musings of an omnivorous biped
It’s been bugging me for years… the only thing I really prefer in Excel over Libre Office Calc is that I can tell Excel I always want to edit in the input line, rather than directly in the cell.
Turns out you can do this in Libre Office too, just customise the keyboard and change what F2 does. Such a relief:
https://ask.libreoffice.org/t/calc-how-to-edit-formulae-in-formula-bar-directly/38179
I’ve aded simoncollis.ie as another front end for this site. It’s not the primary endpoint, the .com will continue to exist. But it’s there. Maybe I’ll find a better use for it later and change it, but for now it’s just a mirror of what’s posted here.
I know it’s been a long time since I posted. Well, I’d like to be able to say that I haven’t had much luck with the writing recently, and this is true to an extent. And I’d like to say that my lack of writing hasn’t been entirely due to laziness, but being honest, it really has.
Either way, there has been a malware infestation in here somehow. I think it’s down to an old plugin that I’ve since removed, as it doesn’t seem to be doing it any more. Anyway, if you do find yourself being redirected somewhere else while reading one of the longer stories, please leave a comment here. Hopefully I haven’t completely messed everything up, at least.
Fingers crossed it’s all fixed. And I will be writing something more soon, I promise.
First of all, my apologies. The site was offline for a while. It should have been for a few days, because my hosting company sorted the problem and provided a repair tool to everyone quite quickly. Unfortunately I’ve had a few distractions of late so I wasn’t as on the ball as I should have been, which has meant that the site only came back a few days ago.
So for now, please feel free to read 2018’s short stories, while I edit them ready for book form and start work on a novel. 2020 is looking like it might be a good year…
“Yes, I’ll come in a minute,” Dominic said.
He didn’t mind working from home, really. Not even on days when Rita wasn’t working. He didn’t really even mind looking after the baby. But it did interfere with work, sometimes.
He continued typing – “the uplift in profits that can reasonably be expected from this management rest”
Georgette started screaming.
“Yes alright darling,” he span around in his chair. “Daddy’s here.”
The smell told him that she had made a considerable mess in her nappy, and it took five minutes to change her. After a coffee to calm his nerves, he was ready to start again.
“…can reasonably be expected from this management destccccccccccgggggggggg999999999999”
“Cats!” Dominic sighed, and pressed “ctrl” and “z”. There was a slight noise and the text disappeared.
Christine almost snapped the key in the door, her white knuckles clasped tightly round the keyring.
“Vengeance is mine,” she whispered to the empty hall. “Saith me.”
She picked up the two carrier bags and kicked the front door closed behind her.
She went to the kitchen and picked up the wine glass she had used before she went out. She reached into the fridge, poured another glass of white wine, and drank it straight down. She refilled the glass before putting the bottle back in door.
“Vengeance,” she muttered. “Vengeance.”
She opened the back door and went out to the shed. She opened the door and took out a step ladder. Smiling, she returned to the house and set the step stool down by the front curtains. Climbing up, she reached for the heavy curtain rail above the front room curtains. She grasped the ferrule with one hand and pulled, hard. Christine grunted, trying again. The ferrule moved, a little. She grinned, and pulled again. It pulled off in her hand, and she almost overbalanced.
“Jennifer Edwards,” she said. “This is for you.”
“You want beer?”
“Yep.”
“Me too.”
“Three then.” Tom rooted around in the refrigerator, and came back from the kitchen. He handed cans to Jacob and Nate, then sat down on the sofa.
“Here.” Nate passed over the joint and Tom took a long drag.
“You know what we should do?” Tom tapped Jacob on the arm and passed over the cigarette. Jacob shrugged and smoked.
“We should break into that shop you work at, man.” Tom pointed a finger at Jacob. “That creepy old bald guy, he’s got money, right?”
This is the “Behind The Scenes” post for the story “Killing Christmas“. Please read the story first if you want to avoid spoilers…
I’ve had the idea of this one for ages – years, in fact. It originally came to me while living alone in a flat some years ago, and wondering what would happen if it were haunted. Would you fall in love with a ghost? Needless to say, the flat itself wasn’t haunted, but the idea stuck with me, until I felt I was finally ready to try writing it.
The soft lilt of the church bells in the distance provided my usual Sunday morning wake up call. I got out of bed, brushed my teeth, dressed slowly, made myself hot chocolate and sat in my chair in the window, looking at the frost outside.
“It’s cold today, isn’t it?” she asked.
I nodded. I didn’t turn to look at her because in this light, I wouldn’t see. Sometimes I felt her presence – cold fingers brushing down my cheek, or cold breath on my neck.
“I didn’t see you in the bathroom, Maggie.” I said.
“Oh Jim, you’ve got to have some privacy, sometimes.” she giggled.
I drank some chocolate and looked out of the window, my breath fogging up part of it.
“Have you been out?” I asked.
“I have,” she said. “And this time, I think I might have found someone.”
So, the experiment of adding these “Behind The Scenes” posts to the end of the stories is over. (Ab)normal service has been resumed. Sorry about that, but the problem was that I just didn’t seem to want to write them at the time that perhaps I should.
So, let’s start with Reunion. You know what the inspiration for this was? Batman.