Here comes Jakey Claus!
In the West of Scotland at this time of year, boys and girls await the arrival of a bearded, mischievous imp who visits in the dead of night, bearing gifts.
You’ll know him by his faded, slightly browny-red outfit, the stale smell of pish and tobacco, and his long beard, which was once white but is now yellowed and matted with lumps of vomit. On Christmas Eve, when children are tucked up in bed (or drinking on street corners), if you listen carefully you can hear Jakey Claus clattering about on the rooftops, cursing under his breath as he tries to find a chimney to climb down.
Most years you can hear the feral reindeer that pull his sleigh–Fannybaws, Cuntybaws, Bawbag, Bampot, Glaikit, Eejit, Hingy and Thingy–along with Rudolph (red-nosed due to excessive alcoholism), but this year Santa already has 152 points on his license for driving over the limit, and his sleigh was clamped by the polis.
Jakey Claus, when he eventually comes into your house, brings presents. If you have been a good boy or girl then Jakey Claus will leave a half-empty bottle of Buckfast in your tree. If you have been bad, then he’ll leave a puddle of vomit at the base of the tree. To be honest, he might just do that anyway. Either way, Jakey Claus will rifle through your stockings and take a few items for himself.
Many people leave treats out for Jakey Claus. Traditionally this includes a bottle of the cheapest whisky you can find, some fritters, a can of Irn-Bru, or a Munchy Box. However, you can leave out a glass of warm milk if you prefer. Just make sure to top it up with methylated spirits..
So best to behave yourself, since you don’t want to get on Jakey Claus’ bad side. “He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake…” That’s not a jolly song, that’s a threat.
So have a very Merry Christmas pal…
Pearls of wisdom from my students
We are fast approaching the end of my first term as an English teacher. It has been… interesting. I may not have been able to impart a love of literature on my students, we may be a little behind on the Controlled Assessment schedule, but they all know the etymology of a hell of a lot of swear words, and why swearing is considered impolite.
I work in FE, but I teach children who are still in compulsory schooling (I teach as part of a course for students who have been excluded or are otherwise outside of mainstream education). So my charges are at times perhaps a little mouthier and a little cheekier than your mainstream class might otherwise be. Swearing, grudges, arguments and disobedience may be familiar to most teachers, but I hope there are very few classes where burning test papers, threatening to stab each other, actually getting stabbed and turning up to class drunk/stoned are regular occurrences…
At any rate, they are entertaining and frustrating in equal measures. Amongst the highlights this term have been:
- Student A burning his test paper. When asked not to burn it, his response was to set fire to Student D’s…
- “Sir, you look like a gay farmer”–an oddly specific fashion critique delivered by Student A
- “Is this going to be another boring lesson where we have to learn stuff?”–Student C doesn’t quite grasp why we’re having lessons…
- “I speak English much well betterer than you sir innit.”–Student A demonstrates my point about why he ought to pay more attention when I’m teaching him about Standard English.
- “Can we watch a film today sir?”–the cry of every class, at the start of every lesson. Since the start of term. Jesus wept.
- “Sir, where’d you get your shoes from?”–not as common as “can we watch a film”, but Group B have an odd fascination with my footwear…
- “Dave!”–my name, according to Group B…
- “Paulie babes”–my name, according to Group A…
- “Dave!” “It’s not Dave, it’s Paulie babes.” “Nah, it’s Dave. Dave, tell them your name is Dave.”–an argument outside the staffroom while I was trying to have my coffee break…
- “I’m going to put you in Room 101 sir!”–threat from Student S when I insisted she deliver her presentation (the topic was Room 101). When I told her she could put me in if she wanted and realised I wasn’t kidding, she actually delivered a good presentation!
- “This is a waste of time when we could be doing stuff to help us pass our GCSE.”–Student G’s reason for putting Room 101 into Room 101 for his presentation. The presentation which was being assessed and would count towards passing his GCSE…
- “Uurgh, that’s disgusting. If I ever go to Wales they’d better not make me eat that.”–Student L on being told what’s in a haggis. I’m only responsible for English, not geography…
I have had Group A for the last time this term, and my last session with Group B will be on Tuesday. And we will be watching a film (yes, I have seen Bad Teacher, why do you ask?)–but it is an adaptation of the book they will be reading next term, so it’s educational, honest!
Here’s a pitch for you…
So I was looking at my site stats recently. It seems my last post was a little popular. I used to be able to go back weeks, months even on my Statcounter account. Now? Three days, tops. At one point I could only go back 18 hours (why yes, I am a cheapskate who hasn’t upgraded to the paid version of Statcounter, why do you ask?)
Anyway, I noticed that I got visits the past few days from both the New York office of Nature Publishing Group, and the London Office of Macmillan Publishers, who own Nature Publishing Group.
Now, one of these visits may have been from Henry Gee, the Nature editor with responsibility for Nature’s Futures section, and who therefore is responsible for the recent kerfuffle over the story “Womanspace”. But Henry can’t have been in both London and New York, so someone else in NPG read my letter.
So here’s my pitch. I’m not a scientist. I can’t comment on Henry’s talents as an editor of scientific articles and journals. But I can tell you that he has shown very poor judgement when it comes to fiction, and doesn’t appear to understand that the role of an editor for literature is much different from that of an editor for science journals.
So rather than keep tearing Henry and Ed to pieces, how about I offer a constructive alternative? Let someone with experience of writing or editing fiction take over editing the Futures section. That way Henry can stick to editing science articles, Ed can return to writing up his research, and someone a bit more clued up about fiction can deal with the authors.
Sound good?
Basically, what I’m saying is I’ll do it for you.
Because let’s be honest, it would be hard to do worse than the Womanspace fiasco. About the only way I could create a worse PR nightmare for Nature would be if I actually published the three stories I suggested in jest in my last post on this subject.
And I think I have slightly better taste than to do that…
An open letter to Nature
In September, the science journal Nature published a “humorous” short story called “Womanspace”. The fact that it has taken two months for people to even notice this and react to it should really clue the editors at Nature into the fact that nobody is interested in reading fiction in a science journal, but that is not the point.
The fact that the editor allegedly responsible for the piece appears to be goading outraged comments, whilst perhaps speaking volumes about his suitability to remain an editor with what is meant to be a prestigious scientific journal is, though interesting, also not the point.
The point is this story serves to highlight the continuing problem of sexism in both science and science fiction. It really needs to stop and people need to grow up. Below is my comment to the editor of Nature, Henry Gee, added as a comment to the “story”. I have posted it here in case Nature decline to publish my comment (as is their right). The story itself, and my comment if published, can be found here.
Dear Mr Gee
I had to create an account on this site in order to comment. As part of that process, I had to accept your terms and conditions. These include:
1.You must not submit any material to the Site which… is inappropriate. Material will be considered in appropriate if that material is…defamatory, abusive, malicious, threatening, false, misleading, offensive, discriminatory, harassing, blasphemous, racist or sexist
So, had this “story” been a comment to the site, it would have violated your own terms and conditions and wouldn’t be allowed. So why publish it?
As a writer myself, I can tell you that this isn’t a good story. It reads like a poor, 20-second stand up routine padded out with the tropes of fiction. As an editor, I wouldn’t have even bothered to edit it, I would have passed on it. As a publisher, this would never have seen the light of day, either on a printing press or on a website, and I would be wary of anything the writer submitted in future.
Clearly this was published in order to be controversial. As a cynical attempt to drive traffic to your site, I hope this backfires spectacularly. Perhaps your advertisers may wish to consider if they want to continue being associated with this type of sexism? Perhaps your readers will wish to consider being customers of advertisers happy to be associated with sexism? Perhaps you won’t have many readers after this.
Finally Mr Gee, since Nature seems not to be discriminating about what fiction it publishes, I have three stories of my own you might wish to consider publishing in future issues of Nature:
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- Gayspace (a hilarious tale of how gay people access parallel dimensions to look fabulous)
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- Blackspace (a hilarious tale of how black people access parallel dimensions to be to be fast sprinters)
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- Jewspace (a hilarious tale of how Jewish people access parallel dimensions to save money)
Or maybe you’d have the sense not to publish these. Because they are offensive, and based on stereotypes. And you’d be right.
It is a pity that you and the other editors of Nature seem incapable of demonstrating that same level of decency towards half the global population.
Tales from the Split Worlds: The Visit
Something a little different for you today. May I introduce Emma Newman, a hugely talented author I had the privilege of editing for both Chinese Whisperings anthologies, and whose own anthology of short stories, From Dark Places, was published in May of this year by eMergent Publishing. Em’s doing something a little unique between now and November 2012. Over to you Em…
This is the second in a year and a day of weekly short stories set in The Split Worlds. If you would prefer to listen to an audio version, you can find the link (and all the other stories as they are released) here.
The Visit
Charles thought he was prepared for how his old friend would look. From the doorway of the hospital room he could see it had been inadequate.
Just the walk through the hospital corridors had been an effort. The bizarre smells, the strip lighting that hurt his eyes, the prevalence of those cursed computer machines, all had given him the most horrendous headache. That was forgotten now he was at the room itself, a box of vanilla fudge tied with string in one hand, hat held in the other.
Whilst he knew Thomas would be an elderly gentleman, he still reeled from the fact his dark brown hair was mostly gone, and what was left was wiry and white. The strong brow the nurses had smoothed with cool hands in the field hospital was wrinkled beyond recognition, and had the appearance of a gentle landslide over his eyes, the brows resting on top of his eyelids.
Charles didn’t want to disturb his rest. He would leave the fudge on the bedside cabinet with a red silk poppy and a note.
“Captain Papaver?” The patient woke as he scrawled a message on the back of his calling card. “Good grief, is that you?”
Charles forced himself to turn and smile at him. His friend’s brown eyes, once large and bright were now red rimmed and partially obscured by the sagging brow. “Good morning Thomas. Thought I’d drop by when I heard you were unwell.” His own voice sounded so loud in comparison.
“Saints above, it is you!” Those rheumy eyes didn’t leave his face as he struggled to sit up straighter in the bed. With slow, jerking movements, the old man saluted him and Charles returned it smartly with a swell of pride in his breast. “You don’t look a day over thirty sir. You’re really there aren’t you?”
“Yes. The years have been kind to me. I brought you some fudge.”
“You still remember,” Thomas was openly weeping now. “Sorry I can’t get out of bed sir.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Charles said, pulling a nearby chair to the bedside. “Besides, we’re out of uniform now, the both of us.”
“I got your letters sir,” Thomas reached unsteadily towards him and they shook hands. Charles wanted to recoil at the feel of the papery skin and lumpy bones. It wasn’t the hand he remembered. “All tied up in string they are, at the home. I insisted on taking them with me.”
“Do they treat you well?”
“Oh yes sir, and here too. They said you…” Now he was breaking down.
“Least I could do,” Charles said. “My man told me about these other homes, I couldn’t have you ending up there.”
“And this hospital too, they told me you saw to that.” Charles gave a nod, not wanting a fuss. “Still looking after me sir, after all these years.”
“I take my responsibilities very seriously,” Charles replied, smoothing down his moustache to cover the flicker of emotion in his voice. “I understand your children can’t visit.”
“They’re out in Australia now. They’ve got grandchildren, they’re too old to fly back. They write. They’re good girls. You have grandchildren sir?”
“Not yet,” he said, unthinking. “I have a son and two girls. He’s a fine lad, tall and strong. Bright as a button.”
“Takes after you sir.”
“But I named him after you,” Charles smiled.
The door opened and a nurse entered with a bag of clear fluid. “Got a visitor Tommy? That’s nice.” She smiled at Charles as she replaced the near empty IV bag.
“This is Captain Charles Papaver, he was my commanding officer in the First World War!”
“Is that right?”
“Finest man I know. He carries me out of no-man’s land on the worst day of the Somme, both of my legs blown off, shells landing all around us, takes me back to the trench and then,” he pointed a crooked finger at him. “Then this man goes back up the ladder and saves three others. Got the Victoria Cross he did.”
“Did he?” the nurse was obviously humouring him.
“And not only that,” he croaked. “He wrote to every one of us regularly and sent a gift on Remembrance Sunday. Every year for over ninety years! You should shake him by the hand, meet a real man.”
“Could I have a word with you?” The nurse asked and Charles excused himself.
They stepped outside. “You’re the one paying for his treatment?”
“I’m the Captain’s grandson,” he lied, having prepared for such an eventuality. “I’m seeing that my grandfather’s will is carried out to the letter.”
“Seems he was every bit a gentleman as Tommy says. I’m glad you came, all his family are overseas. I’ll give you an extra half an hour over the normal visiting hours, but he will drift off and sleep a lot, just to warn you. It’s the medication.”
“Is he in pain?”
“It’s managed, but he doesn’t have much longer.”
“Thank you.”
“Thought I’d imagined you sir,” Thomas said as Charles went back in and sat back down. “Listen, I wanted to thank you again, for what you’ve done for me and the others.”
“It was nothing.”
“It was everything to us. I’ve been blessed to know you sir.”
Charles patted his hand. “Really, it was nothing.”
“I’m not going to die here,” he remembered Thomas saying all those years ago as he shook violently in the field hospital, both of them covered in his blood. “I’m going to die an old man with dozens of grandchildren, in my sleep sir. Not here.”
Charles decided he would make that wish come true, and he’d waited almost a century to see it done. He watched Thomas fall asleep. He looked peaceful. It was time. “Goodbye old chap,” he said softly and brushed the old man’s lips with his fingertip, whispering the charm he’d bought at the Emporium and adapted with his family’s gift. Thomas would not wake again. He would sleep peacefully until his time came.
Duty discharged, Charles stood, saluted his old friend and left him to his gentle dreams.
Thanks for hosting Paul! I hope you enjoyed the story. If you would like to find out more about the Split Worlds project, it’s all here: www.splitworlds.com. If you would like to host a story over the coming year, either let me know in the comments or contact me through the Split Worlds site. Em x
