Journal Entries
Worth the effort.... sometimes!
Posted Oct 28, 2020
Marie-France St Nazairre parked her old Renault 20 next to the ornate gates of the George W. Brush Memorial Cemetery.
She shushed Basil as she opened the huge boot. He hated being in the wire dog cage, always had, in the fifteen years she'd had him, he'd never gotten used to being treated like a dog, poor thing.
But today, in a few short hours, (and twenty-four years - if you counted the planning) she would release him into the Nebraskan countryside.
Twenty-four years!
She remembered walking through this very graveyard as a teenager, hiding her need for a cigarette amongst anonymous tombstones, when she'd been distracted by the flowers.
Freshly laid, and so very bright amid the sea of granite and marble.
A simple crimson wreath had set her on this long road, that and the city fox she'd seen on the walk home.
Grabbing her ancient Chinon, she'd snapped away at the beast, walked back and taken a few frames of the red wreath too.
Waited patiently for the film to be developed, the post taking an awful long time to return the 6x4 glossy prints.
Disaster! 24 rectangles of blurred images. Not one remotely usable.
So, on that Thursday morning, Marie-France had left home and enrolled into the J. J. Gittins College of Animal Training, majoring in Vulpine Posturing, with a minor in Floral Arrangement and Cemetery Photography.
Having obtained her Masters,nine years later, and proudly added M. A. J. J. G. C. A. T (f. A. C. P.) to her rather funky business cards, she'd then sought out the seedy underworld of fox procurement via the Grey Web.
Nineteen hours a day, 365 for so many years, she'd eventually trained Basil to a level where he could hold a wreath in his mouth, obey the stay command, and stand still, looking into her lens, long enough for her to walk backwards to a suitable distance, hopefully not tripping over gravestones, to the perfect spot for the photo.
Today was the day!
She opened the crate and Basil jumped from the Renault, obediently sitting at her side whilst she carefully manoeuvred the delicate crimson wreath from the cavernous boot.
The odd couple walked amongst the dead, picking her spot carefully, with a well trained Master of Cemetery Photographer's eye, Marie-France posed Basil, offering a treat if he gave the correct slightly startled city fox look.
The wreath, carefully brushed with Eau de Poulet, was positioned between Basil's recently polished teeth, and Marie-France backed away.
Two minutes later, having reviewed the image on her digital screen, she was happy.
The end of nearly a quarter of a century's toil and planning, thousands of Dollars spent, her whole life put on hold, for this one single photo.
She released Basil into the wild, placed the wreath kindly on an old forgotten and unadorned plot, and set off to post her picture, for free, on the Internet.
Driving over a low stone bridge she suddenly had the idea for another image….
Norway beckoned, she'd need a real life troll for the next pic!
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Latest reply: Oct 28, 2020
A fortnight til insanity calls.
Posted Oct 18, 2020
Holes in History is a mere two weeks away!
A lot of research later, and I have the bones of a tale.
Wonder how long before Abner Doon pops up, really hope I can get to the end...
Good luck to all who are tempting madness this November?
Discuss this Journal entry [41]
Latest reply: Oct 18, 2020
Stupid Evolution!
Posted Sep 6, 2020
Another simpost, what if everyone in the world has evolved to release the full potential of their brains... Apart from one small-time criminal?
*Nobody moves, nobody dies!* He emphasised the threat by pointing menacingly at each of the bank tellers in turn.
To his surprise, they just laughed at him.
*You going to milkshake us to death?*
*Choke us on banofee pie?*
*Fritter us to within an inch of our lives?*
He frowned beneath the tight nylon mesh of his make do mask. Looked down at his gun. His gun?
He muttered his apologies, staring stupidly at the yellow fruit he was holding and walked out of the bank, laughter reddening his face.
He hated it when they did this sort of thing. Cursed the Gifted. Cursed his own stupidly unevolved brain!
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Latest reply: Sep 6, 2020
Screwd! What the Dickens?
Posted Aug 29, 2020
Oh dear, I'm actually dreaming of him in movies now!
Steve Swann was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The book of condolences at his burial was signed by the producer , the studio head, the underwriter, and the best boy.
Letterbox signed it. And Henry's name was good upon ‘Change for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Swann was as dead as a bleedin' doornail.
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Latest reply: Aug 29, 2020
Sad but true!
Posted Aug 21, 2020
Took my youngest to one of the oldest record shops in the country yesterday. One where I spent a lot of my cool teenage years, really cool place, full of cool people, listening to cool music, and spending cool jostick-scented hours looking through mountains of cool patchouli oil-smelling vinyl.
If she wants to get into retro records, this would be the place.. Certain albums everyone needs in their vinyl collections, Live and Dangerous, Rumours, Black Sabbath, XII, Quadrophenia etc... Classics! Cool!
OK, the shop's still there, there are still thousands of records, very very old records, a bit tatty now, but stuff I loved forty years ago, place smells of dust and old cardboard nowadays, and the cool kids?
Erm, two old hippies and a weird couple shouting a lot!
Times change, we did leaf through the overpriced tat for a while, probably to please me more than her. It did bring back happy memories, and I'm sure those of a certain age, or those into ancient rock albums still love the place. Sadly nothing purchased.
Spotify has my entire collection nowadays, patchouli, and scratch, free!
Some memories should be left alone! Time has won.
Uncool, dudes!
(update... She came home from shopping trip with two brand new LPs from bands I've never heard of.... And... Fleetwood Mac Rumours! Cool chick my daughter!)
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Latest reply: Aug 21, 2020
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