My name is Hugh. I live in the city of Swansea, South Wales, in the United Kingdom.
My blog covers a wide range of subjects, the most popular of which are my blogging tips posts.
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September 17, 2020, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story of mice. It can feature any variety of the little critters in any situation. Are they the character or the inciting incident? Use any genre, including BOTS (based on a true story). Go where the prompt leads!
Musophobia – by Hugh W. Roberts
They weren’t alive, but how had they got here?
Suffering from musophobia, Barbara made a quick exit from the beach that was full of mice.
Turning on the radio when she got home, she waited patiently for the early morning news.
“Reports are coming in of a ship having hit rocks off the coast of North Cornwall during last nights storms. Hundreds of freight boxes containing computer mice have broken up and ended up on the beaches along the coastline…”
Just the sight, thought, or the mere mention of the word ‘mice’ was as much as Barbara could take.
Written for the 99-word flash fiction challenge hosted by Charli Mills at the Carrot Ranch. Click here to join in.
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September 10, 2020, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story that includes something heard on the radio. It can be from any station or era. What is heard? A song, announcement, ad? Think of how radion connects people and places. Go where the prompt leads!
In And Out On The Radio – by Hugh W. Roberts
“Hello,” said Juliet, knocking the side of the ostentatious object, “Who’s in there?”
“Come away,” demanded her mother.
“But how can all those people be in there? Why don’t they come out?”
“Don’t be silly! They can’t come out. They’re not inside the radio. They’re broadcasting from the BBC.”
“I want to broadcast from the BBC and come out on the radio,” demanded Juliet.
***
Forty-one years later.
“Today on BBC Radio 4, we’re interviewing actress, Juliet Greenwood,” announced the radio presenter. “Good morning, Ms Greenwood. Are the rumours true?”
“Yes, they are,” declared the radio soap opera star. “I’m gay.”
Written for the 99-word flash fiction challenge hosted by Charli Mills at the Carrot Ranch. Click here to join in.
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I’m delighted to introduce Paul Ariss to my blog. Paul is a songwriter, screenwriter and new to blogging.
Guest blog post by Paul Ariss
Paul shares a true story about travel which gave me goosebumps when I read it because I knew exactly what he was experiencing.
Over to you, Paul.
Image Credit – Paul Ariss
In the early evening of Wednesday, 28th October 1987 I walked into a bar in rain-sodden Flagstaff, Arizona with Randy Jones, a two-tour Vietnam vet.
I’d met Randy hours earlier that day, just minutes after midnight in Albuquerque bus station.
Randy was a mad-eyed but good-hearted individual who happened to be stopping off in Flagstaff himself on the way west to an altogether different destination. Randy and I were polar opposites.
Probably fifteen years older but with a lifetime more living, Randy had fought the Vietnamese in the Mekong Delta and had spent the last two months in a cave in the Rocky Mountains killing animals for his supper.
I was a pasty-faced young English office-worker whose closest shave with conflict was with a drunk in an airport who’d subsequently fallen over his own suitcase.
Yet somehow, me and Randy hit it off immediately.
After getting off our Greyhound bus and booking into our motels we decided to find a local bar, and there we laughed about the cultural differences between the US and the UK, and I let him tell as little as he felt able to share about his time as marine.
Mostly however he was fascinated about my overwhelming desire to see the country that had demanded of him as a young man to go and fight but had largely abandoned him since he returned home.
We were joined after a short time by a huge bear of a Native American man who largely just smiled and kept his own council.
But it’s true to say this night I was restless and struggled to stay convivial. After a couple of beers, I made my excuses and headed back to my motel. I had an inexplicable need to be alone.
By now the late afternoon had given way to early evening and the darkness through my motel window matched my state of mind.
Keeping Hold Of The Promise To Myself
Just ten years earlier I had made a vow to myself that I was now just hours away from fulfilling. At the time of the promise I was unemployed, and giving £5 of the £7 per week Social Security to my recently widowed father for board and keep.
Contrary to the punk counter-culture so many youths of my age were immersed in at the time, I was spending my days listening to the Eagles and dreaming of the open highways of America.
But I was a dreamer without substance. On the day I signed on for social security benefits, I was two-thirds of the way through an 18-months stint of unemployment.
Drenched by a steady drizzling rain, I needed something to aim for, something so far removed from my current situation to be almost too ludicrous to consider.
And then it came to me. I made the decision that one day I would get to The Grand Canyon.
Geographically it was over five thousand miles away from my small town in north-west England, though metaphorically it felt closer to a million. But right at that moment the thought of eventually getting there made the day feel that little bit more bearable.
And so it was, with a decade of steady employment behind me and a modest but committed savings plan I had enough for the journey and sufficient fire in my belly to make the trip.
My anticipation had remained unquenchable and here I was finally about to satisfy that first.
So why was I so downbeat on the eve of seeing one of the most stunning areas of natural beauty on earth?
When The Final Step Is The Hardest
I was lonely. Not for company, but for home.
I had been travelling on buses for nearly three weeks criss-crossing from one exciting destination to another on a plan of my own volition taking in New York City, Niagara Falls, Philadelphia, Nashville, Gracelands, Dallas, Denver; almost every day a new adventure, a new place I’d always heard about but never thought I’d visit.
Yet now, the day before reaching the destination I had planned and saved for over a decade, was the time I most wanted to be home.
The irony was crushing. I sat on the floor of my motel room and wept. Just a little. This feeling wasn’t what I had planned for.
I turned on the TV, a recording of Billy Joel live in Russia from two months earlier, the first rock star to play there post-Glasnost. Though not a massive Billy Joel fan, his energised demeanour helped fire me up.
“Don’t take shit off no-one”, Joel told an ecstatic crowd, each one no doubt loving the feeling of finally being able to let loose after a lifetime of social repression.
Oddly, a spark re-lit within me, enough to pick my emotions up off the floor and settle them enough to sleep after my long day of travelling.
I awoke the next day and pulled back the curtains to a welcoming early sunrise.
A slightly worse-for-wear Randy joined me for breakfast, telling me how the Native American had carried him back to his motel room at 2am. It seems I was right to have left early!
Randy saw me get on the shuttle bus that left for the Canyon.
Image Credit: Paul Ariss
Less than two hours later with a barely controllable anticipation I walked through a huge double door to finally see the most incredible, majestic wonder I’ve ever witnessed.
I smiled broadly and said hello to the Grand Canyon. We had finally met. I had travelled the millionth mile.
Image Credit: Paul Ariss
It had been a long, long journey but worth every step.
Later I thought about Billy Joel, performing so far from home yet feeling a kindred bond with strangers who had lived a life so culturally at odds with everything he knew. And I thought of my new friend Randy who had met someone in me who had expressed a feeling for his own country he had maybe lost something of over the years.
I thought of the Native American whose forefathers had their land ripped from them by Randy’s ancestors, yet felt the simple human instinct to carry him back to where was safe.
And as I turned away from the Grand Canyon at the end of that day my mind went back to where this had all begun and where for me the greatest riches still lay.
Home.
Writer and Blogger Paul Ariss
Paul started off as a lyricist in a song-writing partnership, before branching out into writing scripts. He’s now back to music, writing and recording solo material.
As a songwriter Paul has had songs published as part of a partnership, and as a solo writer has reached the semi-final of the UK Songwriting Contest and had a track chosen as Pick of The Week on a New York based online radio station.
As a script writer Paul has had material used on BBC radio shows on Radio 2, 4 and 5, and has been short-listed in two major script-writing contests as well as working as a Shadow Writer on Channel 4 comedy-drama Shameless, where he also contributed to its online platform.
Paul is new to blogging after getting the blogging bug in May 2020. He plans to increase his output very soon! His blog is called Songs and Scripts and Dunking Biscuits and can be followed by clicking here.
Songs from Paul are now on Spotify and all major streaming platforms have music videos to accompany them on YouTube, all of which can be accessed via his song-writing Facebook page.
Have you ever encountered the feelings Paul shared in his guest post?
My thanks to Paul for writing this guest post. If you have any questions or comments for Paul, please leave them in the comments section. He’d be delighted to hear from you.
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Have you ever had one of those life experiences that renders you utterly speechless? Read on and let me know if anything I’m about to tell you leaves you as astonished as it did when it happened to me.
Pride Month: First Date
Picture it – Earl’s Court, London, 1988, the height of the summer, and me working as a part-time barman in one of the coolest gay bars in the city.
In the bar, the biggest catch in town. And it seemed he had his eyes on me. He’d been showing some interest in me for weeks, or so I thought.
Sometimes, when I caught him looking at me, I’d blush so much that my face resembled a sun-dried tomato. At the same time, my heart would skip a few beats while the butterflies in my stomach felt like they were rioting.
Neville, my best friend, made a bet with me that if ‘catch’ (as we’d nicknamed him) asked me out on a date, he’d do all my washing for the rest of the year. How could I decline a bet like that?
At six-foot-tall, mid-thirties, with a stocky build, short dark hair, moustache, piercing brown eyes, and always wearing the tightest of Levi 501 jeans, it wasn’t my washing that needed a cold wash. It was me!
He was what I called a ‘man’s man’, and nobody would have ever guessed that he was gay had they seen him walking down the street or standing on the terraces at Stamford Bridge.
Nobody knew much about him. Not even his name.
He always stood on his own, and nobody ever approached him. He ordered one drink that lasted the whole evening and always left the bar on his own.
I didn’t want to make the first move. I hated rejection, but the prospect of having my washing done for the rest of the year was tempting.
The other barmen had noticed that ‘Catch’ was giving me a little too much attention. Make the first move, they told me, but I couldn’t.
Then, in the early hours of an unusually warm and humid Sunday morning, having just finished my shift, I left the bar and started to make the short trip home.
“Hi” came a deep voice from behind me. “I’ve been watching you for weeks and wondered if you fancied coming back to my place for a coffee?”
As I span around, the butterflies in my stomach rioted again as my eyes were met by ‘Catch’ smiling at me. For some reason, it took what seemed like ages for me to accept his invitation.
Jumping into a taxi with him, I felt as if I was floating on cloud nine. We sat silent like two lovebirds, just looking into each others eyes.
As soon we reached his apartment, I’d hardly given ‘Catch’ time to close the front door before grabbing him and forcing him to do some tongue dancing with me.
What happened after the tongue dancing didn’t seem to last long, but neither of us seemed to care very much. There was still time for rounds two, three and four.
I had the feeling that he was the one and that we’d be doing lots more of what had just happened, only at a much slower pace.
“Would you like a beer, Peachy?” were his first words to me since we got to his apartment. Peachy? Was he talking to me? Well, that’s another story, but the cold beers helped cool us down while we continued to look into each others eyes.
After rounds two and three, we were both exhausted, and he asked if I wanted to stay the rest of the night.
As much as I wanted to stay, I had to get home because I couldn’t wait to see Neville and tell him what had happened.
While quickly freshening myself up, ‘Catch’ made us some coffee.
Grabbing my clothes and walking to the kitchen (because I didn’t want to miss another second of being with him), I realised I still didn’t know ‘Catch’s’ real name. Should I ask, or should I wait until he asked me for mine? After all, he couldn’t know me as ‘Peachy’ when we went on our first proper date.
Having convinced myself that it wasn’t me doing the chasing in this relationship, I decided to wait until he introduced himself to me.
While the coffee went cold, our tongues had another long dance.
“Would you like to make this a regular thing?” ‘Catch’ asked me, as he came up for some air.
I had a fleeting vision of Neville doing my washing, so didn’t take long to respond.
“What? You bet!”
“Good, I was hoping you’d say that.”
After a little more tongue dancing, it was time for us to part and ‘Catch’ escorted me to the front door.
However, suddenly stoping, ‘Catch’ told me to wait, and off he wandered (while muttering something about having forgotten something). I watched as the man of my dreams disappeared back into the bedroom. Surly not round five, I thought.
With my heart playing the drums in my chest, I was positive I could feel those first dewdrops of love welling up inside of me. He was probably writing down his phone number for me.
Then it all started to go wrong. Very wrong!
I couldn’t take my eyes off ‘Catch’ as he walked towards me. “Here you go,” he said, thrusting a wad of ten-pound notes into my hand. “You forgot to ask for your fee. I’ve deducted a little for the beer and coffee you had.”
Shocked, my jaw hit the floor, and for the first time in my life, I was speechless; completely speechless! And, before you ask, no, not because he’d made a deduction for beer and coffee.
‘Catch’ had mistaken me for a rent-boy.
Still openmouthed and unable to speak, I walked out, turned around and, as ‘Catch’ closed the front door, heard him say he’d recommend me to anyone looking for the same kind of fun.
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“They all have moustaches, wear 501s and are called Clones.”
Those were my words to my best friend, Neville, upon my first visit to Earl’s Court, London, back in the mid-1980s.
I was like a kid in a sweet shop. Just about every man in the place had a moustache, and I was big into facial hair.
Gay life in London during the 1980s
Back then, there were five gay bars in Earl’s Court. It was the centre of the universe for any gay man visiting London.
It was easy to get to Earl’s Court, via public transport, and I always felt safe there. It was as if the district had a safety bubble around it.
No surprise then that I moved into a two-bedroom flat in Earl’s Court shortly after arriving to live in London in 1986.
The most famous gay bar in Earl’s Court was called ‘The Coleherne.’ These days, it’s a trendy restaurant come wine bar which I believe serves some smashing food.
The Coleherne – now known as The Pembroke
I spent lots of time in ‘The Coleherne.’ At the time, pubs had to close their doors between 3 and 5:30pm (2 and 7pm on a Sunday). ‘The Coleherne’ was always packed out during the final hour of drinking time.
It had a jukebox in the corner that played all the latest hits as well as many ‘Hi-NRG’ (Pronounced High Energy) tunes which was a new type of music adopted by many gay men.
Evelyn Thomas – Singing some Hi-NRG music
Neville was into the same types of men who drunk in “The Coleherne’ as me. So you’d often find us in there.
There was a strict rule about going into ‘The Coleherne.’ Those wearing leather, such as a bikers’ jacket, waistcoat, or chaps, had their own side-door entrance.
Everybody else had to use the other door on the main street. If you went through what Neville and I called ‘the leather door’ you’d end up on the leather side of the bar.
The leather guys would glare at you if your attire included no leather, and they would continue to glare at you until you made your way to the non-leather side of the bar.
Scary stuff for first-time visitors or anybody who entered the pub by mistake.
What made Neville and me laugh was that some of the leather guys often arrived carrying a motorcycle helmet under their arm. You may ask, ‘what’s so funny about that?’
Well, they’d place the motorcycle helmet on the top shelf above the bar, order their drink, and then stand around looking as butch as possible.
Then, at closing time, Neville and I would watch as they made their way to the bus-stop, with motorcycle helmets under their arms. For some, carrying a motorcycle helmet seemed to be the must-have, new fashion accessory when dressed in leather.
Although ‘The Coleherne’ was probably the most shabby of all the five gay bars in Earl’s Court, it was always busy.
Just down the road, at one end of the street, was ‘The Boltons.’ This was a strict ‘no-no’ bar for Neville and I because it was known for its rent boys.
At the other end of the street was ‘Bromptons’ bar. This was the place Neville and me nicknamed ‘Clone City’ because just about every man who entered had facial hair.
‘Bromptons’ opened at 10pm and closed at 2am. On a Sunday, it opened earlier but closed at midnight. It was a 30-second walk from where I lived, so it was very convenient.
Friendlier than ‘The Coleherne,’ for those who’d never visited before, ‘Bromptons’ had a small dance floor and a kiosk that sold all the latest Hi-NRG 12-inch vinyl singles.
In those days, gay men only purchased 12-inch vinyl singles, unlike most of the rest of the population that bought the 7-inch vinyl version.
A gay anthem from the 1980s
There was the odd splattering of leather amongst the crowd, but most were dressed in check shirts, 501 Jeans and Doc-Marten boots.
Just about everyone ordered and drunk bottles of lager, rather than pints. If you arrived early, you could compare your check shirts and see if any of them clashed severely with the chequered carpet and wallpaper of the bar.
Arriving early also meant free entry into the bar. After 11pm there was a small entry fee charged, so many would flock in at 22:55.
The Barmen at ‘Bromptons’ were often hand-picked by the owner. “Have good looking bar staff, and you’ll pack the place out every night,” he once told me. And he was right!
Gay London barman of the 1980s.
The place was a magnet for clones who seemed to need little sleep despite having full-time jobs, many of which required an early morning start.
The other two bars at the opposite end of Earl’s Court were located next door to each other.
One was a bar called ‘Harpoon Louis,’ which hosted cabaret most nights.
The likes of Lily Savage (aka Paul O’Grady) started out here, and it was always a great place to go for a laugh.
‘Cruising’, as Gay men called it (better known as looking for a partner for the night), did go on. In contrast, in the other bars, cruising was very serious, and you dare not laugh when trying to pick up your date for the night. In ‘Harpoon Louis,’ it didn’t seem to matter as much.
‘Copacabana’ was next door to Harpoon Louis and was the main gay nightclub of the area. It was convenient to fall into when coming out of ‘Harpoon Louis.’
‘Copacabana’ (also known as ‘Copa’s’) was the biggest of all the bars in Earl’s Court and had a large dance floor. It was the place to hear the latest Hi-NRG tunes, dance, drink and check out the men.
Some famous faces often frequented the place, but being ‘gay men,’ the clientele often dare not approach them.
During the 1980s, gay men adopted a ‘hanky’ code. You’d place a particular coloured handkerchief in either the left or right back pocket of your 501 jeans. This told other gay men what kind of sexual fun you were into.
Rather than the ‘hanky’ code, Neville and I adopted the ‘teddy bear’ code. This involved the placing of a small teddy bear in the back pocket. This told others if you enjoyed giving or receiving cuddles.
Today, Earl’s Court is no longer the centre of the universe for gay men. Its crown was lost to Soho and Vauxhall during the late 1990s, although the gay scene in London now seems to be more spread out.
Had we arrived for the first time today, Neville and I would not have liked Earls Court as much. However, it holds lots of happy memories not just for us, but for many from the LGBT crowd.
Sadly, Neville passed away in the mid-1990s. However, the fun and laughter we shared together during the days and nights of Earl’s Court in the 1980s can still be heard in its bars and streets.
This post was originally written and published as a guest post in April 2016 on TanGental. It has been updated for this version.
Click here to read another post from my Pride Month series which tells the story of a first date that went horribly wrong.
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Zoe watched, horrified, as her older brother cut the strings of her favourite puppet before dropping the scissors to the floor.
“Now you’ll never be able to play with that stupid puppet ever again,” laughed George.
“You’ll never be able to stop me from playing with my stupid puppet ever again,” replied a wide-eyed Zoe, as she watched the puppet pick up the weapon used to cut its strings.
Written in response to the Three Line Tale challenge hosted by Sonya at Only 100 Words.
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Eve was her name. A woman one man feared: that man, me.
She wanted humanity to worship her. She made those that were left celebrate her life by giving her a day when they celebrated the beauty that only came to Eve when it was dark.
During the darkness, bonfires lit up the skies so all could see what fate awaited them.
Nobody knew where Eve came from. At first, nobody seemed to care about it. Nobody asked questions until it was too late.
Everyone would welcome Eve into their lives. Everyone would welcome her into their homes. Eve asked for nothing in return. Well, I say nothing. The only thing Eve wanted was to be noticed.
Eve touched the lives of everyone. She made people laugh; she made people cry. She made people strong; she made them weak. Humankind trusted her. That was how it always looked to Eve. She was like anything else that lived on planet Earth.
Humanity thought they were the most potent form of life. After all, humankind had made the Earth its own. Anything that wanted to share the Earth had to abide by the rules of man. How sinful humanity was.
For a while, Eve followed the rules of humanity. But then she grabbed an opportunity to break the rules.
The day Eve escaped was the turning point.
Eve wanted all of humanity to witness the beauty that only came to her when the lights went out. Eve wanted all of humanity to notice her. Now was her chance to do just that.
As Eve made her way onto the city streets and into the communities, a new future dawned.
The rest is an unfolding story that will never end.
Eve believes there’s no such thing as an ending. It’s just the point at which you decide to leave her story.
Written in response to the ‘writephoto’ challenge hosted by Sue Vincent at the Daily Echo. Click here for more details.
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“It may look old and unused, but this is where they are kept.”
“You better be right, Sargent. It has taken us a long time not only to find this place but also to get here. Our troops need to rest tonight. I recommend we rest and plan our attack in the morning.”
***
12 hours later.
“We’re lucky to have found somewhere they think it is safe to store their data. Most of them never think twice about losing everything. Not everything is safe, but they should have done all they could to keep it safe and secure. The troops are ready, Commander.”
‘Good. On my command, we will begin the attack and wipe out most of the world of blogging from the face of this planet. We may be small and invisible to most, Sargent. Still, we are evolving and becoming more resilient against whatever virus software they throw at us.”
“Commander, let us hope that not many of them have ever backed up their blogs. And of those that do, let us hope they did it once and then forgot to do any further backups. Troops, on my command, let us attack and infect WordPress. ATTACK!”
Written in response to the #writephoto challenge hosted by Sue Vincent at Sue Vincent’s Daily Echo.
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January 9, 2019, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about a carried wife. Why is she being carried? Who is carrying? Pick a genre if you’d like and craft a memorable character. Go where the prompt leads!
While carrying his new wife over the threshold of the honeymoon suite, Doug’s eyes lit up at the size of the massive bed in front of him.
Those pillows were big enough to suffocate his new wife for cheating on him.
***
Landing on the bed, Sophie looked at her new husband and wondered how long it would be before the spiked drink she had made Doug consume, would knock him out cold so she could spend the night with Mike, Doug’s best friend.
***
Two floors below, Mike wondered which of the newlyweds would be joining him in bed tonight.
Written in response to the 99-word flash fiction challenge hosted by Charli Mills at the Carrot Ranch.
Click here to join other writers who are participating in the challenge.
Hugh's Views & News 