Xander Michael

Mutated the quote, I know. Sorry. In my defence it didn’t say the quote had to be exact. Plus, I know ‘ghosting’ isn’t about ghosts, but I like ghosts, and am too old to write about ‘ghosting’! 😀

Aconite and Forget-me-not.
(347 words)

To you who I’ve haunted, will you listen? I have whispered stories in your ear and did you hear them? They were both your stories and mine, your sins and yes, mine too, and when I paid for both of us, you thought yourself free. So I came, did I not, to remind you. I have been the footfalls behind you in t…[Read more]

The same sort of appalling victim-blaming appears to have been prevalent in the much more recent Yorkshire Ripper enquiry. According to a recent documentary, the police assumed the ripper, Sutcliffe, was punishing prostitutes when, in fact, he was preying on their vulnerability. At one point they failed to “credit” a victim to him because she…[Read more]

Interesting, Richard. I’d heard some of the reviews/hype/chat about the book, and liked the idea of presenting the women as three dimensional people – something other than just another dead whore. By the the sounds of it though, Rubenhold equates the women sleeping alone with them being absolved of any contributing blame for what happened to them,…[Read more]

Nice one, Libby.

Another hugely entertaining tale of the rails, and very informative too. Thanks Richard.

OK, I’ll go first:

Sunday morning
A late breakfast, tea and toast, the paper folded at the cryptic crossword. 22 down, Kathmandu hippie hospital, 9 letters. Michael scratched his head with the pen. Just an average Sunday.
The doorbell rang, startling him. Nobody called on Sunday. Nobody called on any other day for that matter, not since he’d p…[Read more]

Just checked with Steve and apparently an 18 year old is limited to bikes of no more than 125 cc – nippy enough to weave through London traffic, but max speed of ~60mph (and not as nippy as the twist’n’go scooters beloved by street thieves) Once he’s 19 and had has 2 years experience he can go larger.
Happy to answer any other questions on the subject.

Steve is out – on his BSA B33 – today, I’ll ask him when he returns.

Kate, it also crossed my mind, on first reading, that Alex would’ve referred to his bike by make: ‘his Ducati 500 Hornet’ (or something – I made that up). If you want some better info than I have about modern bikes I can find out, but need to know how old he is – there might be rules about what cc a bike for what age.

Then ‘mate’ worked, don’t fret – the trouble with reading to critique is that one tries too hard and focuses on unnecessaries.

I really like Squidge’s suggestion of a noncompetitive writing prompt.The previous format of having it be a comp to judge was slightly off-putting, for me anyway, because of the burden of that responsibility alone. I don’t have a lot of time to show up and chime in, so the idea of judging a comp was a daunting one for me. Now to show up and…[Read more]