I am writing a new novella...I know I said I was finished...

 

The Adventures of Double-barrelled

Scatter Gun O'Sea

A Novella for Students of

B U D

A Novella is a narrative a short prose fiction story, related to true or apparently so facts.

© Lazarian Wordsmith 2024

Cast of Characters

Double-barrelled Scatter-Gun O'Sea: A lecturer with almost 40 years Tenure of daydreaming about a bright future with her Frog Prince. But now-a-days, she would settle for a Toad! 

I. A. M. Empty: A promising student who has been bullied to such a degree that his head, instead of being full of ideas and promise, is now empty. He is also deranged, in that he thinks life is fair and the good prevail.

Followers:

Peres

Prof

Council

E.X. Amos

Bud is the fictitious Bullying University Dublin

Scatter-Gun was ruminating, while sitting on her Throne. Deeply engrossed in what she thought were the gems she taught.

She was totally oblivious to the sounds and the plopping delivery from her nethers of the Copperhead snakes nested there.

And since she had been smell-blind after all those years of sniffling and not using a handkerchief, able to sit there in the odours that were flooding into the street outside, and above her basement garret, causing passers-by to reek and vomit pavement pizzas.

"I will make them pay. I will make them paaay." She spluttered as a terrific groan travelled up while a terrific load passed down.

"How dare they produce Curriculum Vitae's that show what they did not learn from me. Do they think they - that they - attend University to become free thinkers."

Totally absorbed in her rage, she wiped between her bum-cheeks without any paper, and howled.

" I thought it was only supposed to sting after a Delly Curry, or maybe that was a Delhi Curry."

I must invest in a Bidet, she thought. This perching like a Green Parrot on the Wash Basin is dangerous unless you use both hands to wash.

"Ah! Crap! Crap! Someone lift me up."

But her cries echoed and echoed and echoed around the three flights of stairs, leading to her garret.

"I hafta to get a below stairs loo." She thought.

But her inner woman was chanting...I think. I think, I smell a stink. I think it's offa you!

Please note her thoughts betrayed what she thought was proper language and she reverted back to her native language. Gutter Speak.

End Episode 1

AMAZON.EU.SarL need a geography lesson.

  Congratulations, your paperback, "Here Lies Deirdre Rachel Eames ," is published on Amazon. If you republished your book with updates, your changes are now live.

BUT IT SEEMS - NOT FOR SALE IN THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND - since AMAZON DON'T KNOW THE RULES FOR TRADE UK AND THE ROI and are blaming BREXIT  because they won't show my Print On Demand book on AMAZON.CO.UK.

Of course the site .CO.UK is a misnomer since the real site/agent is Amazon.EU. Sarl who are in Germany and are subject to the EU rules of trading.

So I hear you shout do they charge VAT on paperback sales made on Amazon.Co.UK - who are in Europe ? Apparently not.

But that's for  the EU Germany VAT Person to  tackle them on.

Complained to our Irish Trade minister - but he said all of that is "Amazon's business" - where and who they trade with. 

Complained to his boss but got No Reply.

I allege they must be very busy trying to draft new laws to stop the public protesting outside  Leinster House, when they are attending for a days work - ONE DAYS WORK A WEEK.

Do you ever feel that you are invisable?

 

I have just had it!!

Why nowadays when you try to talk (email) entities, like Amazon UK or Applegreen Ireland, or The Oireachtas - you are ignored.

Well not really ignored just treated like a nuisance - who will go away if we ignore them.

I asked a Govt. Minister why Irish people who want to buy my Paperbacks Books MUST get them from Amazon UK, who by the way are operating out of Luxembourg EU, and pay in Sterling. He told me that was Amazon's Business, as to who and where the choose to deal with customers in Ireland.

In the rest of the EU Amazon sell from local marketplaces. Amazon DM, SP, FR, ND, etc..

His Minions also send me an acknowledgement of my email addressed to MR or MS Surname, Not Mr. or Ms. Surname. No Mrs. Scaredy Cats - afraid to address a married woman as Mrs. in case they offend someone or other!

Well anyway - I am of an age where customers were valued and prized. It seems not any more - JUST GIMMIE YER MONEY AND THEN PFO. AND DON'T TRY TO COMPLAIN.

After COVID I am back functioning AGAIN TG.

 I thought I had seen it all!

Apparently not!

This Covid Yoke in Ireland killed a lot of nice, gentle, friends and a lot of others who would perhaps have been new friends.

I am glad it had eased off and hope it is gone, permanently.

I am back blogging to bring some wrongs to light.

First me new paperback Here Lies Deirdre Rachel Eames (hereliesdreams)has been prepared on KDP and published as a Novella.

They tell me it's a cracking galloping page turner. 

Now it is for sale on Amazon.Com, and all over Europe in local markets like Germany, Spain, France, Holland, Portugal...the lot. It's up for sale in Canada, Japan, everywhere in fact. All on the local website markets and in local currencies.

 But not in Ireland. Us poor creatures, in The Replublic of Ireland, who have been divorced  from the UK -it was called the Treaty and caused a Civil War in the year 1922. Have to buy my books from Amazon.Co.UK and pay in Sterling (£).

This is madness since Amazon have offices and staff and warehouses in THE REPUBLIC and get grants from The EU, and a tolerance on Corporation Tax from the Irish Revenue, to keep them going.

DISGRACEFUL!

Fogra: that's a PS As Gaeilge.

A lesson for Amazon:

Ireland consists of 32 counties, six in NI and 26 in ROI.

They can't handel the premises that IF THE CUSTOMER HAS AN ADDRESS IN 1 ANTRIM, 2 DOWN  3 ARMAGH 4 DERRY, 5 TYRONE OR 6 FERMANAGH THEY ARE IN NI-UK - ELSE-  IF  ANOTHER IRISH ADDRESS  IS PICKED UP FOR SHIPMENT  THAT CUSTOMER IS IN THE REPUBLIC.

See I even wrote the FLOW CHART for you.

 

For the day it is - Happy Heavenly Birthday Ann.

 From Here Lies Deirdre Rachel Eames (dream(e)s)

Brigitte came out the door. Startled she stood back inside.. He turned to assure her, “I’m sorry for...”

She smiled, “Jack.” Then following his gaze past her to the painting in the hall smiled again and asked “Do you like it?”

He didn’t hear her. This painting couldn’t exist: it could not be. Two young people had been captured in a dance embrace. The boy back to the viewer. The girl’s face, chin resting on his shoulder. The short bouncy fair hair, a soft shadow above and around her closed eyes: brown eyes, that he had seen open, smiling, full of life and full of curiosity.

“Ho..how? Where? How did you...”

Startled by him, by his colour, and the sadness in his plea, she quickly answered, as if her answer could change him; pacify him.

“I was sketching in the wood. In my mind I saw them like this. I think perhaps they were lovers.”

Softly he added, “For a while, for a short while.”

They sat in her kitchen at the back of the studio, the in-blown air carrying the smells of the garden. Jack sat sipping a second Brandy, the first had water-fallen quickly: burning then warming, then soothing. He sat, the painting on a table, propped upward by a Westminster Chime clock that ticked the seconds and chimed the quarters and bonged the hours: sharing with a stranger the story he had to tell; a story that in some strange way she had become part of.

He couldn’t remember how they met. They drifted into being part of the same loose collection of teenage companions, who went to movies, to tennis hops, for countryside walks, for swims in the river and then later they went to real dances, dinner dances and functions, always a pair expected to be together.

Many times he tried to recall the first time he became aware of Deirdre Rachel Eames. Late at night unable to sleep, he tried to roll back the kaleidoscope of scenes, searching, examining, discarding, all the time hoping, to remember that first time: when his heart leaped and his insides churned and he felt weak with happiness. He was certain that was the way it had been: perhaps at the tennis pavilion on the Station Road, or the Hall on Foxcroft Street, across from her Grandmother’s house.

They would have danced together: a jive? She liked jiving, her skirt swirling outward, body leaning backwards, for moments trusting his outstretched arm, his hand, his fingertips, to balance her and keep her upright, twirling and smiling, happy and laughing; and then just before she overbalanced to draw her back, upright and into his safe arms.

They started to meet secretly at the pictures: her mother didn’t want her around boys so soon. She would sneak in just when the film started; wait while her eyes adjusted to the flickering twilight reflection from the screen, then vision restored she would find him. They sat together arm in arm snug and silent and watched the world of gangsters, cowboys and romance flicker its way into their young lives.

His story telling was slow, sometimes long pauses held the story traffic-jam bound while he waited to sort the images and find the train of events. On a long pause: one that breathed sighs that might end the telling, Brigitte entered the studio and brought back a small under-elbow of brown backed frames. “More, I have more. They have been telling me their story for a long time.”

“No.” Jack said. “She has been telling you our story.”

Met one of those recently. 

You know Know-Alls!

He was trying to be all things to all men, calling everybody “Buddy” or “Madam”. But the names didn’t mean a thing. He had usurped and was sitting on King Joe's throne. 

He was definitely not my buddy, and if he called me madam, he would be looking for his dentures. Back to the story Laz, back on track here Buddy.

For a short time, he was trying to be the soul of the party. Agreeing with comments made, or butting in with his take on things.

Beside me one of the local, No Worldwide Celebrities was trying to have a quiet drink. His business singing with his band, as it turns out in the Pandemic, literally for his supper, was at a standstill.

We were all, about nine of us called him by his name, as we shared the outdoors pub banter. We discussed, strangely for Ireland the heat and factor 30 or 50 protection cream – Sun Block some call it. All outdoor all socially distanced, with servers masked and careful on approach to anyone. No invading our personal spaces, at all.

The know-all's wife was in the company and she complimented the Celeb, on how well he was looking and how he had aged very well over the last 25 years or so.

This conversation was interrupted by Know-All who got up and stuck his face into Celeb’s face and asked. “What’s your name?” The reply was the same name as we had been using all the afternoon. When it was provided, he asked. “Is that short for something?”

Then the plonker took Celeb's hand and muttered. “Pleased to meet you.”

Then he put on his mask, shook his shoulders and tacked out of the patio area.

He had been sailing close to the wind - all afternoon.

 

Abandoned the WW Sequel - Got sense back to Here Lies...

Anna Collins stood and waited while her Granddad Willie Collins, continued the ritual of breaking a pony. She watched while the animal trotted in circles, first one way then the other, while he halted, stood, and then ran and cantered and trotted again, all the time she strained her ears to hear the commands given or see the signals thrown from the hand down a long rein to the halter, but was unable to determine any instruction at all. In truth, in the brightness of the day she could not even see the rein. Yet there must be one otherwise how could the man control the animal.

Yella Man Collins, was a small, hunched man, with an over big head, long out-sticking ears and a crop of wild red hair that at times stood high on his head, or lay matted tight after he took off his green bonnet. You could never call his head gear a hat, or a cap, only a long triangular bonnet. When he was in argumentative mood his beard and his ears bristled and moved with a motion known only to their owner.

Daideo Willie, liked people, onlookers, who came to watch him train ponies to be mesmerised at his skill, without rein, or whip, or spoken command to control the pony.

Anna knew that this illusion did not tell the story of the long hours under the full brilliance of a cloudless full mooned sky when those implements were used to train the animal to a stage where they were not required.

Fairy magic dust Willie called it. Anna's dad called it fairy cuteness.

Daideo, greeted her as usual, “Well Geartla. How's the care?”

Like always she replied, “I have no care.”

Then he chuckled and finished the statement for her, “That's right, You lot, the family, are my care. Today's task, Anna, is for you to start writing down the story of my secrets. No! A manuscript, Bedad. It will contain the secrets of the Rath Mór, the fairy home. I'm old now well over the allotted span.”

“How old are you Daideo? No one can tell me.”

“That's because I never told any of them. Let's say that the span of a man's life is long behind me, and the span of fairy life is nearly over.”

“I thought fairies were immortal?”

“That's what we tell the humans, but in my case living here, a changeling, among the humans has shortened my years. But that's old piseogs! I need to start the telling. Give you the tools to carry on some of my magic. To give you some fairy gifts.”