Brutus The Croc Gets A Proper Lunch

Three pieces of business to tend to before I get things started today. First, over at our group blog Writers of Mass Distraction, a few days ago I wrote a blog about characters changing priorities and taking things seriously during the course of a book or film. Have a look, and by all means, tell me what you think! 

Second, take a look over at Lyn Fuchs' Sacred Ground Travel Magazine blog, where today I'm writing about the Niagara Falls region. And leave a comment!

Finally, if you're not already following The Desert Rocks blog (and why aren't you?), go have a look there today for Norma's guest blog on technology and writing. You'll pick up a few things and have fun!

And with that, I return to several characters without a book who have appeared in these blogs from time to time. And they've been joined by another of their kind, poor wretches doomed to wander cyberspace forever without a book to call their own. They're all together, Down Under, taking a river cruise, out to see one of the local critters....

Australia; the Adelaide River. A riverboat works its way down the river in the early summer heat, the passengers aboard screened from the sun by a roof over their heads. The pilot is a local, an Aussie by the unusual name of Jake Chemiserouge. He's dressed casually- shorts and a ballcap- with a rather bright red t-shirt. His passengers are four in total today, here to come see a crocodile named Brutus, a three legged eighteen foot long brute of a croc who's become something of a tourist attraction. They're all dressed for the conditions, as casual as possible- though at least one of them seems uncomfortable. She'd much rather be doing something else, as it turns out. She's Mary Ducky, the financial guru and con artist who's wanted by Interpol for numerous scams and thefts of millions of dollars. These days she's lying low, trying to evade the authorities. With her is the demolitions expert Contessa Evangelista Francesca Nicolette Viola Divinna, all too often given to destroying things that she wasn't cleared to destroy. Also present is the perennial blowhard Keith Jarrett, the man who thinks he's the wisest of all human beings. The author of such dubious works such as I Know Everything So Bask In My Eternal Wisdom, Duck And Cover The Buddhists Are Coming To Kill Us All, Gosh I'm So Smart, How To Cure Ebola, Mother Teresa: Tyrannical Despot of India, Bonaparte: A Man Of Humility and the forthcoming Keith Jarrett: Last Best Hope Of Earth seems to be full of himself, as usual. These three passengers know each other well. The fourth is known to Jarrett. Jerry Wallace, aka Jerry The Miser, is the author of Bargain Hunting And Other Pointless Pursuits. Chemiserouge turns to his passengers.


Chemiserouge: Isn't it lovely? Just the best stretch of river in the Territory, by crikey!

Mary: Must you speak with that accent?

Chemiserouge: What accent, Sheila?

Contessa: Now, Mary, be nice to the local man. I don't mind it myself. You know, when I was last here in Australia, my company was hired to do some work in Sydney. I thought at the time that we ought to get that unsightly Opera House out of the way, so I had my people set the charges, but as it turns out, the locals weren't all that enthusiastic about having it blown up. Oh, well, even if they have horrible tastes in architecture, there's nothing wrong with the accent.

Keith: So, Jake, tell us... that's a bit of an odd name.

Chemiserouge: My family name? By crikey, mate, it might be, but the Chemiserouge family come by it honestly. Not like we went and flogged it off some other family. No, my dad came in from France, mate. All the Chemiserouges come from there. By crikey, we've got some history, let me tell you. A Chemiserouge was the very first man to die back in the First World War. That was my great-great-great-great uncle Louis. And it was the same in the second one. First soldier to die in the French army in 1939 was my great-great-great uncle Pierre Chemiserouge. He was wearing his lucky red shirt, he was. Just like me. Oh, these things happen. Did you know there was a Chemiserouge in the crew on the Titanic? And the Lusitania? Come to think of it, one met his end on the Empress of Ireland too. And the Edmund Fitzgerald. And Pierre Chemiserouge did have a cousin, Fritz Chemiserouge, who was a crew member on the Hindenburg when it had that unfortunate accident. Just like the family tradition, he wore a lucky red shirt too.

Mary: Did it ever occur to any of them that those red shirts might not be so lucky? Maybe you should be wearing gold shirts. Or blue shirts.

Keith: You know, in chapter 743 of my epic tome I Know Everything, So Bask In My Eternal Wisdom, I write what I think, in my usual humble way, is the definitive treatise on the subject of luck.

Jerry: Do you have to keep doing that?

Keith: Doing what?

Contessa: Passing yourself off as a guru.

Keith: But I am a guru. A genius. People adore listening to me talk. Besides, you continue to spend your time telling people you're a Contessa, and insisting they first address you by all sorts of names.

Contessa: I am a Contessa, and you will address me properly as Contessa Evangelista Francesca Nicolette Viola Divinna.

Chemiserouge: Look, by crikey, no need to big-note, blue, or burl. No spitting the dummy or giving a gobful.

Jerry: What does that even mean?

Mary: He's using Australian slang.

Chemiserouge: Well, I am Australian, Sheila.

Mary: My name isn't Sheila, so stop saying that. Why did I agree to come on this trip?

Contessa: You're hiding out from the arrest warrants in place against you, that's why.

Mary: Yes, yes. I know. Honestly, you steal a few million dollars here and there from unsuspecting dupes and marks who deserve to get taken for everything you can get, and all of a sudden, you're being called a criminal.

Jerry: I'm just glad that someone else paid. Otherwise, I'd have refused to come. Or I might have hidden myself in one of the wheelwells of the plane. It's only an eighteen hour flight. Surely a human being can survive exposure at thirty five thousand feet for that long? I've done that with my in-laws to save money on a cross country flight. Granted, it wasn't easy to explain that to my wife when her mom and dad were pulled out of the wheel well, frozen to death. Still, saving hundreds of dollars is worth the risk.

Mary: How is it that anyone wanted to marry you?

Jerry: Look, I'll have you know that living cheap is a good thing, from time to time. It saves lots and lots of money, which you can bank away, and continue to live cheaply...

Mary: My point, sir, is that you're living like such a cheapskate that you don't enjoy life. You killed your in-laws by being cheap, and while I suppose I can appreciate the notion of killing in-laws if they're idiots, ending their lives because you're too cheap to buy their air fare is really, really bad form. I'm assuming you gave them a cheap funeral too.

Jerry: Cardboard boxes. No headstone. Those things are just extravagances, after all, and it's not like they care.

Mary: You're an idiot.

Chemiserouge: If we're all done throwing a wobbly?

Contessa: Throwing a what?

Keith: He means getting mad. In chapter 6789 of my epic tome I Know Everything, So...

Mary: Oh, will you shut up?

Chemiserouge: I was just going to say that Brutus ought to be hereabouts. I'm going to put some kangaroo meat out on the line and feed the croc, by crikey! This is what you all paid to come out to see, after all.

Chemiserouge turns off the boat engine and starts to rig a pole with meat from a bucket.

Contessa: That used to be a kangaroo?

Chemiserouge: Yes, until he went walkabout and ran right into the front end of a truck, by crikey!

He holds the pole out over the water.

Chemiserouge: Here, Brutus! Come get your lunch, boy! Here, Brutus!

Suddenly the water beside the boat erupts, and the top half of a two ton three legged croc bursts out of nowhere. Chemiserouge yells in panic, and Brutus drags him under, into the depths of the river. Everyone is silent for a long time. Finally, Mary Ducky speaks.

Mary: I told him red shirts aren't lucky.

Arise, Angry Villagers, And Wipe Out The Evil Spammers!

"And in those days, there was throughout the land, a plague of unwanted messages sent to all the peoples, and the peoples had come to call it with a single, derisive word: spam. And lo, so did the call go out for the spam to be eradicated once and for all, for it made no one happy but the spammers. With that call, the angry villagers took up their torches and pitchforks, and went to the castle of Spammelton, where the King of Spammers resided, and burned it to the ground..."

Ah, spam. Yes, it's a four letter word, and one we don't use when we drop a hammer on our foot (go ahead, test it out, drop a hammer on your foot and see what word you use. We'll wait for you).

My email filters do a good job of filtering most spam right into my junk folder, but every once in awhile, something comes through. I can expect to see several messages listed in the junk folder when I log in each day, and as is usually the case, the subject matter tends to vary. Sometimes it's a spammer selling insurance. Other times it's medical matters. Periodically I'll get messages from sex sites. No, I'm not interested in meeting Mistress Esperanza, thank you very much.

Just some days ago, I got another spam message that's rather out of place. From the AARP. The American Association of Retired Persons, if I recall properly. I'm a few decades away from retiring, thank you very much, and I assume that organization is for American citizens? I'm a Canadian. You know, the polite ones who play hockey and guzzle maple syrup?

Lately I've been getting a lot of messages from online gambling sites turning up in my junk filters. Incidentally, Kings Palace Casino, just between us, come on over here so I can have a word with you in private....

Stop sending the damn spam through your countless email addresses!

Honestly, I've blocked the email address of the spam, and a few days later, there's more spam from the same business, different email. And like I said, lately, it's been a lot of gambling online businesses. The bastards. One of the lowest forms of life on the planet, homo sapiens spammeritis irritatingus.

A few days after New Year's, this turned up in my email:

Season’s greetings from SP Gaming Club

Change the way you celebrate this festive season and visit SP Gaming Club today.

Where dreams come true and riches beyond your imagination come to fruition.

Play on your favourite Vegas-style games like Roulette, Blackjack, Poker and awesome Video Slots.

Register today and you’ll get a whopping USD1,000 completely FREE to do with whatever u please.

Win on our progressive Slots; check out the revolutionary Tournaments, the choice is yours.

Play fun, play safe, play fair, play SP Gaming Club today!

***

Me again. Hello, SP Gaming Club. Your calendar is obviously off. The Christmas holidays were well done and over with by January 7th, when you sent this piece of junk to me and thousands of other people. That means phrases like Seasons Greetings and Festive Season are done with (complete aside: I feel like smacking someone who uses the term festive season). I suppose in the world of gambling, the online businesses and the real deal picture a perfect Christmas as something like Daddy playing a hand of poker while Mom and the kids wait for him to finish up before unwrapping their presents. Which, incidentally, are part of the pot, which is why they have to wait. Daddy's got to make sure he doesn't lose this hand.

This, however, takes the cake in what were they thinking when they sent this to me? A message turned up in my inbox from one Stephanie Murphy. This puzzled me, because the only Stephanie I know is my sister-in-law, and her last name isn't Murphy. Have a look:

Hmmm, that's curious. I wasn't aware that I'm a professional woman. I'm pretty sure I don't have the, ahem... equipment to qualify, and, well.. it's not like my name (actual or penname) can be confused for a woman's name, right?

Stephanie Murphy, for sending me an email that was clearly meant for someone of the other half of the species, I must therefore cast the label of homo sapiens spammeritis irritatingus upon you. And once you are named as such, it is a designation that can never be removed.

It could be worse, Steph. At least you're not a Kardashian.

Operation Political Suicide: Let's Just Nominate The Craziest One Of The Lot

"It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that a politician in search of an electoral victory must be in want of a muckraker." ~ Jane Austen, Pride and Politics

Well, Iowa and New Hampshire are behind us now. The primaries have kicked the endless Republican nominations into high gear (emphasis on endless). South Carolina and Florida lie ahead for the poor fools (candidates and party voters alike). The President and his staff spend their time taking notes on the best ways to destroy whatever's left of whoever's left standing (it won't be Michelle Bachmann, of course, since she's out). And the editorial cartoonists of the country and the world continue to skewer the candidates....

Yes, well, maybe it would help if you'd come up with a better slate of candidates, wouldn't it?

And so the field has narrowed again. Huntsman is still in the game, of course. Rick Perry, aka Dubya 2.0 (wait, Dubya is smarter then Governor Rick) will stay in until his ego or his campaign funds run out (rumor has it it'll be the latter)....

And then there's Newt, who just doesn't know how to take a hint and quit...

 

Surprisingly Santorum and Paul had a good showing in Iowa, though they still have Governor Mittens to contend with...

Yes, Governor Mittens, the inevitable Republican candidate that the GOP wishes could be someone else....

You would think that Governor Mittens might have had enough of having the GOP desperately seeking anyone else to run. Who knows? Maybe in his inevitable acceptance speech, he'll just say, "You know what, you all treated me like an afterthought for months on end. I'm retiring to Aruba. You're all so hopelessly screwed."

Sorry, Ricky, but your showing in Iowa notwithstanding, there's no way you can stay in for the long term. Not with what your last name is also defined as being.

And Ron Paul, the Crazy Old Man of the Republican Party? He's like the deranged homeless guy on the street corner. Just in a better suit. Well, not the all white one that he likes to pretend he never wore.

Yes, it's a bad year to be a Republican candidate. You're being torn to shreds by your own party. If there's anything left of you, the President's team has gotten its hands on lots of ammunition against you in the debates. In other words, my friend, whoever you end up being (safe bets on Governor Mittens)... well, in two words: you're screwed.

I'll be back soon enough with another one of these election blogs, but I'll leave you with this one. Hey, if the Republicans dig deep enough, there must be a Ned Brown out there somewhere who's not Mitt Romney, right?

An Island Castle, An Italian Harbour... Oh, Yes, That's Really Roughing It

This place turned up in the travel section of one of the newspapers I read during the holidays. I was, of course, intrigued and fascinated. It's a beautiful spot, after all. The location is Ischia, a volcanic island paradise near Naples. The castle above on the small island (with a causeway) is Castello Aragonese, which first has its roots in the fifth century BC. Today it's become a destination for tourists and religious pilgrims alike.

The island itself is quite mountainous, and makes its living from tourism, who come for the thermal hot springs, the beaches, the history, and the scenery. The volcano itself hasn't erupted for the last seven hundred years (cross your fingers, in geological time, that's a millisecond). It struck me as an astonishingly beautiful spot. Just the sort of place one could write into a novel.

In Heaven & Hell, location has often come across as a character in and of itself. I've paid close attention to- and made use of- the places my characters have passed through. The history and scenery of places throughout Israel- Jerusalem, the Masada, Tel Aviv, the Golan Heights- and beyond into Syria have been very much on my mind throughout the book. And in the final phase of the book, on the island of Andros in Greece, the topography of the island and the achingly beautiful location (I could spend months in the Aegean, just saying... and I'm not even Greek) have certainly been influences on me. And down the line, in future books like Sword of the Faith and A Cold Day In Hell, location will continue to have an influence on my writing, to the point where the land takes on a character of its own.

Ischia and particularly that castle fortress are certainly inspiring for a location. As a writer in the spy genre, I could see using it for a meeting between adversaries. Yet it lends itself well to so many other possibilities. The romance genre would practically salivate at such a location. And I imagine at night, the grounds of that island castle would be just the perfect place for a murder in a mystery novel. And just think... wouldn't it be the perfect setting for a ghost story?

What would you do if you had the chance to use this place in your own writing?