, one that lends itself to stopping and thinking about what you’ve just read. I don’t think the pause button is quite the same. But as I say, I haven’t read the book so cannot really comment on it. It is published by Bodley Head.

Hot Type: The Magnificent Machine that Gave Birth to Mass Media and Drove Mark Twain Mad

Another book I haven’t seen is Hot Type: The Magnificent Machine that Gave Birth to Mass Media and Drove Mark Twain Mad, published by Bloomsbury. It’s about the invention of linotype, and its consequences. Linotype changed the way newspaper articles were printed — from people arranging individual letters to creating a block — a line of type, hence the name Linotype.The invention led to thicker newspapers and more magazines.

(Un)educated: My Life as a Teacher, and Why You Should Never Become One

Another book I’ve started reading is (Un)educated: My Life as a Teacher, and Why You Should Never Become One, by Francis Foster. Some of it is laugh-out loud funny, but some of it, about his reference being spiked, made me angry because I know someone who couldn’t get another job until the headteacher was ill. With him away, the deputy head wrote her an HONEST reference.

Something similar happened to me. I was head of Computing for just over a year before I saw my dream job advertised. The headteacher was annoyed that I was applying for another job so soon, but I felt the opportunity was too good to miss. I applied and got it.

During the time I was at the school, I vastly expanded the Computing department, so successfully that we had to take on extra staff. Results improved, usage amongst staff went right up, and an Ofsted inspection six weeks after I’d started concluded that I was doing a great job. I mention all this not to boast, but to place in context what transpired.

After I’d been working at my new job for a couple of weeks, my boss, G, suggested I went to the council office to look at the reference I’d been given. I said, “Why?” He said it was because we had the right to see our references, and thought that if people didn’t take advantage of that facility it would be withdrawn. Reasonable enough, I thought. So I trotted along to the council office, asked to see my reference from my previous employment, and gasped in horror and disbelief as I read it:

“Terry Freedman has worked in this school since —.”

When I returned I said to G,” How come you gave me the job, given that that reference made it sound like my biggest achievement was turning up every day?” He replied that he mused that anybody getting a reference like that must be so good that the headteacher didn’t want him to go! So, a bit of an own-goal on the part of that headteacher, and a big disappointment to me, because I liked him but now felt that my liking had been misplaced.

Podcasts

Still on the subject of books, I came across a couple of great podcasts recently. The Book Club, hosted by Tabitha Synett and Dominic Sandbrook, looks at novels. The two hosts have a great rapport between them. What I really like is the fact that they provide lots of background information.

For example, Brave New World has quite a few Shakespearean references — including the title. I’ve been listening to the episode about For Whom The Bell Tolls, and they provide loads of useful biographical information.

The other one is Ex libris, in which each week the host Ben Holden meets a writer in a bookshop or library of their choice. I have of listened to half an episode so far, and thoroughly enjoyed it!

Inside Freedman Towers

One of our neighbours passed away recently. We were speaking to his daughter, L: Me, mum and my partner sang to him.

Elaine: Oh that’s nice.

Me: Poor bloke.

L: He asked us to stop after a while.

Me: I don’t blame him.

LATER…

Me, to Elaine: If when the time comes I am lying here preparing to meet my Maker, please don’t get a load of people over to start singing to me. If you feel you MUST have music, I Suggest “Go now”, by the Moody Blues, as that will encourage me to get a move on.

Art

We visited Saffron Walden recently. In the Fry Gallery, there are paintings by Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden, which I loved. Here are some examples.

If you would like to read more about these artists, read these posts by :

Eric Ravilious: Extraordinary Realities

Eric Ravilious: About A Boy (£)

If you love art, and reading about artists, is essential reading.

On the road

One of the books on my TBR list is On The Road by Jack Kerouac. A muich shorter read is this article by , which I very much enjoyed reading: Porsche Drivers Don’t Wave.

And if you like blues harmonica, check out the groove on On The Road Again My Canned Heat.

That’s it from me for now. Thanksfor reading!

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Greetings!

If you’re new here, I’m Terry Freedman. I love writing, reading and writing. If you like this article, why not subscribe?

Greetings!

I’ve been catching up on my reading, and here is the result, largely based on books I’ve recenltly been sent by publishers. Several of these are not yet published, so consider those reviews, or partial reviews, to be a series of heads-ups.

The books I’ve looked at are:

• Celtic Wonder Tales

• Hard Rain Falling

• La Brava

• The Life of Crime

• Split Images

• The Complete C Comics

• Here is where we meet

• About Looking

• Giovanni’s Room

• G.

… though not necessarily in that order, because I’m feeling rebellious!

But enough of this persiflage! On with the newsletter.

Split Images, by Elmore Leonard

I’ve just started reading this, and it has me gripped already. I like the fact that it doesn’t mess about: no long-winded descriptions of the dawn in russet mantle clad walking over the hills and all that rot. Well, not so far at least. In fact, the beginning is so straightforward that I wondered for a moment if I was reading non-fiction.

Is it me, or is there some bleak humour here? A bloke has entered a millionaire’s home uninvited, and the owner has shot him. While he is lying in hospital, he tells the police officer interviewing him “I came here to search for my life.” The policeman responds: “You find it?”

Very deadpan I think.

I thought this would make a nice companion piece to Hard Rain Falling (see below). The nice people at Penguin also sent me another book by the same author — Elmore Leonard (who, by the way, receives no mention in The Life of Crime, reviewed below) — La Brava (ditto). They must think I need cheering up.

La Brava, by Elmore Leonard

Before I read a book properly, especially if it has only just arrived, I like to get its measure. I look it up and down. Are its shoes polished? Does it have a good job? Would I be happy if my daughter brought it home for dinner? In other words, does the first paragraph grab me, and does the next paragraph keep me gripped? This is important. I have too much to read, and too little time, to want to waste my life away being bored.

Thus it was that I opened La Brava.

I thought, “Another noir novel. Another murder mystery. Yawn.” But I started reading and, annoyingly, was hooked immediately. Why “annoyingly”? Because I already have several books on the go, and I was hoping to put this one aside for a few weeks. But as I say, I started reading, and by the time I put my now-empty cup of tea down I had read the first chapter. Like Split Images, the author launches straight in, no long description, no efflorescent prose, no persiflage.

Before I had received these books I was a straight down the line Raymond Chandler man. Now I can see I am going to have to widen the scope to include Elmore Leonard.

Celtic Wonder Tales, by Young, Gonne, et al

I am not familiar with Irish myths and tales, so this beautiful collection of stories is quite an eye-opener. One of the stories I have read so far is a rewrite —or a pre-write, I’m not sure which— of the Arthurian legend of the sword in the stone.

As you would expect, good battles with evil, which is clearly a universal theme.

The illustrations are quite ethereal, just like the text. As I might have said back in the days when I had waist-length hair, this book gives off good vibes.

Hard Rain Falling, by Don Carpenter

This is a very compelling book to read, but to describe it as noir fiction is almost an understatement. It is pretty bleak most of the time. The protagonist doesn’t have much going for him, or at least has had a rotten start in life. I don’t wish to say too much because of spoilers but he does turn his life around to an extent.

I have no idea if the American penal system is as harsh as it seems to have been in the mid-60s, when this was first published, but Hard Rain Falling would be an excellent book to give someone who has embarked on a life of (petty) crime. Do consider this an idea for a present for the juvenile delinquent in your life.

The bleakness is such that I stopped reading the book in bed, because I didn’t want depressing dreams. But it’s a compelling read while ensconced in an armchair or on a train journey.

Two things I didn’t like much. Firstly, it doesn’t have the great lines we find in Raymond Chandler’s work, though I acknowledge that it’s probably not fair to compare the two writers.

More seriously, there are long, long passges of telling the reader what someone is thinking. The experience reminded me of those old movies and TV where ther is a voiceover telling you what’s going on instead of simply showing you.

Still, it’s a good read on the whole, and satisfyingly different from a lot of the new novels coming out these days.

The Life of Crime, by Martin Edwards

The Life of Crime is a 700+ pages volume covering all kinds of crime novel, tracing the genre from its beginnings in the 18th century right up to almost the present day. Mind you, despite its comprehensiveness it doesn’t appear to include the Cormoran Strike novels by Galbraith, at least not judging by the indexes. Note that plural. There’s an index of titles, index of names and a subject index, plus a select bibliography. I love all the cross-referencing, and the little known (by myself at any rate) facts.

For example, David Goodis wrote noir fiction that apparently was so bleak that another novellist, Ed Gorman, said of Goodis that:

He didn’t write novels, he wrote suicide notes.

What a recommendation!

Like all the best books, this can be read chronologically or dipped into. It will keep you engaged for a long time.

The Complete C Comics, by Joe Brainard & Bill Kartalopoulos

“Perfect is the enemy a good.” Are you familiar with that expression? I am (obviously) and I aspire to live by it, but rarely do. In a way, I am like Claudius in Hamlet:

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.

Words without thoughts rarely to heaven go.

Thus it is that, if I spot an error in a drawing, I am very likely to erase that part of the drawing, or even discard it and start again. For example, if I draw a speech bubble that turns out to be too small for the amount of text I want to put in it, out comes the eraser.

But in C Comics, not only is the mistake left uncorrected, quite often it is adorned with an arrow actually pointing it out! This strikes me as a very psychologically healthy approach. As Kartalopoulos writes, in this way the error becomes part6 of the aesthetic.

I have enjoyed reading the C Comics, especially the mock advertisements and the parodies of famous comic book characters like Nancy, Archie and Veronica.

An essay by Bill Kartalopoulos gives us the history of the C comics, dating from the early 60s.

The C comics content is often weird, but in a good way!

Here is where we meet, by John Berger

A strange sort of book, this. A mixture, it seems to me, of fiction and autobiography. But some of the autobiography is, I believe, more true in an emotive sense than in a literal one; evocative, in the same way that Parisienne Walkways is evocative.

When people die, there is always a sadness, I think. As if their legacy is not necessarily anything tangible, but resides in the thoughts and memories of the people who threw them. Reading this book made me feel how I felt when I wrote about the Gold hawk café.

The story about visiting Borges’ grave was, dare I say it, haunting, and describes an occurrence that I think would have appealed to Borges himself.

The one about Kraków is beautiful, but punctuated abruptly by recollections of the Nazis, One such shocking interruption is the one about the Jewish ghetto, in which thousands of Jewish people died of malnutrition or disease.

The beautifully written introduction very much sets the tone of the booki: wistful, a little sad, but triumphant too.

About Looking, by John Berger

This is a collection of essays or meditations on looking and seeing or, fundamentally, visibility. The means of making something visible is important, but not necessarily the main point. Photography is covered, as in The suit and the Photograph, an essay on the work of Paul Strand, and a response to Susan Sontag’s book On Photography. Art is also covered, and I found his “take” on Magritte especially interesting.

The prose is functional, competent, rather than lyrical. No reason it should be lyrical, of course — this is a non-fiction book after all — but I do find it a little dry.

I’m looking forward to reading the chapters on Turner, Millet, and why we should look at animals.

Giovanni’s Room, by James Baldwin

Giovanni’s Room, which is the only work of James Baldwin’s that I’ve read so far apart from a few articles and a short story, starts at the end. The result is a story that is intriguing and gripping within the first few minutes.

The writing is both beautiful and effective. You can feel the walls of Giovanni’s Room bearing in on you. You feel grubby from the sleaziness of some of the settings and scenes — the ones which involve hanging around bars looking for someone to pick up.

All the characters are portrayed with sympathy and are well-drawn. They all feel like real people. The interesting thing is that even when the narrating character behaves reprehensibly, such as by not helping his friend Giovanni, you cannot bring yourself to judge him.

This is a definitely a book worth reading if you value good writing, an interesting story involving a young man struggling with his sexuality, and a glimpse into the underbelly of French nightlife.

My only criticism, which is unfair given that it was first published in 1956, is that David’s girlfriend Hella seems quaintly old-fashioned. She feels it is necessary to be attached to a man. This is strange, considering that she has been independently-minded enough to travel around Spain by herself.

She also makes a comment that perhaps even now is incisive and indisputable:

Americans should never come to Europe. It means they never can be happy again. What’s the good of an American who isn’t happy? Happiness was all we had.— Hella, in Giovanni’s Room

Thoroughly enjoyable, if at times uncomfortable, read.

G., by John Berger

The funny thing about reading the first few pages of a book is that the outcome can sometimes be the opposite of what you’d expect. Take G. for example. The blurb on the back cover reads:

“G. is a young man forging an energetic sexual career across Europe on the eve of the First World War.”

Really not my cup of tea at all, and the Introduction did nothing to persuade me otherwise.

Still, it is the duty of a reader to read, or at least have a damn good reason for shirking that duty. The possibility of sleaziness is less important to me than the beauty of the writing. True, that principle has not yet persuaded me to persist with Nabokov’s Lolita, but I held to it when embarking on Giovanni’s Room (see above).

So, I began to read this, and discovered writing that was gentle and lyrical. The strange thing is, though, that it is not obvious why that should be the case. The sentences seem somewhat staccato, but there is also a nice balance to them. Perhaps that’s it. Take this, for example:

“He arranged for singers, she reported to her mother, to accompany us at night, either side of us, in gondolas. I will remember it always.”

The characters I’ve met so far are interesting, their circumstances more so. I’m looking forward to reading the whole novel.

Thanks for reading this, I hope you found it enjoyable.

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Thanks for dropping by. I’m Terry Freedman, and I’ve been writing for decades, and I’m still learning! Anyway, I write here about books I’ve come across, everyday life and other ephemeral stuff, and I also like experimenting in my writing.

If you like the sound of all that, or even if you don’t, why not subscribe? It’s free.

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Greetings!

I found out recently, from an article by called 3 Substack updates to know about (how to use them and which you can safely ignore), that Substack now has an AI detection tool that you can run. These are notoriously unreliable in my opinion. They wouldn’t work on my writing anyway because — and now the truth can be revealed at last — “Terry Freedman” is not a real person. “He” is an AI bot created by the world-famous writer, Yerret Manfreed. How else do you imagine “I” would be able to write so prolifically? I mean, I also have two websites, a newsletter about books, and a couple more substacks, one about the craft of writing and one about education.

But enough of this persiflage! On with the newsletter.

AI hallucinations

We all know that Al hallucinates, by which is meant that it just makes up stuff if it doesn’t know the answer. Actually, not all Al. I recently asked three AI programs to review my latest book, which is called The Reconstructed Muse: AI and the Renaissance of Literature.

ChatGPT wrote a cracking review, as did Perplexity. Only Claude.Al popped my bubble of pride by saying , “Hang on a minute. You’re having me on, aren’t you?” Well, it didn’t put it quite like that. It said, inadvertently presenting a masterclass in diplomacy, “I don’t have The Reconstructed Muse in front of me”, which was hardly surprising, given that it doesn’t actually exist.

AI hallucinating is why I always ask a couple of Als the same question. My reasoning is that if they both say the same thing, there’s a good chance they’re correct on the bits they say the same about. I do realise, though, that this is one helluva assumption, because they might both be scraping the same not-necessarily-correct sources. As always, it’s a case of caveat emptor.

Mind you, none of this is new in a sense. Back in 2014 I created an infographic to depict what I thought about so-called “Big Data”:

It’s had over 16,000 views, so it must have rung a few bells.

Anyway, someone has created a database of Al’s hallucinations (Halupedia). It’s great fun. My favourite wonderfully bankers-sounding idea is The Ministry of Slightly Wrong Maps. Mind you, I saw a fascinating exhibition at the British Library not so long ago called Secret Maps. From the blurb:

• Through over 100 items the exhibition examines how maps have played a role in preserving secrets for the benefit of their creators from the 14th century to the present day, from the hand-drawn opulent naval charts gifted to Henry VIII, to maps of cable networks used to intercept messages between the world wars; and the satellite tracking technology used by apps in our everyday lives

• Secret Maps illuminates how mapping has been harnessed as a powerful political tool in global conflict while also revealing how maps can foster a sense of community and serve as a form of protest.

Halupedia reminds me of the Internet Oracle, back in Usenet days. That was an online discussion forum before the world wide web as we know it had been invented. You could send in a question, which was anonymised at the other end, and a volunteer would answer it.

The one that stands out for me was when someone asked: given that if you drop a slice of buttered toast on the floor it always lands butter side down, and when a cat falls from a great height it always lands on its feet, what would happen if you put butter on a cat’s feet? The answer was along the lines of “O wise one, you have discovered the secret of antigravity”.

Well, as I always say, you gotta laugh1.

Thanks for reading!

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On the last two courses I taught, only one person filled in the course evaluation, even though all the students enjoyed the course (or, at least, said they had). I thought that maybe it was just me, but recently we tutors were sent an end-of-term email encouraging us to encourage our students to give a review. I always do, even though I hate doing so in case it comes across as fishing for compliments. “You don’t have to say the course was wonderful”, I tell them. “You can say it was stupendous instead.”

But I think the problem is that we’re all evaluationed-out. You can hardly buy a bar of chocolate these days without being invited to give a five-star rating. The most bizarre example that I personally experienced was when I had a wisdom tooth yanked out last year. Afterwards I was sent a link to a Google survey.

Q1 How was your experience today?

A1 I’d rather have been in Philadelphia.

Q2 On a scale of 1 to 5, how enjoyable was it, where I = top?

A 2 10

Q3 Will you be visiting us again?

A3 I bloody-well hope not.

Thanks for reading!

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It is still in pristine condition.

I did try to read it, but couldn’t get further than the first page. I’ve been feeling bad about myself because of this ever since.

Ten-year old Terry was a voracious reader. We couldn’t afford books so I spent most of my spare time in the public library. On several occasions I sat there and read one or two books before selecting four more to take out (we were allowed to borrow two “information” book and two “story” books at a time). Once — I remember it like it was this morning — I took a book out in the morning and brought it back in the afternoon. Why? Because I d read it since borrowing it. The librarian was convinced that I must be returning it because, she assumed, I had damaged it. I remember even now how disappointed she seemed upon realising that the volume was in the same pristine condition as when I borrowed it a few hour earlier.

I loved the “William” books by Richmal Crompton. I rediscovered a few in a second-hand bookshop a couple of years ago. So why was it that I devoured the William books, which appeal to kids d ones 8 to 12, approximately, but couldn’t handle Oliver Twist? Especially since, when I looked in a book called William The Outlaw yesterday, I saw that it used words like “unctuous” and concepts such as Parliament and passing laws?

I looked again at the first page of Oliver Twist, and the reason became clear right away: the opening of Oliver Twist is virtually unreadable. The first paragraph is a single, highly convoluted -sentence. Given that the other three books I’ve looked at — Hard Times, The Pickwick Papers and Bleak House — are far better written, maybe Dickens was making a satirical statement about the sort of overblown language that some Victorians seemed to delight in. Anyway, compare these openings: the first is from Oliver Twist, the second Hard Times, and the third Bleak House:

“Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born; on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all events; the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter.” -- Oliver Twist.

I don’t know about you, but I think that’s horrible.

“Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!” -- Hard Times.

I think that is a great beginning. Admittedly, I am reading it now having experienced a career in education and teaching, but I daresay even ten-year old me would have enjoyed that.

“A Chancery judge once had the kindness to inform me, as one of a company of some hundred and fifty men and women not labouring under any suspicions of lunacy, ...” -- Bleak House.

Now, to be fair, I should imagine that ten-year old me wouldn’t have uinderstood the subtlety and understated humour in that sentence, but now I love it. Funnily enough, I was watching an episode of Morse yesterday, an English detective series made in the 1980s, and in the episode I watched a colleague of a professor who had just been bumped off said about him something like:

“He expressed his opinions in a manner that wasn’t conducive to the furtherance of a collegiate atmosphere.”

In other words he was bloody rude!

You may be wondering why I decided to look at Dickens again given my dire fist experience. The answer is simple. A few years ago I enrolled on a course called Victorian Visions, and the main course book was The Norton Anthology of English Literature - Vol E: The Victorian Age.

This contains excerpts from works, with information about the broader context. One of the excerpts was the paragraph above from Hard Times. I loved it, it made me laugh, it rang true, and it made me decide to have another go at Dickens. After many years I have forgiven myself for failing to read Oliver Twist all those years ago. I think if the prize had been Hard Times, things may have been different.

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A few days ago I received a copy of a very interesting literature book. It will be published on 9th August, and I thought I would share it with my paid subscribers now.

A paid subscription helps to support my addiction, which is reading.

But enough of this persiflage! Let’s dive in.

Read more

Thank you for your letter. I seem to recall that it was my turn to write to you, but life had other ideas so I’m glad you have kick-started our correspondence again.

Moving sentiments

It sounds like you and Jim have been very busy -- exciting stuff. As for downsizing, everyone seems to be at it. My best friend and his wife have moved from the detached house they’ve lived in for 41 years to a two bedroom apartment. He said that getting rid of hundreds of books was the most painful part. One of Elaine’s friends has moved from a large house in London to a smaller house in Newbury. I’ve been getting rid of books too, but what I find is that I look at many of the books and think “This could come in handy”, or ‘Hmm that looks interesting”. I’m trying to be pretty ruthless about it, but that isn’t working out too well!

I think the weather, which you alluded to in a very literary way, which made me smile, really doesn’t help. Our local newsagent, who is Indian, thinks it’s wonderful, but as you say, this is Great Britain. Someone or something needs to get a grip.

So you are moving next door to the pub you half own? Funny -- when I book a self-catering holiday I try to select places that are nowhere near a pub. Imagine spending every night listening to rowdy people -- inebriated to boot -- reeling past, or live music featuring someone on an alto sax and someone on a double-bass playing the sort of jazz which Elaine describes as “any note will do”. (That’s the trouble with classical musicians: they don’t appreciate the subtleties of improvisation <sigh>).

Musical interlude

My sax class was offered the opportunity to get together with another sax class to have a little concert. There was some discussion about what tunes to play.

Me: Why don’t we all play something different?

Another student: You mean like we usually do?

Both: 😂

As it happens, I couldn’t take part because Elaine was playing in a concert on the same day, and I wanted to attend that instead. She was paying a sonata by some bloke called Mozart. Very nice it was too. That was in Steinway Hall -- see map and photo below.

And here is a recording of Elaine playing Mozart’s Sonata K570. The bloke next to her is turning the handle to make the music come out.

On the subject of the sax, I find it hard to play in this weather -- or perhaps that’s just an excuse. I’m not bad at picking up songs and playing them by ear. I find the laborious process of having to do it properly depressing and tedious!

I think this song, and the visuals, really convey the stifling heat. It’s the opening title sequence of In The Heat of the Night.

Teaching tales

Recently I taught my course, “Writing for blogs”. That’s the course to which you said, when I asked you if you would be enrolling on it. “You’re having a laugh, mate.” Well, it seemed to go well. One of the attendees, Nisha, said on her Substack that I was humble and kind. She must be confusing me with someone else.

I started the course by telling everyone how lucky they were to have me as a tutor, and told them about every article I have ever written. That took us to lunchtime, so I gave them 10 minutes to nip out and buy a sandwich. When we reconvened I gave them some work to be getting on with while I tried the crossword.

Being serious for a moment, I’m thinking of applying to teach a new course, called something like Creative writing for Fun (please don’t say that’s a contradiction in terms). I think it could be quite exciting devising a new course, but the trouble is that it’s an in-person course from 6pm to 9pm. By the time I get home it will be 10:15 at least which I think is a bit late -- these days I need my beauty sleep (and yes, before you say anything, a lot of it). Also, I’ve already applied to teach another course, and if both applications were successful I’d have a lot of lesson prep to do! What do you think? Should I apply or not?

An incident in Freedman Towers

A few nights ago I went to the loo in the middle of the night, and in the process stubbed my toe. That caught a toenail and nearly ripped it off. There was blood everywhere. I had to grab hold of one of the cats to mop it up. Fortunately, living in the metropolis, unlike, say, a Sussex village where electricity was installed only a few years ago, and where the single track “road” is still frequented by highwaymen like Dick Turnip, I was able to go into a walk-in clinic the next day — or, in my case, a hobble-in clinic — to seek some help. We were waiting quite a while.

Me: Do you think I should storm up to the reception desk and demand “Do you know who I am?”

E: At your age I don’t think that’s a good idea.

Anyway, just then I was called in. The nurse said he would have to remove the toenail completely. Even taking the plaster off nearly sent me through the ceiling. He said he would give me some sort of laughing gas. That helped a lot. Here are some illustrations to help you get a picture of what went on:

Me: Do you think I should refrain from doing any housework.

Nurse: Standing doing the dishes is excellent exercise.

Me: Cheers, mate.

Nurse: When ladies ask me that question I tell them to give up housework for a year.

So there you have it, Becks: proof that the NHS is institutionally sexist as far as washing up is concerned.

I went to the doctor’s surgery to ask about having the dressing checked and possibly refreshed. It was like the Marie Celeste.

Me: It seems very quiet today.

Receptionist: All the doctors are on training, every third Wednesday in the month.

Me: I see. Will Ann [the nurse] be in on Friday so I can have the dressing checked?

Receptionist: No, she doesn’t work on a Friday.

Me: Right. I shall make a note in my diary: “Do not have an accident or be ill on a Friday or the third Wednesday in the month.”

Both: 🤣

Puzzle corner

You didn’t seriously think you’d escaped having to solve some crossword clues, did you, Becks? See how you get on with these:

Inoffensive description of Venus de Milo, perhaps, by husband (8)

Two types of gold, enthralling the short writer (6)

Well, I can’t think of anything more to say without making this far too long. So, I will love you and leave you to get packing those removal crates.

All the best

Terry

To anyone reading this missive, you can see the whole archive here. Rebecca should reply soon, so make sure you don’t miss that by subscribing to hers.

Thanks for reading!

Yours chortlingly,

Terry

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Here in London the mood is one of joyous celebration. People are dancing in the street, and giving hugs to random strangers. The unaccustomed heat (68 F today and that was cool by recent standards) has not been enough to prevent the merriment.

And what is the reason for such joy and jubilation, especially bearing in mind the default position of the average Brit, which is one of misery and an almost professional level of damp squibness? July is the month in which I celebrate my birthday.

Well, when I say “celebrate”, my idea of a day of festivities is to spend it in a bookshop or a café, or a combination of both, having as few conversations as possible. I was going to push the boat out and treat myself to a Belgian bun, but the bakery that used to sell that and other comestibles has closed. The empty space it used to occupy is hidden by construction hoardings. This is a clear sign of civilisational collapse.

“So, do you feel any different?”, Elaine asked me.

“Only psychologically”, I replied. “I keep reading obituaries of people who are my age or younger and who have shuffled off this mortal coil. I need to read different ones.”1

Still, I am fortunate in that I am able to stay young in both looks and attitude — the former because of the portrait in the attic, the latter because I identify as a 25 year-old.

But enough of this persiflage! On with the newsletter.

Terry

The course is dead, long live the course

My one day blogging course took place at the City Lit yesterday2. I think people found it useful. We got off to a rather poor start because I had specifically requested that I be given a room with a trapdoor in the floor, so that at the appointed hour I could rise onto the stage in a cloud of dry ice to the accompaniment of a fanfare.

Still, the course went well I think. I had a PowerPoint, but showed only one slide. The worst courses and talks I’ve attended have involved a reliance on PowerPoint, and best ones employed no or very few slides. I think if you know what you’re talking about, and you’re reasonably good at engaging people, you don’t need such a prop.

And it is a prop, and almost always used badly. Either the slides are full of bullet points, which the presenter tediously reads out3, or the illustrations appear to have so little to do with the subject matter that you spend the whole time trying to figure out the connection.

A recommendation

As a great believer in the wisdom expressed by Salvator Rosa — “Be silent unless what you have to say is better than silence” — I will bring this, my latest contribution to the annals of English literature, to a close. But not before recommending this relatively new Substack from . I quite liked her post about job rejections:

It has inspired me to write my own version soonish.

Well, that’s it from me for now. Thanks for reading.

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Quite by chance I’ve been reading about bureaucracy recently — such as in customer (dis)service — and it reminded me of North Thames Gas’s attempts to drive me mad. That was many years ago and North Thames Gas doesn’t even exist any more, but even now the mere mention of a gas company starts my nervous twitch going.

Many moons ago, before British Gas was an entity, gas (as in the invisible fumes type, not petrol) was supplied by regional gas boards. The one that served us, by which I mean my parents, my sister and me, was North Thames Gas.

North Thames Gas and I were not what you would call “close”. I didn’t send letters beginning “Dear North”; I didn’t phone up to say “I just wanted to hear the sound of your pipes.”. Our relationship was amicable, perhaps even cordial, but always professional. But that was to change.

When I took up my first job I rented an apartment which was still in the North Thames Gas area. But I was all-electric. My apartment was on the ground floor of a three floor block. The post simply landed on the mat, and any letters not taken from there were left on a ledge in the hallway.

One day I returned from work to find a letter from North Thames Gas addressed to “The Occupier” and citing my address. Had I been older and wiser, I should have realised that North Thames Gas had no idea who lived in my apartment. I’d have ignored the letter, or written on the unopened envelope “Please return to sender”. But in those days I was young, and unwise. I opened the envelope, to read a letter that stated that the meter had to be read, so could that be arranged immediately?

I phoned them up, and the following conversation ensued:

Me: There’s no need to read the meter, because I don’t use gas. The meter isn’t even connected to anything.

NTG: We still have to read the meter, and check for leaks.

Me: There won’t be any leaks, because there isn’t any gas.

NTG: Well we still have to check.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, someone came over, read the meter (four zeroes), did not check for leaks as far I could tell — I mean, he didn’t light a match or anything — and went away.

Two days later I received a letter from NTG stating that if I didn’t let them in to read the meter they were going to instruct bailiffs to break down the door. And this time I was no longer merely “The Occupier”, I was me.

I phoned them up and said that this was beyond a joke, and could they please come along and take the wretched meter away. That was duly arranged and expedited — and three days later I received another letter — red this time — stating that they were just a phone call away from sending someone with a battering ram, or whatever bailiffs use to do their work.

It was time for another phone call.

Me: I think you might find it hard to read my meter.

NTG: Why?

Me: Because it isn’t here.

NTG: Where is it?

Me: How should I know? Ask the bloke who took it away.

NTG: Who was that?

Me: Someone from NTG.

NTG: Well there must be another meter. Can you have a look please?

Me: OK, give me a few minutes.

I went off and brewed a cup of tea. Five minutes later I took up the conversation again:

Me: I’ve looked everywhere — in cupboards, even under the bed — but I can’t find another meter.

NTG: Well, we’ll have to send someone round to verify that.

Me: You mean you want to send someone over to look at an empty space?

NTG: Yes.

That was arranged. The bloke turned up, and I opened the gas meter cupboard.

Gas meter reader: There’s nothing here.

Me: So it would appear.

GMR: Where’s the meter?

Me: It was taken away by one of your lot.

GMR: Are you sure it was one of ours?

Me: No. All I can tell you is that he turned up in a North Thames Gas van and was wearing a North Thames Gas uniform. I suppose it is within the bounds of possibility that he heard there was a spare gas meter going, stole a van and a uniform, and hot-footed it to my place and took it away. But what would anyone want an old gas meter for anyway?

GMR: I don’t know. I’ll report this when I get back to the depot.

Three days later … well, I’m sure you’ve realised by now what happened. I was at the end of my tether, and took the only course of action I could. I phoned North Thames Gas again, for what turned out to be the last time.

Me: I think I’ve worked out the problem.

NTG: Oh yes?

Me: Yes. I think the bloke who lives upstairs me has a gas meter. Let me give you his name and address….

Three days later a letter from North Thames Gas appeared on the doormat, addressed to the fella upstairs.

A couple of days after that I caught sight of him, looking visibly aged.

I still feel guilty.

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I should not be fulfilling my duty as a Brit if I didn’t moan about the weather, so let’s get that bit over with. The heat has been a bit too full on for my liking. I’ve drawn a picture to illustrate what I mean:

But enough of this persiflage! On with the newsletter.

Meeting Jim and Erin

As I last wrote, we met up with and his wife, Erin, a couple of weeks ago. Jim wrote about it here. Here’s a double selfie Jim took, complete with his caption, which made me laugh:

Review: Ways of Telling

(Xandra Bingley, Notting Hill, £11.99)

This is a book for which there are three reviews. I wrote a semi-humorous version that used the literary technique of synaesthesia. This is where you describe one sense in terms of another. I wasn’t sure whether to send that in, and of wrote a more “straight” version. I half thought (to myself) of sending both versions in and letting the editor, of Teach Secondary magazine, choose. I mentioned the situation in this newsletter, and Beth T (BethOfAus) suggested I send both in and allow the editor to select the one he preferred. That’s what I did, and to my astonishment he chose the somewhat outlandish one. Who says editors don’t have a sense of humour?

So what follows is the straight version, the outlandish version and the published version, in that order. If you had been the editor, which one would you have chosen?

My straight version

Bingley writes about slices of her life in short, easily digestible, chapters, in no particular order. Thus it’s an example of memoir rather than autobiography. There is no doubt that the writing is beautiful. Words tumble over each other, often unimpeded by punctuation or quotation marks.

The effect is that you find yourself feeling happy, or poignant, or reflective, without quite knowing why, until you go back over the text with a fine toothcomb. It reminds me of Under Milk Wood. Personally, I find it a little too rich. However, the prose is effective in that it is very cleverly crafted. You’ll find onomatopoeia, oxymorons and not too many adverbs or adjectives. In other words, it’s an English teacher’s idea of paradise, and it would be a really good book to use in schools, because it’s an example of different kinds of writing style for students to discuss and, possibly, emulate.

Reviewed by Terry Freedman

The slightly outlandish version

Imagine a Dundee cake. This is exceedingly rich, and guaranteed to raise either your blood pressure, because it costs around three times the price of an ordinary cake, or your blood sugar, because of the ingredients.

Now, if that was served up smothered in double cream or custard, you would have the culinary equivalent of this book.

There is no doubt that the writing is beautiful. Words tumble over each other, often unimpeded by punctuation or quotation marks. The effect is that you find yourself feeling happy, or poignant, or reflective, without quite knowing why, until you go back over the text with a fine toothcomb.

The reason the prose is effective is that it’s very cleverly crafted. You’ll find onomatopoeia, oxymorons and not too many adverbs or adjectives. In other words, it’s an English teacher’s idea of paradise, so it would be a really good book to use in schools.

Reviewed by Terry Freedman

The published version

Imagine an exceedingly rich cake that’s likely to raise either your blood pressure (due to it costing three times as much as an ordinary cake) or your blood sugar (because of the ingredients). Add several lashings of double cream or custard and you have the culinary equivalent of this short story collection.

There’s no doubt that the writing is beautiful, albeit with words tumbling over each other, often unimpeded by punctuation. It has the effect of making you feel happy, or reflective, but without quite knowing why, at least until you revisit the text with a fine-tooth comb.

The prose is effective because it’s very cleverly crafted, with careful deployment of onomatopoeia, oxymorons and other devices, but without getting bogged down in too many adverbs or adjectives. It comes across as an English teacher’s idea of the perfect text, and therefore seems worth keeping to hand in school...

Quick look: Howl: Selected Poems by Allen Ginsberg

I have been enjoying dipping into this collection of poetry and other writings by Allen Ginsberg. It was kindly sent to me by Penguin. To be honest, I am not too familiar with Ginsberg and his contemporaries, known collectively as the beat poets. In my early twenties I discovered Lawrence Ferlinghetti, whose work I loved, but Ginsberg somehow passed me by, so this collection is a real treat.

Much of it is visceral, and hard-hitting. It’s an interesting experience, reading poetry from a different time, place and generation. There are references to people I’ve never heard of, so I keep getting sidetracked by looking them up, and then sometimes that has led me down a different path entirely — a deeply rewarding experience, if one that is not conducive to consuming a book quickly!

I especially liked one of the vignettes under the heading Don’t Grow Old, and the poem Why I Meditate and the rhythm and the meditative effect created by the use of anaphora in the form of “I sit” at the beginning of every line.

On the subject of rhythm, the poems benefit from being read aloud, even if only to yourself.

It’s a little disappointing that there is no Introduction, but at least there is a fairly detailed Notes section.The book is a great collection for those who are already familiar with Ginsberg, and a wonderful introduction to those, like me, who are not. The book is published on 30th July 2026.

Positive thinking

What do you think of the idea of positive thinking? Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the so-called giggling guru, of Transcendental Meditation fame, thought it was a bit superficial if my memory serves me well, but that it’s better than negative thinking.

I dunno. I was inclined to agree, but many years ago I went on a two-day course that was all about generating positivity, and had an interesting experience on the way home after the first day.

Traditionally, people in London don’t speak to each other unless they absolutely have to. I remember being in a carriage full of men with their heads buried in their newspapers. The lights went out and the train went through a tunnel. When we emerged into the daylight all the men were in exactly the same positions.

Anyway, on this particular occasion people kept starting up a conversation with me. It was a bit annoying, actually, because all I wanted to do was read my book. And what book was that? How to Win Friends and Influence People (I kid you not).

That’s it from me for now. has started up our letter correspondence again. You can read that chortlesome epistle here. I shall be replying to it soon. In the meantime, have a rummage around in the archives here. I made a mistake a week or so ago. I announced that I was implementing the automatic paywall once posts were 30 days old, but that was for a different newsletter. (The heat has addled my brain.) All the posts here are free, apart from the ones that aren’t and never were, at least for the time being. A paid subscription, should you wish to support a humble, impoverished wordsmith (not me, but a very good friend of mine1) has been reduced to £20 a year or $ equivalent — again, for the time being.

Thanks for reading!

Terry

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I said to Substack ages ago in Office Hours, a weekly discussion forum they used to host, that it would be great to be able to have coloured text, and here we are! I also asked them to enable text flow around a graphic. Also, a spellchecker wouldn’t come amiss. Fingers crossed!

But enough of this persiflage! On with the newsletter.

Terry

Meeting Jim and Erin

Recently, Elaine and I met up with and his wife, Erin. If you read Jim’s Substack then you’ll know that he writes interesting stuff and great short stories. However, the stories are usually a bit on the dark side, so before the date in question, we took certain precautions. Well, you never know if someone is going to turn out to be an axe murderer or not, so it’s better to be safe than sorry. Therefore we took out extra life insurance, told our friends where we were going, and made sure we checked in with them every hour.

All of which, it transpired, was completely unnecessary. We spent a very pleasant afternoon visiting particular places in London, very ably guided by Elaine, whose idea of a pleasant stroll is a 10 mile route march. Here are the places we visited; I don’t think I’ve left anything out. It’s in the form of a list, so you might want to get hold of a map of central London and see if you can find the places on it. Exciting, eh?

And, especially for , here are some photos. Sharron writes great short fiction, micro fiction really, over at . Sharron wanted me to give Jim a big kiss from her. YEUCHHH!!! You gotta draw the line, that’s what I always say. Anyway, here are the pix:

A bookish problem

I have just read a short essay by Georges Perec called Brief Notes on the Art and Manner of Arranging One’s Books. The piece appears in a book called Species of Spaces and Other Pieces.

I was interested in this because of my own book storing problem. Getting rid of books is all very well, but the number doesn’t seem to go down. I recently rearranged my bookshelves so that, broadly speaking, the same sorts of subjects are grouped together, but even so, finding a particular book is sometimes more a matter of luck than judgement.

Anyway, Perec, after discussing the various places that books are stored, which in my case tends to be on coffee tables, on the floor next to an armchair, on my desk, next to the bed, on the floor in my office, and so on, he talks about a friend of his who had the bright idea of limiting his book collection to 361 books. But he soon realised that it made more sense to count authors rather than books, because some people write more than one book. But that proved to be not useful because some things, like the Impressionists, span more than one author or, in this case, artists. Therefore he decided to limit his book collection to 361 subjects, which basically means, if you think about it, an almost infinite number of books for most people, thereby rendering the exercise completely pointless!

Finally…

I found this video quite chortlesome:

That’s it from me. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this.

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I’ve set the autopaywall feature to place all posts behind a paywall after 30 days.