virgin islander

The challenge was: write about a place you know almost nothing about.  

She was always known as Great Aunt Laetitia in the family, but no-one really knew what happened to her. She was actually my great aunt three times removed, the youngest of eleven children, who disappeared at the age of twenty leaving her family bereft, including the second youngest child, Ferzackerley Beaumont, my great-great-great-grandfather, who had apparently been very close to her. Shortly before she disappeared, he had made a sketch of her, which is still in the family, and shows a very beautiful young woman, with a wry, playful expression.

It was a story I'd heard many times in my childhood, and now with time on my hands I determined to try and solve the mystery once and for all. Now I was off to the British Virgin Islands to follow one of the leads!

The rumours were many and various. Had she been a victim of the white slave trade? Had she died in the Crimea, one of Florence Nightingale's angels? Or was she part of the British Virgin Society's controversial settlement programme in the mid nineteenth century?

So here I was, looking out over the crystal clear waters of the Caribbean as the characteristic twin volcanic peaks of Sterling Island rose above the horizon. Though cruise ships now dock at the new port facility, I had chosen the more traditional route of a pirate ship. These are no more than tourist vessels nowadays of course, although I was told they do the occasional bit of drug running out of South America. But the picturesque sloop with its jolly roger flag gave me a feeling of what Great Aunt Laetitia must have experienced, in just such a boat as this. Dolphins flipped along in our wake, racing us as we approached the old harbour of Port Guinea, stacked up the hillside, with Mount Victoria now looming above us, and Mount Albert less distinct beyond. Around us the palm-fringed atolls of the outer islands could be seen: Peseta Island in the foreground and beyond it Rouble Island and many others to the horizon. Many small 'money boats' were plying between the harbour and the islands at a fair lick, or loading and unloading at the quay.

When paper money was introduced in the UK, it quickly fell victim to the depredations of Britain amongst those 'dark satanic mills' of the early industrial revolution. Health reformers were worried about the spread of disease by this filthy form of currency and so the Bank of England decided to have money cleaned in the then pristine environment of the colonies – where there was also cheap labour available. The Dutch, Portuguese and other colonial nations had already set up similar industries for polishing gold coins (names such as New Guinea and Guinea Bissau remind us of this tradition even today). The Bank had also been doing this in British Guinea (now Guyana), and decided to experiment with paper money there. However this project soon failed because of high humidity and malarial swamps.

Meanwhile the British Virgin Society, set up to prevent respectable young ladies falling into bad ways (there being a shortage of eligible young men following a series of wars), had established banana plantations in the Windward Islands, to be managed by their ladies. However, these were not doing as well as it was hoped, and so the Society bid for and won the money cleaning contract from the Bank. The rest is history: the islands became the British Virgin Islands and they remain to this day the money laundering centre of the world.

Pulling into Port Guinea, we could see row upon row of whitewashed cottages climbing up the hillside, each with its own yard, with lines stretching across filled with brilliant fluttering notes. Somehow I had imagined that the laundering process would have been modernised by now, undertaken in bland anonymous factories, but it was a joy to discover that the notes in my pocket must have been lovingly washed by hand right here on the island and then hung out to dry in the balmy breezes of the Caribbean. I could see groups of big brawny women scrubbing away around large, circular stuccoed vats dotted around the town, then pegging out the dripping notes on the lines.

After checking in to a charming old quayside inn, all oak beams and fishing floats, I made my way up steep cobbled alleys to the BVS headquarters building, a rather grand if fading colonial establishment, built around a shady colonnaded courtyard with brightly coloured shutters at the windows. A few old locals were hanging around in the shade, and an old dear was sweeping the courtyard rather half-heartedly. I had arranged to meet the BVS historian, Williametta Brooster, a descendant it turned out of a mixed marriage between one of the British virgins and a local. A mix of African, local tribal and European blood had given her striking good looks even in late middle age. She was a charming woman. Nothing was too much trouble for her – she seemed grateful that someone would take an interest in the history of the islands. She explained that many of the English ladies who had come over had ended up in relationships with the locals. In fact, it was only for a relatively short period that new virgins were sent to the colony; but the laundries were so successful that they continued eventually under native hands, in time taking on other countries' laundering requirements. Although Sterling Island continued to deal mostly with UK and commonwealth demands, the outlying atolls took on various European currencies: hence their names.

The islands have seen their economic health fluctuate as currencies came and went. The introduction of the euro was a troubling time for them as there was talk of an automated facility in Dortmund, but in the end Brussels relented and the euro work continues to be carried out here in the old way. There is now a major concern with the introduction of contactless payments as there has been a significant drop off in volume lately.

Miss Williametta explained all this to me, then took me to the rather grand oak panelled library, where the archives were kept. The building, foursquare and solid, had withstood many hurricanes and preserved the records, although she said that rats and mice and weevils had damaged some of the records. I had worked out – from Great Aunt Laetitia's age when she disappeared and her date of birth recorded in the parish register – that she must have left in 1858 or 1859. Miss W. pulled down the great leather bound volumes for those years, luckily intact, and we worked our way through the hand written entries, which meticulously logged every aspect of the work of the Society.

Suddenly, there it was: “Beaumont, Miss L. Arrived on Sloop Mary Jane, Nov. 9. Allocated to new Foreign Currency Division. Pig Island.”

Pig Island? I had thought all the islands were named after currencies. Miss W. explained that this was right at the start of the new contracts for non-Empire currency. Pig Island was now Peseta Island. And Laetitia would have stayed in the main house there, which still existed.

I was thrilled. The mystery was solved: I now knew for certain what had happened to Aunt Laetitia – and soon I would be able to see where she had spent her days, and maybe discover more about what happened after her arrival.

Early next morning I hitched a lift on one of the money boats, packed dangerously high with dirty old euros, and sped off to the nearby island. The captain pointed me in the direction of the old homestead and I set off, followed by a jolly bunch of curious laughing children.

The house was huge, an old Victorian gothic pile with wide shady balconies. It had obviously had a seeing to by the frequent tropical storms. Parts of the ornate fretted fascias were missing and the roof was patched with corrugated iron. One whole wing was abandoned and falling to ruin. Thousands of briliantly clean 20 and 10 euro notes were stretched on lines set up higgledy piggledy around the yard. A large old lady, sitting in the porch on a rocking chair, eyed me suspiciously as I approached.

I introduced myself. I believe a relative of mine once lived here many many years ago. Had she heard of Miss Laetitia Beaumont?

Without a word she stood, still stony faced, and beckoned me into the dark interior. The rooms were heavily curtained, with ancient wallpaper part peeling and torn, and big old mahogany furniture scratched and broken. There, in pride of place, was a very old photograph in an elaborate ebony frame. A couple on their wedding day. A handsome young African man and a beautiful young woman with a wry, playful smile. Unmistakably Great Aunt Laetitia.

“We calls her Great Aunty Tisha in my family.”

“So do we, so do we!” I said, as tears came to my eyes.

She looked surprised, then slowly her formidable look melted away and a huge smile swept across her face.

“Then we cousins!” she said, as she enfolded me tightly in her formidable washerwoman arms.

Influencer

This, with the piece New Consensus, were meant as the first and last of a series of short stories that built a speculative fiction tale with a less dystopian flavour than most.

Look down on the city now.

The city, under a toxic smudge, poison clouds of polluted air, yet thinly gleaming in afternoon sun. The river swings through, glittering between mud banks, lined with glinting stubs of new towers, second homes for the new rich, like crocodile teeth in the jaws of controlling concrete embankments. And all around the bustle, the hum, the noise, the smells of the great city, built layer on layer over two thousand years of crisis, death, fire, plague, joy, rapture, fear, hate, success, money, squalor: stretching out, out to the surrounding low hills seen dimly through the haze.

Look closely now. See the seething streets, the shuttling trains, the jammed vehicles, the streaming crowds. See the people, method in their madness, intent on a myriad journeys, a myriad goals. Eight million souls, eight million thought streams, their dreams, their plans, their lives, all intermingled, tangled, a vast web of complexity, of intermingling, interchange, interface. All dependent on the city, interdependent of each other, yet scarcely aware of the others as they press past, jostle, push through the obstructing masses that thwart them. Blaring their horns, cursing those in their way. Somehow it all works.

Look closer. Frustrated faces, irritated expressions, annoyed glances. Yes – but here and there still you find joy, still you find rapture. In the parks, groups gather, move together under a beating sun. In the packed theatres, the matinee crowds share a laugh, a fear, a sadness. Outside bars, in their shorts and summer hats, they giggle and jostle, they bond as they drink their warming drinks.

On those concrete embankments, this summer Friday, they throng, they pass, they watch the river. The water churns: the tide is turning, the streams disturbed, whirling about the bridge piers: the banks start to disappear as a new, fresh force from an unseen sea disturbs the muddy flows. They watch and do not yet know that it is the day when everything changes.

            Look closer. Down there in the square, by the pinnacled towers, a huge mass is coalescing together. Along all the streets groups are coming to swell the crowd, brightly dressed, shouting, singing, with banners and balloons. More and more coming in good spirits, in optimism. And in the square, they flow from point to point, here a thinning, there a denser patch of bodies. Two in particular. This will be the start of it all.

Zoom in. Closer. Here they surround an old man and a tent and a crouching girl. And there a boy with strange hair with a phone on a selfie stick, which he swings around as this crowd watch. They are pressing all around these two groups, dodging, weaving, trying to see the action. Who is it? What's going on?

Two girls are trying to push through. All they can see is the selfie stick and a flash of blue hair. But that's enough.

'It's Spensa.'

'No way.'

'In person. He said he'd be here today. Didn't you catch his last vlog?'

'O my god!'

The boy is holding court, drinking in the approbation.

'Hey kiddies! It's Spensa Influença live streaming from Parliament Square. Yes, here I am in the heart of the big city checking out the school strike for my peoples. This is slammin.' He swings around with the selfie stick to show the crowds behind him, then he calls out to them 'Say hey for the peoples!'

Those closest to him whoop and scream and cheer to order, and then like a wave the people behind who can almost see what's going on cheer and then those that can't see at all cheer because they think something cool is going on and out and out it spreads until the people in the other knot hear the cheers and think it's in their knot and so they cheer and then the people at the front of that knot cheer too.

Fatima stands up and wonders why they are cheering. 'Well demos are defo funner on a school day', she shouts above the noise. She speaks to her own phone and selfie stick. 'So get down here and join us – we need to show the plonkers we mean business. I'm here today to march and also to interview a very special person.'

And the people whoop and cheer again and send another wave back across the square. She turns back to the old man and his tent. 'So here he is: John Battista.' He looks up at her, a rather wan smile, unsure of the crowds and the attention. 'You've been here for, what? Three months now?'

'Four almost', he says with a little shrug.

'So cool that you feel so strong about the climate emergency. How ya feel about the school strikes?'

'It's what I've been hoping for,' he says. The future is with you young people. My generation – ' He seems to struggle for words.

'What about your generation? The baby boomers?'

'My generation, the most entitled, the luckiest, the least caring.'

The crowd around cheers. Fatima allows the noise to drop off before responding.

'Well not all. You've sacrificed everything, you've sat here in all weathers, to shame our politicians. We look on you as a role model, John.'

'Well, I'm flattered. But it has to come from you – you guys are the future. And it's your future. The climate emergency. Destruction of our ecosystems. The rich getting richer while the poor starve. Starvation in this day and age: millions without running water.' He pauses and smiles: he was starting to go into his spiel. 'But you know all that. I'm preaching to the converted.' They cheer and some cry out his name, calling for a speech. He pulls himself to his feet, pauses again and then gives off a mischievous grin. 'Don't you call us gammons?' he smiles and looked up at Fatima. 'Middle aged, meat-faced white men who hate everything and have no respect, no interest in the future.'

'Well some people might say that, but not me,' she says. 'I'm Muslim!'

Laughter and cheers, which travel all the way back to Spensa.

For a second he looks knocked off beam. He's thinking: Could there be someone who is getting more attention than me?

'So yea, my peoples! So the school strikes are getting the right-on kids well pumped up and, like, YAY! Let's all save the planet. Cos there's no Planet B right? But if you thought I was just gonna bunk off and just like hang with a bunch of rank hippies all day, do not be afeard, kiddies! So I'm up in the city and not gonna drop by my favoritest fast fashion outlets? Are you kidding? Are you catching the shirt already? Spensa is out there, doing it for you! So in a few I'm gonna be unboxing some new goodies exclusive to Spensa Influença!'

            Another great cheer from the other big group and Spensa looks annoyed. This was meant to be about him! He chucks his phone to one of his entourage, who continues to film him. He clicks his fingers at another, who starts to lay down a boombox beat as Spensa goes into his rap, to cheers and chanting from his fans: 'Wanna be goin' mental / Cos you're first with wot is trendin? / I gotta be at the centre / of the look that you're presentin!' He starts to push forward towards the other mob. The waves part as the fans enthusiatically follow. 'Then u gotta catch up with Spensa / I'm your crucial Influença!'

Fatima is now standing on a small platform next to John's tent and she's pulled him up with her. 'This man,' she's saying, 'is showing us the way. Sitting here, day after day, he's shaming us all into saving our planet. Please speak to us John.'

He seems reluctant, but the crowd shushes and looks on expectantly. He starts hesitantly, unused to the attention, unused to making speeches. 'It's great to see you all here,' he says. 'You are the future. The politicians over there can't see beyond the next five years –'

'– the next five weeks!' shouted someone in the crowd.

John laughed. 'You're right! Can't see beyond Brexit and their own petty squabbles. Brexit is an irrelevance.'

A huge cheer.

'This is war. The whole world needs to be on a war footing. Not fighting each other – fighting together, fighting for our life. Our lives. The lives of everyone on this planet and the lives of those generations to come. Your children and your children's children. We need to fight together, to build a sustainable world. Fight for a common cause.'

Another cheer and a commotion at the back of the crowd.

'Sitting here week by week, I'm just a voice crying in the wilderness. But you can do this. YOU!' He points all around the crowd taking in everyone as Fatima films him.

'Yea, all together, old man!' the crowd turns as Spensa's voice yells out. 'Yea, save the planet, ditch the plastic, let's get manic, let's all panic. And most of all, buy the tshirt!' He turns to his vid-man and displays his tshirt with its picture of a turtle deformed by a plastic band and the message: Plastic Kills. '£4 just in at boohoo.com, my pretties! Focus in bro.' The vid-man moves in.

Fatima comes out from behind John and sees who it is. 'You!'

'O my god, it's Fatima! My sister from another mother.' Said with his usual sneer.

'What are you doing here, you heartless, materialist bottom feeder?'

            'Woooo! I heard on the clothesline that you was here, sweetest. Isn't she adorbs! Would you believe we was at the Peckham Fashion Academy together, 'til she flunked. Now she's the goddess of catastrophe porn. O you think you're so deck, Fatima with your scuffed trainers and your torn jeans. So last year!' He pointed to his feet: the cameraman followed. 'And speaking of footwear: how about these, peoples? LQD-Cell Origin Drone – part of Puma's brand new training shoe range. Awesome kicks yea?'

'Really? You're using the climate strike for product placement? How much you getting for that? And I did not crap out. I left when I saw what damage the fashion industry was doing. That tshirt – '

'O come on, loveliness. Hey, check out the shoes at puma.com, peoples. And hey, this tshirt is made in the UK – not by little brown slaveboys in Bangla Desh, so –'

'You know, cos we talked about this. The fashion industry creates 1.2bn tonnes of CO₂ a year, more than planes and shipping combined; and a third of microplastics found in the ocean come from synthetic clothing.'

'So' he says, pointing to the message on the tshirt, 'there's your message right there. And this is pure cotton.'

'Growing cotton consumes vast amounts of water: whole lakes have disappeared. You just don't get it, do you?'

Growing mutterings in the crowd turn to applause and some whoops for Fatima.

'Hey, how about a vlog-off, honey child? And uh –' He smirked. '– my following is bigger than yours.'

Somebody called out: 'Size queen!'

'O, you wanna try it for size then, bro?' He expected wild laughter but the crowd is starting to jeer. This is new for him.

John intervenes: 'Together. You all need to come together and fight the politicians, the short-termers. This is the War for the World!'

Applause and the cry is taken up: 'War for the World! War for the World!' It starts to ripple out across the square. Spensa suddenly looks non-plussed. It wasn't meant to be like this.

'Do you know how many followers I have, Fatima? How many you got, huh? How many likes you get a day?'

'You haven't been looking at the stats, then, Frank? More than you now.'

His beatboxer nudged him: 'Bro, have you seen your feed? This is not going down good.' He showed him the feed. Spensa the Influença was losing it.

Someone close up called out, 'Who's Frank?'

            'O yea, sorry, Frank. I let that slip, didn't I? His real name isn't Spensa. We were pretty close at school, weren't we? You were gonna drop out with me and build a vlog with me until you realised there was more money in unboxing and you left me to it. Frank the Influença doesn't really hack it.'

Booing now aimed at Spensa, growing. His feed is going crazy.

Someone calls out: 'Influença – isn't that a disease?'

Quick as a flash, Fatima comes back: 'Yea, and it's an epidemic all around the world that's killing people.'

Cheers, but Spensa is still focused on his feed: for once he can't think of anything to say, the stuffing knocked out of him. His real name was his deepest secret. One false move in the social networking world and … His brain is whirring away, thinking, thinking.

Fatima knows him well enough to know he will take the main chance. 'Together, Frank. Listen to what John is saying. It's time to move on from 'stuff' and fight for what really matters. The War for the World.'

When he looked up again, there were tears in his eyes. 'Collabs?'

'Think what we could do together, Frank. Us here – and all over the world there are people, young people, who understand. India, Brazil, China, Africa. It's our future.'

'We could start a – like a world-wide thing?'

'You know it in your heart, Spensa.'

'My heart? I thought I was heartless.' He turned to his vlog feed. 'You heard it first here, kiddies. Spensa has a heart.'

And he was thinking, thinking. The War for the World.

And all across the city the same people, the same seething, shuttling, streaming crowds, now starting to be lost to view as a giant sun sets behind the poison clouds. The lights blink on along the river, as always. But something has changed today. One day those poison clouds will be gone.

new consensus

 

That's interesting! Everyone asks me what it's like to be the oldest person in the world, but no-one asks me why I am. It’s a good question. I'll have to think. Luck mostly, I guess.

Certainly not healthy living. I did become a vegan of course - am I the last alive to remember eating real meat? – but I always liked my glass of wine. Bottle of wine I should say! Now we make our own in the cooperative.

Certainly I'm not the oldest through planning it. I mean, I retired on my 60th birthday. I know! Less than half my life – 80 years ago today! I thought, why not? I was comfortable, I owned my own house, a reasonable pension and savings to keep me comfortable. I thought it would last until, what? 80, 90? That was life expectancy then. I wasn’t planning a new career - it happened by accident. Luckily for me, or I wouldn’t be able to afford to still be around.

So I suppose the answer is my new post retirement career. The first bit of luck was my writing taking off. I'd only started it for something to do, to fill the time. Do you know the term ‘viral’? You might have read about it. In those days what you call interaction was fairly primitive. We called it social media - I can't remember why now. There were just a few companies that controlled how people interacted, and people hooked on to these fads. So something would be sent by someone to their friends, then passed on, and so on until billions had heard about it. No, I'm not joking: these social media thingummies literally had billions signed up. So I wrote this story and somehow people, young people, latched on to what I had written and they wanted more in the same vein. Then I had something called a blog, which people could look at and read my stories and my ideas. Then there was a book, another book, documentaries. It all went viral! Suddenly I was famous and pretty soon I was rich. All unplanned, you see.

In those days there were some influential thinkers – people you know of now as heroes of the Restoration. But then it felt like they were crying in the wilderness. I had always admired them but by the time of retirement I think I had given up hope. Now suddenly I was mixing with these heroes of mine, campaigning with them. All when I thought I was going to have a slow descent to my death. I always knew it would come from the young ones: the ones born at the start of the century. My generation – the Careless Generation, you call them, right? – well, you're spot on there. We couldn't care less. We messed up the world, killed things off, all in the name of progress, and yet the more material benefit, the less happy we became.

Then suddenly as you know it all changed. Growth is Cancer, that was the cry. It was a perilous few years. Suddenly the young people were taking control all across Europe and what they did made a lot of sense. The New Consensus and all that. I was a great admirer of Greta Thunberg and we became great friends: she was kind enough to call me her guru, but I always said it was her generation that were the thinkers, the inventors of our new world, the clever ways of using technology to turn away from growth to the system we have now.

All those big corporations started to fail, thanks to them. I think what really made the biggest push was when – you've heard of the Friday school protests that Greta started? Of course you have! So they developed into Stay at Home Fridays and then Turn Off Fridays. That destroyed the big utility companies: consumption was down by ten per cent overnight. And people were learning how to mend things, to find new uses for them, to make and grow their own food, to exchange through local bartering networks, all facilitated by clever apps. That killed the retail companies. By then Greta and her new European Consensus were in power and the Treaty of Stockholm turned the EU from an apologist for the free market into a force for good.

But I still am amazed at how quickly it all happened. And not a moment too late. The climate emergency is still with us, of course, but it could so easily have been a lot worse. Do you know, when I retired, only 5% of United Britain was wild? And it was little patches of green surrounded by grey. Now 25% is forest, heath and wetland; even more of United Ireland. Yet we are self sufficient in food. The sprawling suburbs have gone. More people live in the country now than in my day, but also more densely in the cities. New arable farming techniques and the smallholdings give us everything we need, year round. People used to travel everywhere in their own cars, and fly half way around the world every year for their holidays, eating up fuel, poisoning the air. Now we all use the shared pods and the fast tracks.

I like to think that my influence on Prince George growing up was important too, if only through symbolism. As a student he said he had read everything I'd written. He often asked my advice and even tuned in to my lectures. As soon as he became king, he renounced his use of private vehicles and started using the pods, and he and his husband turned their various houses into self sustaining communes. Eventually he abolished the monarchy in agreement with the Consensus of course. I still go over from Heathrow from time to time and visit George and Hakim – by the way, I could tell you some stories about the greening of Heathrow and the fights we had, but that would be a whole other interview! A lovely young couple – well I say that but they're over eighty now of course, with a big extended family. Have you been to the People's Palace lately? The Mall orchard is magnificent at this time of year and they have some very advanced hydroponics units they're developing at Sandringham.

But I'm rambling. You know all this. I'm lapsing into one of my undergrad lectures again! You'll have to indulge this very old man. You used to tune in too? Well I'm glad.

Yes, I've been lucky with my health too. After the drug companies were nationalised and turned to research into the greater good – rather than some new pill for erectile dysfunction! – I volunteered for the gerontimplant programme. As I was one of the first I was very carefully monitored at all stages, and have been ever since, and I think that's helped to keep me going. Of course a lot of my generation were too far gone but the implants at least give them a good virtual world experience until they leave us. But the newer versions will allow people to live even longer than me. 100 is the new 60! I'm not as sprightly as I was, but I can still get around if I have to with the help of the pods and my brain isn't too bad for 140!

The one thing that has made the most impact on my life? Well, I'd like to say it was meeting Greta of course. But I suppose I have to go back to that first story I wrote that kicked the whole thing off, the one that went viral and for some reason gave people new hope. It was really off the cuff, hammered out one evening for a competition if I remember right – what was it called now? You know it? It's still famous is it? Well fancy that. You know I just interact now with my closest friends, I don't spread my virtual wings much further these days. Ah yes, I remember now, that's it: new consensus.

Fossils and siamese twins

    Why are fettles always fine? Desserts are always just?

Shrift is always short and dudgeon must be high? It must!

And errors are egregious, and riddance always good.

Aspersions always will be cast, whether or not they should.

We champ, but only at the bit; and use our own petard –

But only to get hoisted by it, hopefully unscarred.

    The only things that skir-r-r-l are bagpipes; only breath is bated;

And only crowds are madding: yes, we've been indoctrinated.

Shebangs it seems are always whole; ditto kit and caboodle

When raining cats, there's also dogs; siamese and poodle.

For every nook a cranny lurks, with flotsam always jetsam

A writer must avoid these tropes – if not, I'm sure, regrets 'em.

 

    When robbers are around you'll find there's cops there in the cut,

And when the crook is nabbed the case is open and it's shut.

His mate, when charged with aiding him, is also with abetting:

Ready, willing, able then, but now of course regretting.

If they reform they go not only straight but also narrow.

If not, they get the book thrown at them lock and stock and barrel.

    Only Spring gets harbingers; and only woe betides,

Only days are halcyon and nothing else besides.

When going in fits, there's also starts; each ruin has a rack.

Pins must have their needles; it's written in white and black.

When falling for things hook and line, for sure you'll have a sinker.

If you cross the Ts, then dot the Is or else you are a stinker.

    The call of duty? We will go above and, yes, beyond.

Where's there's no reason, nor will there be rhyme to correspond.

In situations, where you find an egg, then there's a chicken

And anyone alive you'll find they also will be kicking.

What's prim is also proper and what's null is also void.

Lo and behold, as brass is bold, clichés you must avoid.

P

Holiday plans: a comic verse duet

A:     You said you were thinking of holiday plans.

B:     O yes, let's get out and get going.

        We could go to Peru

        Or the isle of Cebu

        Or the Amazon basin by dugout canoe:

        The options are steadily growing! 

 

A:     But Britain, I'll bet, is much safer –

B:                                          – and wet!

A:     But so many options I hear now:

        The lush Channel Islands,

        The lochs of the Highlands –

        I feel more at home when I travel in my lands,

        And travel abroad is so dear now.

 

B:     That's really the best? Why, just think of the rest –

        The world is your oyster, so try it:

        In Nepal, catch a yeti,

        In Rome, make spaghetti,

        Track wildlife across the immense Serengeti –

        Now that's what you'd love, don't deny it.

 

A:     But travel's a pain: it can drive me insane.

        The cramped noisy planes and the waiting,

        And the heat that repels

        And the dodgy hotels

        And the unpleasant food and the horrible smells,

        The queues and the crowds: so frustrating.

 

B:     But let me remind you how charming to find

        A bar on a beach: a mojito

        By a balmy lagoon

        In the light of the moon

        As a gamelan band plays a tropical tune.

A:     You're serious? – this I would veto!

 

        No, think of the Cotswolds: a brisk rural walk,

        The countryside charmingly English:

        There's an old country pub

        With traditional grub

        And a tumbledown cottage without the hubbub.

B:      So plans for abroad you'd extinguish?

 

        Your options are lazy – try something more crazy:

        Sail oceans by breezes prevailing.

        Or traverse the Sahel –

        On a camel as well! –

        Then at Marrakesh wave to the Tuareg farewell.

        Or – scale a Swiss peak while abseiling.

 

A:     It seems you and me will just never agree.

        Perhaps, though, that's not so dismaying.

        Let's plan to stay home –

B:                      – What, we're never to roam?

A:     Yes, I fear we are victims of lockdown syndrome.

        We'll be much more happy just staying.

 

B:     Perhaps you are right: so no trips, no more flights,

        At home we'll remain – no more straying.

        So … forget Madagascar?

        The plains of Nebraska?

        Tierra del Fuego

        Or Montego Bay?

A:                                 No!

B:     Or kayaks in Iceland?

A:     All out of our price band!

        Relaxing at home will be grand –

B:                                 – will suffice, and –

            [pause]

B:     A weekend in Kent?

A:                           No!!

B:                                 Just saying … !

Final rehearsal

However well the rehearsals went, the one thing my choir 

struggles to agree on is the dress code for the performance! 

 

 

two too much

    

 

       SCENE 1: Early morning.

        ART sits looking at the view, in contemplation

        BART enters and watches him for a while, then draws closer

 

 

BART     You seem disenganged somehow. Not enjoying our trip?

ART         O no, I'm loving it.

BART     But you spent hours on your computer today, when you could have been out and about.

ART         You were out and about …

BART     And engaged! You weren't. The point I'm making.

ART         The point you're making?

BART     Yes, the point I'm making.

ART         Which is?

BART     You're disengaged.

ART         No not at all. It's just that I'm also engaged in something else.

BART     Which is?

ART         That was my line.

BART     I know. This is a different 'which is.' What else are you engaged in?

ART         I'm doing this 'write something every day for a month' thing.

BART     The Literal Challenge? Again?

ART         Well, different from last time. This time I'm writing a play rather than a short story.

BART     A play? Isn't that harder?

ART         I don't think so. You can just write a scene.

BART     Surely a play has to have a beginning, a middle and an end.

ART         Well the beginning is easy. And the middle – well it's just the middle, right?

BART     Isn't it meant to be like – three acts?

ART         O that's just a discredited theory about screenplays.

BART     But still, it's three elements. The beginning is, I guess, the set up. Then the middle is the plot. And the end …

ART         I prefer to think of it as two elements really. Plot and denouement. The set up becomes clear as you go along. That's how I'm thinking of it today, anyway.

BART     So you ARE disengaged from our trip then. Just thinking about this play.

ART         Not really. It won't take up much of the day and I can use the time when we're travelling or down time in the hotel. And I've done all the travel blog, writing up the trip. And the research on where we're going. It's only for the last few days of the holiday. And we're going to be in that spa place anyway.

BART     Well, good luck with it then.

ART         And the timing's quite good as we're nine hours ahead. I'll get the briefs at 7:00am and don't have to submit until 7:00pm the next day.

BART     I see. What about the day we travel back and on the plane for 12 hours?

ART         I can write it on the plane and submit when we get home.

BART     You've got it all worked out then.

ART         Yes, and I'll still have plenty of time to enjoy Japan. In fact, I'll just finish this then off to the onsen. There's only one potential problem.

BART     Which is?

ART         Stop saying that will you?

BART     I can't help it. I'm just the Devil's Advocate, apparently. And you're the Author.

ART         Well, there you have the problem in a nutshell.

BART     Pray explain.

ART         You see, I said I'd swear off meta references this time. But it's hard … I just want to dash off the writing and be done with it, but avoiding the meta references …

BART     Just don't do them then.

ART         I already have.

BART     […] You have, haven't you?

ART         And this is just day one. Think what it will be like by day 29.

BART     Never mind day 29. What about Day 2? […]

ART         Ah, funny you should say that. Because the first play has to be all about TWO.

BART     Two. Yes. So that's why you want two elements to the play, rather than three?

ART         Yes, and why we're having a dialogue – just two characters. And I thought the plot could be along the lines of my anxiety about what the theme would be for Day Two.

BART     Or how about anxiety about what you put in scene two of Day One? The denouement?

ART         Hey, you might have hit on something there!

BART     Yea, not bad for a fictional Devil's Advocate who's only there to create a dialogue.

ART         Well, let's face facts: you're not exactly advocating much that's devilish are you? But still, bouncing this around with a fictional interlocutor does have benefits: two heads are better than one!

BART     Or two cooks spoil the broth.

ART         That's too many cooks – two is just fine.

SCENE 2: Later that same day.

BART and ART are soaking in the outdoor onsen, steam rising around them as they look out to an amazing view of snow capped mountains and, faintly in the distance, Mount Fuji

BART     Ah this is the life!

ART         Yes! I've failed to make a denouement and I've failed to avoid a meta text. But I still feel it's going to be a success!

BART     Two wrongs don't make a right!

ART         True, but then two faults do make a play about TWO. In two scenes.

BART     Two-ché!