Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Deo Gratia!

So today I got a book! It came in a brown cardboard wrap, in the mail and was addressed to me, but there was no covering letter to say who it was from, but I have a pretty shrewd suspicion – I am known for my intuition and my ability to carry out Mental Detection. Being a Mental Detective is quite a good occupation, because you don't have to get out of bed to do it., And if you do get out of bed, you don't have to bathe or dress, you can do it in your pyjamas, or nightie, or nothing at all. There is no particular requirement to be a Mental Detective other than have some spare time in which to do it. And, of course, have a natural ability or Gift.

The book was, or indeed, still is, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos and that is rather appropriate because I am a blonde, and gentlemen do seem to prefer me, and even though I don't prefer them, it sometimes pays to let them think I do. So I do. Which is not really a terrible hardship as they like to show their appreciation and who doesn't appreciate being appreciated?

The book is written as a Diary, by a blonde who is also appreciated and preferred, so in a kind of a way it is a very appropriate gift to give me. Even by someone who wishes to remain anonymous. Or simply forgot to put his name in it. Obviously it is a Man, for who else would send me a book about the attractiveness of Blondes to Men? It simply speaks for itself. Much the same as I do, too.

And the thought came into my head that Gentlemen – or put more simply, Men – seem to think that Girls – or put more simply, Blondes – must also prefer them! Which is not really logical, but then Men aren't anyway. They employ transference, which is when you project your feelings onto another. Or put simply, because they fancy the pants off her, they assume that she fancies the pants off them. For men, or most men, or to be honest, ALL Men, are really just the same. It doesn't matter if they are tall or short, fat or thin, handsome or ugly, which just about covers them all – oh, yes, smart or dumb – they see a Girl, a Blonde Girl, and fancy the pants off her, therefore, she must fancy ther pants of them in return. Ergo: all men are Stupid! I've met a lot of Men, and been had by a lot of Men, and a lot more men think they've had me, but they haven't!

It's quite easy to fool a Man, in fact it's very easy, once you know how. But this isn't a kiss-and-tell story, no names, no cocks-up! It's just a chance for me to shmooze which, I must admit, can be lot more fun than sex – with a Man! But don't get me wrong – if you've read anything at all that I've posted you'll know that the Loves of My Life are Women; I've never made any bones about it – excuse the pun – writing pretty freely about my Sexual Preferences, Proclivities, Inclinations, Activities.

People seem to make a Big Deal out of Sex and I can't for the life of me see why! I mean, okay it usually happens indoors, in the dark, in bed, but apart from that, why is everyone so hypocritical about it? They all want to keep their exploits secret, having sex in cars, in cupboards, in secret, in hotels, in bed, in the dark and are scared stiff – excuse the pun – of being seen by their friends, their mothers, their wives, their Bank Managers; but at the same time they avidly read those newspapers who make a speciality of exposing the sex lives of celebrities, of footballers, of politicians, of vicars, of famous chefs. And the worst of these hypocrites are Men!

So when I read Ms Loos book, I do chuckle at the knuckle-heads who pursue the narrator. She winds them round her pretty little finger and flits from one to another like a butterfly, doing the old pollen thing, but never losing any sleep over them. And none of them get it!

I have always loved the movie, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes with Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell, but this is the first time I have read the book and while I could never see myself as MM, I can see aspects of myself – well, my younger myself – in Lorelei, the Blonde heroine/narrator. I remember

first hearing about the Johari Window. It is a depiction of the different selves we all have. There is the Self we know about and so do others; then the self we know about but which is hidden from others; then the self which others see but we are ourselves unaware of; and finally that wee small window into the self that both we and others know nothing about. Clever, eh?

But that's one of the things about Mental Detection: no-one knows how you do it, they ooh and aah and wonder and gasp and shake their heads and thank you profusely for sorting out their problems and you yawn and take a sip of Macallan and accept their gratitude and their cheque and toddle off to bed where your lady-love lies waiting, silently for you. Or Me, actually.

Night-night,

 

A Life in the Shadows

I suppose a sense of belonging – to a place, an idea, or ideology, to a family or clan, to a person, a lover, a partner – is something that most people crave. Not all – I've met enough people who need their aloneness, their privacy, their separate life – to realise that we are all different, and while Maslow's Hierarchy of Need is a useful tool (you see, I'm not just a pretty face) for assessing where people stand, or lie down, it does not presume that all of our needs are universal. We know that the concept of personal space within a poor family in the cramped quarters of Mumbai, is very different from that of the herders who walk the Serengeti, or Native Australians who can feel crowded and threatened if the shimmer of a stranger appears like a williwaw on the distant horizon. And some need to feel sheltered, protected, perhaps even kept, by another, almost as if they belong to that person.

You might think think it's fun being a 'kept woman' or somebody's 'mistress' or even 'sex toy' – after all, what do women want more than to be fondled and fucked? And, oh, such an easy life, just lying around all day waiting for your man to come and 'make love' to you! They dream of life in the Seraglio, as a woman of the Sultan's Harem, lying on silk sheets, playing with a kitten, and just having to open your legs every now and then and, after all, you're getting fun too, aren't you?

That's the root of it, of course. Whether you are a concubine, or a 'bit on the side, or a whore, you're getting what all women want, and you are getting more – a home, a life, and maybe even paid for it. And all you have to do is share your body with a man. Several times a week, or fifteen times a day. What difference does it make? Who could ask for anything more? When I asked, and I truly did ask, they told me that of course it was legal, or else they wouldn't do it, would they? 'It' was me being fucked by ten strangers in one night. They did say it was perfectly legal, because I wasn't being prostituted, was I? I was doing it willingly, my own free choice, and I was the one getting all the attention, all the pleasure, all the fun, wasn't I? I didn't know much about that. Well, I was only 13 and I didn't really know a lot about anything much. They told me that 12 was the Age of Consent in Scotland so there was nothing to worry about. Consent? Did I give my Consent? Ever?

They didn't ask me if I wanted to be fucked by these ten strangers – they never asked me if I wanted to be fucked by One Stranger. In fact, no-one had ever asked if I wanted to be fucked at all. Not George Gill, Not Dr Montgomery. Not Ronnie or Jimmy or Martin or any of them. It was just taken for granted that I would do whatever they told me to do. That was certainly true. What I may or may not have wanted didn't come into it. I did what I was told and the men did what they wanted. When it came to the ten, some fucked my See You Next Tuesday, some fucked me up my Bum and some fucked my Mouth – some of them fucked me in two places and one fucked me in all three and then came all over my face.

And then he bought me!

They don't tell you That at School. Oh, you get told about William Wilberforce, the MP for Hull or somewhere, who got Slavery abolished. But they don't tell you it still goes on. All over the place. And it was only when I realised that the guy who had fucked me and cum all over my face had bought me and I was going away with him, that I realised also that I was a Slave. A Sex Slave. Someone's property.

That didn't do much for my self esteem.

Hah! Self Esteem, eh? That's for people who take decisions for themselves, have education and jobs and houses and cars and maybe kids and maybe a husband. People who've got Lives! What kind of Life did I have? I know that when you think about it – and I can think better now than when I was 13 – you can see that most people are still slaves. What's that saying about being two or three pay-packets from the streets? So they can't afford to lose their poxy jobs or else they'll lose their poxy cars and their poxy suits and houses and poxy wives and all the other poxy things that depend on having money in the banks and building societies and in their pockets. It kind of turns the idea about having Freedom and Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness on it's head, doesn't it? But so long as they've got all that, some of them will pay to fuck a 13-year-old like me. Which was why he had bought me. A sort of investment, I suppose.

I don't know how much I cost.

But I do know that the man who sold me didn't own me, not any more than Jimmy Savile, or George Gill, or Doctor Montgomery, or all their friends who'd fucked me did. They passed me from one cock to the other for fun. Not my fun, their fun. And sometimes I stayed with one of them for more than a night, maybe a few days or weeks, before he passed me back to where I'd come from, or on to the next person. They all used me. They didn't try to please me or give me anything. But they didn't own me. Until Martin Elginbrod sold me.

He drew up a Contract which they both signed and then shook on it, and money changed hands, but I didn't see it. Elginbrod didn't have to prove he owned me before he sold me, he just had to be the one selling me. He hadn't stolen me or anything, I just happened to be with him after I left Jimmy's cottage, I just happened to believe that He Loved Me the same way that I Loved Him, and if I'd known that he was going to sell me like a sack of spuds I'd have cut his balls off and played Ping-Pong with them! Well, I say that now but who the fuck knows what I'd have done? I let 10 strangers fuck me and I didn't object or say “No!” to any of them, even when they hurt me, so what's the difference anyway? Now, because it was a proper Business Transaction the money went from my new Owner's bank to Elginbrod's just by tapping a few keys. And that was it: now I belonged to this guy Shug. Hugh Finnegan. Boys named Hugh usually started off being known as Hughie, which slid into the pronunciation Shooey, a common adaptation in Scotland, particularly among the Working Class. And those who don't have any visible means of support. And then, depending on the nature and personality of the bearer, can easily become Shug. Maybe because it is so close to Slug. And Shug Finnegan was certainly that. I still don't know exactly what the link was between Elginbrod and Shug. Their taste in young girls probably. Sexual preferences can make for strange bedfellows. Very Strange.

And Shug was going to put me to work to earn him back he money he had paid for me and more.

I wasn't going to be a 'Call Girl' meeting wealthy punters in their hotel rooms or a fancy flat. I was just one of five girls, all slightly older than me, who were his Street Toms, and anyone interested would go with whoever he picked to Shug's van, parked just twenty yards away and fitted out with a mattress in the back. Not a very clean one. But who noticed that? Quick and easy. Climb in, Fuck, climb out again and back trying to catch the eye of passing punters. Sometimes the guy had his own car or works van and we would climb in and suck him off or whatever and then he'd give us the money and we'd climb out, go to the van and give it to Shug. It was a cheap set-up and the sex was cheap too, but Shug was going for a high turn-over. Volume. Quantity over quality. It's a wonder he hadn't cottoned on to the BOGOF idea that supermarkets do to improve their turnover and their profits. But it worked. There was nearly always someone in the van, giving a blow-job or getting fucked, while the others caught eyes, advertised themselves and found Johns. In the course of an eight or ten hour shift, on a busy night, we could usually get an average of maybe twenty or thirty or forty Johns each. Some nights one of us might get more and another less, but a total of around 150 at whatever Shug charged seemed to suit him. His running costs were low – we all lived in an old student flat in an alley off Easter Road and the food was basic but ok. And when we got home and after we'd eaten some stuff Shug's Mum, who lived upstairs, had prepared for us, or had delivered more likely, Shug would choose one of us to spend the night with him. The thought of putting his cock where maybe 20 or 30 men had already put theirs seemed to give Shug a stiff one – probably assisted by the Viagra, which he didn't hide – and he could keep going for hours; but then, he and his business was after dark really, from 6pm till 2am usually, although if there was a buzz on the streets and more punters around, say after a football match or something, we'd stay out for longer, until the numbers dwindled away, If anyone wanted a quick hand-job or blow-job and the van was already in use, we'd go into a telephone box which had it's light removed, or a shop doorway, both of which Shug could keep an eye open for. In all the time I was there, working for Shug, I don't think there was ever any trouble. I think he was a bit of an institution, everyone seemed to know him, even the Police Scotland Officers who often made use of our services, in return for turning a blind eye. Shug had been running this operation for about thirty years, succeeding his father and inheriting the van. He can't have had any ambitions, but I suppose it suited him just the way it was: a One Man and Five Girl and a Van operation. If he had been ambitious and had expanded, with more locations, more girls, he'd have had to buy more vans, hire other guys, accommodate the girls somewhere.

And anyway, it was his Mum and his Gran who were the brains behind the business. Maisie Finnegan. She'd been a cheap slag herself, when she was young, but a cheap slag with imagination and she's quickly taken herself off the streets and put others in her place. Female Pimps weren't unknown, but they weren't usual. They had to always be watchful for others trying to muscle in on their Turf. And ready to act quickly to stop it. With crippling retaliation if necessary. And Maisie Finnegan was not only a cheap slag, she was also a very hard one. Like her own Mum, Daisy. Unlike her wee Shug, who might have been expected to take over the whole operation after his father's death. Well, the father on his birth certificate; but once you knew about Maisie's early life, and the kind of motherly care and attention she herself never got from Daisy, you realised that her son could be the product of any one of a thousand men – or, I wondered if it were possible, to be a combination of several. I should have paid attention in Biology. Shug's features and body seemed to be a bit of an agglomeration of several different physiques and genes. But that wasn't something you could actually raise with your Boss. Your owner.

But expansion wasn't for him. To him it was like a lazy slob having a corner shop – you might vary the goods a bit now and then, get rid of anything past it's 'Sell By' date if it didn't even go at half or quarter price and bring in fresh stock, but other than that, if you have some good locations, with enough punters to give you a good living and the right mix of girls to keep them happy and coming back – why change? I think that was his way of thinking. Why Change Anything? If it ain't broke, don't fix it! Unless his Mammy said. Or even more so if his Granny said. He wasn't stupid, though.

He did vary the routine – it wasn't always the same place: on different days he had different places for us to work. And none of them were really Town Centre – he preferred back streets and even housing estates and industrial estates, They were where the kerb crawlers came, as if they could sniff us out.
Hah! The probably could at that, cos after you've had ten or twenty cocks inside you, up you, or cumming over you, none of us were very fragrant. Squirts of cheap perfume don't disguise the smell of men and their filthy cocks and cum. But lots of guys were like Shug, seeming to like the thought that we were rank with the smell of sex, it definitely turns lots of them on. You could see it in their eyes and their nostrils twitching and their fingers up you and sniffing them before they slid their cocks in, I know it's called 'sloppy seconds' and I don't know why, but lots of them seem to lap it up. Some quite literally. I've had guys who wanted to lick and suck my See You Next Tuesday before they put their oar in and paddle about. Nowt so queer as Men, that's for sure!

But Shug's wasn't the only crew. His Ma and Nan had several other Leaders working teams like us, each with a different slant. We were the Young Team, there was a Mature Team, what guys call MILFS – some of them did have kids and even husbands and I think a few of them were doing it on the side for pin money – there were more in that Team than the others, cos they didn't all work at the same time, or even full-time - but we called them The Mattresses, cos they'd obviously taken quite a pounding over the years. And there was a Posh Team who did work Hotels and upmarket clubs and Conference centres and stuff. Their Team Leader was a very tight woman aged anywhere between 20 and 40. very smartly dressed – looked like a business executive, which I suppose she was. And lastly there were the foreign girls, the Black Team, though most of them weren't actually foreign or particularly black at all: some had West Indian parents, or Pakistani or Indian, or Italian – and one was Irish! The spoke with a mixture of East and West Coast accents, some sounded like teuchters, a one from Aberdeen. But a few put on completely fake accents depending on what kind of punters they were picking up. If you can say a sentence which has Urdu, Arabic, Chinese, Gaelic and Pidgin in it, they could. And nobody had the faintest idea what it meant, but obviously lots of Punters liked the idea of shagging something a bit more exotic than Muirhouse, or Westerhailes, or even Marchmont. They were actresses and didn't they know it!

But in fact, I suppose we were all acting in a way. None of the girls I got to know over the time I was with Shug enjoyed sex – at least not the kind of sex the punters and the Team Leaders liked. If they'd enjoyed sex with men before, by the time they'd worked a season this way you were pig sick of it. This was how and when I learned about the alternatives, especially Lesbianism, and discovered that this was the way my whole being was wired up: Body, Mind and Soul. Suddenly I saw through all the crap I'd allowed Men to stuff into me and knew that if I wanted to follow my own course in life it needn't be alone. There were other women with the same interests as me, the same attractions and the same desires.

In the meantime, like the others, I just had to thole it. We were all involved for different reasons. Some of the younger girls, like me, were owned by Shug and although the MILFS told us it was illegal, what it amounted to was that we owed a debt to Shug and would have to work for him until we had paid it off, with interest. It turned out that those of us tied up in this way had all been bought through Elginbrod and when the older women heard that, they said we were snookered, until we either found someone who'd buy us out, or we paid off the debt, but it seemed that a couple of the older ones were still paying theirs off after ten or more years! And even though they went home to their own places, or their families – like any working mum – they still had to turn up and work their patch. But they did get to keep part of the cash they earned. Though for the ones paying off a debt it just added to the time they had left. And interest was being added on by Maisie and Daisy every day. No wonder they call debt 'a trap'.

I think that was when I realized that I actually hated them. Men. They weren't pretending that they loved us, or even cared anything for us. They didn't know us, didn't want to know us, just wanted to use us and squirt their spunk inside us just like we were inflatable sex dolls. That was all we were to them: things to use. I suppose a lot of them grew up with Wank Mags and dirty hankies, caked and crusted with dried spunk that never got washed, just used over and over again and we were the same to them – In, Cum, Out, and walk away. Pathetic really, but I'm not talking about us. Us girls. We were human beings, or Humming Beans as Rosie used to say. And while they showed no respect for us, we hated them in return and for me that hatred grew to encompass all men, most of them certainly, and I was never too sure of the others, the ones I didn't actually hate, just disliked.

To be honest, I couldn't think of any good reason for men. They are the cause of most of the trouble and strife in the world – the wars, the carnage, the pain and death. Most of it is down to Men. And even where women have been involved, they've been just tools in the hands of men. No, apart from having something to do with making babies, I can't think of any other service they contribute to the Humming Beans that wouldn't have been better left to women. If they were all gassed, or shot or strung up by their tackle and left for the Wild World to devour, I don't think the world would be any the poorer. Probably a lot happier. I know I would be, for one. Definitely.

But in the meantime, in the cold hard reality of an Edinburgh Winter when we had to stand about on freezing nights flashing our knickers to kerb crawlers in the hope that one would give us a cosy ride in exchange for a hand-job – the least demanding and onerous of our services, but also the least required. Still, with a bit of practice we'd been taught, by 'the old hands' as it were, how to make a man think he'd fucked us inside, when his cock had been brought to climax between our thighs. It's amazing what a bit of encouragement and flattery can do to a Man, especially at night when he can't actually see what's happening. And if these bits of trickery helped us get through the harshness of an Edinburgh Winter without harming a soul, I don't think our consciences need trouble us, do you?

These Are a Few Of My Favourite Things (Part XIII)

These Are a Few Of My Favourite Things (Part XII)

I Love My Kindle

And now I know why I love my Kindle so much! I've been reading, or rather re-reading, Ian Rankin's Rebus novels and in the worst possible way for a wee yin like me – a while ago I bought three omnibuses (omnibi?) each with three stories, ie the first nine novels, as I have always liked to read a series in chronological order, that way you get a better feel for the development of the principal characters: the detective and the chronicler. Trouble is, you guessed it, the books are damn heavy for a wee thing like me, especially if a lot of my reading is during my morning rub-a-dub-dub, or out in the garden with a ciggie and a coffee. I don't keep any count of the amount of caffeine I am ingesting, but it must be lots! Maybe that's why I can't always sleep at night, or wake up about 2,30 or 3.00am and either have a mug of cocoa or a hot toddy – which I am trying to cut down on after my nearest and dearest noticed that another empty was lined up with the coffee jars for the bottle bank.

You will probably have realised that Rebus is an anagram of Bruse, and you would be right, Ian rankin used my cousin DCI Bruce Bruse as the model for his detective inspector (Bruce awas a DI at the time) and although Bruce doesn't appear as frequently in my chronicle, is simply because now that he is a DCI he spends a lot of time at Fettes which is the Edinburgh HQ for Police Scotland and like most DCIs, delegates work to teams headed by a DI. Which is why it is usually one or other of my other cousins, DI Gordon Brevity, Sergeant Goldy Brevity, WPC Isa Urquhart or Trainee WPC Gertie Mountcastle who tend to be central.

Anyhoo, that's enuff name-dropping for one day. I normally don't go in for lots and lots of name-dropping, it's not my style. Sometimes, of course, it's necessary to refer to other people in order to make a particular point, or just because I'm particularly fond of them. Like Josie.

I do like Josie.

And obviously, if you do like someone as much as I like Josie, it's nice to be able to say so.

Mind you, if I was writing a dissertation on Wittgenstein's theory, or belief, I'm not actually sure which it is, that if used and therefore blunt razor blades are left long enough they will eventually resharpen – which, when you see it in print (okay, it isn't print, it's in type, if you really have to be pedantic) seems rather bizarre, well, to be honest, it is rather bizarre – according to some Law of the Universe about infinity or simply the effects of gravity and atmosphere which wear away anything, everything, then it would not be appropriate, unless in reference to some contribution to the discussion, to simply say, “and so does Josie,” or, “Josie is right about that!”

But Josie likes Rebus and so do I, which is just one of the many things we have in common.

And for anyone who is not already familiar with him, Rebus is a Fifer and an Edinburgh cop, to boot. His origins in Fife are always present in his thinking and in Strip Jack, the story I am reading at the moment, one of the people involved is an MP, Gregor Jack, who at the beginning of the story is discovered in flagrante, in a classy New town brothel, and also a Fifer. And although – for reasons not strictly relevant, but certainly very sexist – patrons of brothels, just like customers of prostitutes, are not committing an offence, while the prostitutes and brothel owners are, Rebus, who participates in the raid, under the authority of Chief Superintendent Watson, begins to suspect that the MP had been 'set up', as reporters and photographers seemed to have been 'tipped off' and were waiting and ready to photograph Jack as he leaves the premises and is driven off with the other customers to give a statement at the Police Station. So Rebus begins to wonder about the questions: 'why would someone want to set up Gregor jack?' and 'who would want to set him up?'

I was discussing this with Josie last night – she is quite a fan of Rebus too, and has read all of Ian Rankin's books – and although she knows the outcome of the story already, she tried to put that knowledge aside and we spoke about the different reasons why anyone would want to bring down a political man.

As usual, her answers were concise: Revenge, Jealousy, Greed – all the usual suspects, “a lot of people like to see people humbled,” she said, “it's a bit like the way tabloids like to build someone up, promote them, establish them in the minds of their readers and then, suddenly and for no obvious reason, bring them crashing back down to earth. It's a kind of schadenfreude, isn't it? We like to see the rich, famous and powerful, brought down to earth, to see them on their knees, forced to apologise for whatever it is that has humbled them – and usually something to do with sex or money. And if it is someone we have admired, been encouraged by the papers to admire, then after the initial shock, we join in with the hounds baying for blood, it's a dark part of our character, this mob rule; while we might say we don't approve of the atavistic persecution of our former heroes. But we buy the papers, we watch the scenes of the abject and penitent standing by their front gates, addressing he waiting reporters and us, the viewers glued to our screens, apologising for letting everyone down, and although we have condemned the show-trials which used to take place in Stalin's Soviet Union and still do in China, and North Korea, with 'confessions' signed if not written by the accused, we still lap it all up, like the crowds in the Colliseum thousands of years ago! I sometimes wonder,” she mused, “if we have really progressed at all?” and then she fell silent, no doubt with all the images she had invoked tumbling around in her pretty head.

“Enough,” said I, “it's time for bed,” and up the wooden hill we went.

  But Oh! What a shock in the penultimate episode of Line of Duty (BBC2 9pm Thursday)! This and Scott and Bailey (ITV 9pm Wednesday) are the two Must Sees at the moment: which means, lock the doors, take the phone off the hook, douse the lights, after making sure that you have a cuppa at your side because you won't want to miss a word. Actually, I record them so I won't have to sit cross-legged. after drinking my tea. Lod is written by Jed Mercurio and this is the Third Season, which is difficult to believe, it feels like more, because every episode is so crammed with details that it feels like there have been more. SaB too – there is no wasted time, no long-shots of a city skyline, or of it's mean streets, In these two serials, just as in Happy Valley written by Sally Wainwright, who wrote SaB and Last Tango in Halifax, every scene, every shot, moves the story along and this means information is crammed into the dialogue, the visuals and all helps to build the tension. That and the unexpected deaths of principal characters. Crikey! Watch it on the BBC iplayer if you haven;t seen it , and the ITV player for Scott and Bailey. Whatever you do.

,

A Bolt From The Blue

How unexpected was that? I was happily reading the fourth of Anne Cleves Shetland Series featuring DI Jimmy Perez, played in the TV series by Douglas Henshall, when Bang! Like a punch in the face, the kind of shock ending you used to get in an episode of 24! it came right out of nowhere and literally shocked me – I switched of my Kindle and strode into the house, shouting and swearing, quite unlike my normally composed and reticent self and several of my friends came running, only to stomp off when I assured them that I was ok and told them what had provoked my distress - “it's only a story!” was the unified response, and I was abandoned to deal with my grief. I won't say any more in case I accidentally drop a spoiler, but I really don't know why authors build up certain characters in a story only to chop their heads off in almost the last chapter; I had already grieved over another interesting charactyer earlier on and thought that I had worked out who was the murderer, kind of, a bit, but “oh no!” Good read though. It's called Blue Lightning and is set almost entirely on Fair Isle – ir actually opens with Jimmy and Fran, his fiancée, arriving by plane, which Fran believes is going to crash into the cliffs. That's a piece of neurosis that I share – I've never been a good passenger and clenche everything at the seriously scary bits: take off, obviously; cruising, oh yes, obviously; and landing, mucho obviously. Apart from that, I'm okay. Absolutely no problem boarding and disembarking, I actually enjoy those bits a lot, and even the taxiing, I could do that for hours. In fact. If there was a long runway from my airport to the destination and we could taxi all the way, now why hasn't anyone else thought of that – it's my solution to the problems people like me experience with air travel and I bet millions would go for it. Sorted.

The story is told through the eyes not only of Perez and Fran, but residents and visitors to the Field Centre, based in the Fictional North Light, a lighthouse, now automatic, with the rest of the buildings converted to the offices and sleeping quarters needed to accommodate the staff and visitors, twitchy crowd that they were. And you become drawn to some of them and assume that they are there for the duration, but not so. It's not quite Ten little Indians but certainly feels like that as, after the first murder you begin wondering who will be next, and then next.

Well crafted, as all Anne Cleves stories are and worth the ride. Apart from that shock! And then the other! And then it all comes out in the wash, as any good detective yarn does. I will be reading more of them, and am already looking forward to the next season on BBC 1.

My Holiday Reading

 

I'm reading the first of Anne Cleves' Shetland stories, featuring Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez (who local legend says is descended from a Spanish sailor, the only survivor of a ship from the Spanish Armada which had been blown off course and sank just off fair Isle) and I have discovered that I made a mistake!

Of course, I brought my Kindle with me to London – and I have found the time to read two other of these detective novels set in the Shetland Isles. My mistake was that I thought the first one I read, White Nights, was the first, and the next, Red Bones, was the second, but in fact Raven Black, which I am now well into was the first. This might not be of any significance in the 'Grand Scheme of Things', but it has thrown my normal approach to a series of books into confusion. I like to begin with the first and read them in sequence – the Alex Delaware books of Jonathan Kellerman, and Donna Leon's Venice-set novels featuring Commisario Guido Brunetti; the John Shakespeare series by Rory Clements, and C J Sansom's Giordano Bruno novels – and this has slightly thrown me off kilter. No, I do not have OCD and I am not a person with Aspergers Syndrome. I'm not! I just like to begin on page one and read page by page to the end. I'm the same with TV dramas, and movies. I watch from the beginning to the end. Years ago, if I missed the first 5 or 10 minutes I wouldn't watch the rest, I couldn't. Impossible. Now, and ever since my first clunky VCR, I record every episode of a serial or any other programme I want to watch and then, if for any reason I miss the beginning or I get a phone call from my mum or aunt or a friend who doesn't know what's on TV, I will answer it and be perfectly cool, because I know I can go back to the paused show and press play. I do admit that when I first saw Play it again, Sam! I tried to hide behind the cushions while the friends present in the room burst out laughing and pointing at me and shouting “Play it again, Teri!” which I thought was rather childishly OTT, but hey, they were right. I was uptight and neurotic and have one fixed an unerasable rule: I watch from the beginning to the end, the same way I read a book. Surely that's just normal, no?

And having the Kindle with me is handy. Although I'm not the only smoker in the house, I am the one with the most consistent habit. Coffee, Kindle, Ciggie. They go together like Horse and Carriage. So while everybody else is watching TV or gossiping over their coffee, I pop out into the back garden with mu accessories, alone, because I respect Celeste's rule that it is a “No Smoking House” simply because it is her house and anyway, having never smoked indoors at all since the ban came into force on pubs and clubs, and before that I always respected the wishes of my family and friends, and now I would never dream of lighting up indoors. Even at home. Even alone. I just don't smoke indoors, period. Except, maybe, if I'm honest and there really isn't any point in not, if I've got PMT and it's a monsoon outside and there's no-one else in, or if I'm at Jonesey's, cause she smokes in her house and it would be daft me going into the garden for a puff, while she's in the kitchen, having a puff. So I compromise.

And I love my Kindle. It's basic, not a Fire or Paperwhite, which means that if it’s dark outside I stick a Headlight on before going out – or I night take my tablet if it's handy. And an umbrella if it's pelting down. I used to keep a golf umbrella by the back door at work, until it blew inside -out in a gale and most of the spokes got bent or broken. But there's now a little kinda porchy/gazeboey thingy or actually, it's like a bush shelter, at the bottom of the garden, all it needs is a destination board and one of those poles with an enamel plate saying which buses come through the garden.

But maybe it's a sign of my maturity that I haven't abandoned the Perez novels just because I've been reading them out of sequence. I'll just double-check before I start on the next one, that it really is number four, and not seven. Because otherwise, I don't like to contemplate!