Christmas Free Book Downloads

Free downloads for Christmas. Craven Conflict available via KDP here: -

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Craven-Conflict-David-Cooper-ebook/dp/B015GGRUBE/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=craven+conflict&qid=1577359336&s=digital-text&sr=1-1

Hatred Ridicule & Contempt available via Smashwords here: -

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/335410

Infernal Coalition available via Smashwords here: -

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/301537

Boris Johnson, EU Remain Hypocrisy, and the Harper Valley PTA

If Dolly Parton was the second female singer to top the US Billboard Hot 100 and the US Hot Country Singles chart with the same song, “9 to 5” in 1981, who was the first? The answer, Jeannie C.Riley with “Harper Valley PTA” in 1968, also a one hit wonder in the UK after the song reached No 12.

The story behind the song was how a widowed mother, criticised for her lifestyle and her miniskirts (!) by members of the local parent teacher association, confronted them at a PTA meeting and called each of them out for their blatant hypocrisy. That was indeed, in the singer’s words, “the day my mama socked it to the Harper Valley PTA”.

The widowed mother’s name was Mrs Johnson. By some curious coincidence 51 years later, we have a Mr Johnson – Boris, of course – under attack for his leadership of the UK and in particular his approach to Brexit. His attackers include the official and unofficial opposition, members of his own party who have recently become ex-members, the Speaker of the House of Commons, European leaders and EU functionaries. Their universal message is that Boris is wrong, in the wrong, and indeed in the wrong for being wrong. By necessary implication, they all assert that they know best and that the UK electorate would be better governed by people like them than by a Boris government. But their own track records only serve to display their hypocrisy.

Here’s how Boris might call them out, in Harper Valley PTA fashion: -

Boris Johnson was in Downing Street
And hard at work one Monday afternoon
Contemplating how the UK
Would escape the chains of Brussels really soon
When the Chief Whip came up running
In a panic that was verging on insane
For he had brought with him a message
From the forces of European Remain

“For three years we’ve been scheming hard
To overturn that referendum vote
We hoped the Chequers Plan would sabotage
The Brexit dream, and leave us free to gloat
So we’re really quite indignant
At your attitude to running the UK”
And it was signed by all the backers
Of European Union Remain

Well, Boris’s reaction
Was to commandeer the airwaves that same day
“How dare these forces of malevolence
Pour scorn upon my leadership this way
Once there’s a General Election
I will make my glorious vision really plain
And this is how I’ll take the fight
To the supporters of European Remain”

“The Referendum leaflet said that
‘We will implement what you decide’
I’m not prepared to lead a government
Proclaiming ‘we’re so sorry, but we lied’
I’m bringing optimistic purpose
That was sadly lacking in Theresa May
And that shady bunch of characters
Who call for European Remain”

“The IRA supporting Marxist can’t decide
If he’s for Leave or for Remain
And there’s that poundshop Jimmy Krankie
Who’d take Scotland for a journey down the drain
And those feeble whipless rebels
Who have authored their own unlamented fate
And that purple featured pipsqueak of a Speaker
Who’s been rigging the debates”

“Merkel’s Germany’s been swamped
By an invasion of illegal immigrants
And little Macron has the Gilets Jaunes
Rioting on the streets all over France
All the Mediterranean nations
Have a truly dreadful unemployment rate
And noble Greece has been reduced
To a pathetic and subservient vassal state”

“We see Verhofstadt, we see Barnier
The people never chose them for their roles
Just like that drunkard, Jean Claude Juncker
Who takes brandy with his breakfast, so we’re told
And then you have the nerve to tell me
As a leader you don’t think that I am fit
Well, you’re all living in Cloud Cuckoo Land
You anti-democratic hypocrites”

That was just the kind of spirit
We’ve awaited for so long in the UK
The day that Boris socked it to
The supporters of European Remain

Smashwords Summer Sale: half price offer for Hatred Ridicule & Contempt and Infernal Coalition

Interested in some half price legal fiction via Smashwords? You're in luck - thanks to their summer sale, there's a chance to get hold of both Hatred Ridicule & Contempt and Infernal Coalition for $0.99 each. For more details, click on the link here.

Philip Hammond and Amber Rudd: the Bonnie and Clyde of British politics?

What’s the difference between Cabinet Ministers Philip Hammond and Amber Rudd, and American gangsters from the Great Depression era Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow? Hmm. Let’s think. One of those couples started off as a minor irritation before progressing to become a confounded nuisance, rejoicing in their own arrogance as they defied public opinion, and eventually met a gruesome sticky end. The other couple were a pair of American gangsters…

Hang on, that’s not quite right. Hammond and Rudd have not met a gruesome sticky end. Not yet, anyway. But their determined efforts to defy the result of the Brexit referendum might mean that their political careers are hanging by a thread. Hammond has hinted this week at resignation if the UK leaves the EU on WTO terms (he probably said “No Deal” but there is no need to encourage use of this misleading phrase), and Rudd only has a 346 majority in her Hastings & Rye seat.

If it were to be fair to suggest that Hammond and Rudd are fast becoming the Bonnie and Clyde of British politics – and it may indeed be fair – the lyrics of Georgie Fame’s 1967 No 1 single “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde” are too tempting to ignore when there is a parody in the air, especially when it looks like a good fit for solo acoustic guitar: -

Hammond and Rudd were shifty looking people

And I can tell you people

They were Remainers’ sweethearts

Hammond and Rudd began their evil scheming

While Theresa May was dreaming

Down Westminster way

They mocked the vote

And spread their gloom around town

Got clean away in the Cabinet

And wouldn’t let the heat die down

Hammond and Rudd enhanced the consternation

And made the graduation

Into the wrecking business

“Brexit's no good”

Sour talking Rudd would holler

As Hammond played the scholar

Of sabotage

The scared PM

So weak, she left them alone

They dragged her crying through a pool of mud

And laughed about her feeble groans

Hammond and Rudd got to be public enemy number one

Rudely defying their own manifesto when Leave had won

They used to laugh about Brexit

But deep inside them they knew

That if they ruined the exit

They’d hit the ground together

Burning in Hades and shamefully supping the devil’s brew

Acting upon a tide of indignation

The forces of the nation laid a deadly ambush

For Hammond and Rudd – ‘twas Hammond’s deselection

And Rudd’s robust rejection at the ballot box

Hammond and Rudd

Remainers close together

And now they’re gone together

For good

Tom Lehrer, Tom Jones - and a Boris Johnson campaign song

How might the American singer/songwriter and satirist Tom Lehrer bring inspiration to British political leadership campaigns? Probably not by suggesting that enthusiastic support for poisoning pigeons in the park would be a keynote environmental vote winner. But if we were to combine his spoken introductions to “Oedipus Rex” and “It Makes A Fellow Proud To Be A Soldier”, we might find a clue for our theme: “…and I am convinced that the only reason for the failure of this candidate’s leadership bid last time around….you’re way ahead of me…is that he did not have a rousing campaign song with which to rally his potential followers.”

Let us apply this theory to – you’re way ahead of me – the case of a well known current aspirant to the Conservative leadership, and borrow a song from another famous singer by the name of Tom. “The Young New Mexican Puppeteer” was a hit for Tom Jones in 1972, reaching number 6 in the UK charts. A few lyrical amendments may go down well with Boris supporters, and of course badly with Boris haters…

In the Palace of Westminster

Worked a most concerned MP

He said lately I have noticed

The PM hardly speaks for me

She spreads the gloom from her advisers

“The UK can’t survive alone”

He said “I’ll lift the people’s spirits

With Brexit vision of my own”

The blond Conservative Brexiteer

He saw the people all live in fear

He thought that maybe they’d listen to

Boris telling them what to do

So he got to grips with Remain falsehood

He made some speeches and he was good

And folks came running so they could hear

The blond Conservative Brexiteer

First he quit the Foreign Office

“The Chequers Plan’s a steaming turd”

Then he echoed Winston Churchill

“Take back control, embrace the world”

Determined as the Iron Lady

Convinced the battle would be won

He knew he’d smile with satisfaction

When Theresa May was gone

[Chorus]

Now his speaking skills were clever

And he gave the people hope

When he got across the message

To make the most of Brexit’s scope

They voted for him in their millions

And he smashed Corbyn and the Reds

And then they wrote him up in all the papers

And this is what the story said

[Chorus]

Literary Lawyers - a holiday reading treble

How coincidental to find myself with not just one fellow solicitor’s published writing for a holiday reading session, but three. All of which were well worth it.

First up, retired solicitor Richard Wrenn and “Trust Betrayed”. As the Law Society Gazette asked, “is it possible to write a highly readable novel in which the central premise is breach of the Solicitors’ Accounts Rules in 1982? Surprisingly, the answer is most certainly yes.” Just take an ambitious young law firm partner, his older colleague whose flexible financial practices are about to catch up with him in telling fashion, and the younger partner’s fiancée – coincidentally, the older partner’s daughter – and imagine the dynamics when the attempted cover up only makes the original deceit far worse and its repercussions worse still.  Never a dull moment, and the backwater setting only adds to the intrigue.

A completely different theme, however, for Geoff Steward’s “In Search of Nice Americans” – a US road trip with a musical undercurrent, enabled by a three month sabbatical from the law, and guaranteed to strike many right notes. The Nashville stretch brings back my own fond memories of the Opry, Lower Broadway and the Hermitage, alongside the author’s sadly fruitless trip to the Bluebird Café inspired by the characters of the Nashville TV drama including “that bitch Juliette Barnes” (hint: book online for the evening performances a week ahead – I managed it twice). So how many nice Americans did the search reveal? Read it and find out, and don’t miss out on a trip to Savannah just because the Forrest Gump bench is no longer in Chippewa Square – there’s a replica in the History Museum.

What about the dilemma that every solicitor in private practice may encounter at some stage in their career, namely whether to strive for partnership rather than settle for a lifetime of employee status? Well, Tom Vaughan MacAulay’s “Being Simon Haines” takes the former to extremes – the quest for that ultimate prize at the City boutique firm Fiennes & Plunkett takes the form of “The Campaign”, where the hope of the single glittering prize pitches rival candidates against each other in a remorseless grind of 24/7 client work. Quality of life? Short pause for laughter, please. Or more accurately, short pause for a long awaited break in Cuba for Simon as the partners assess his Campaign performance alongside the efforts of his rivals, despicable Angus Peterson and sensible Emma Morris. (Tom’s presumed happy personal experience of Cuba is in marked contrast to my own from 8 years ago, but that’s another story…)

So what made “Being Simon Haines” a particularly appealing read? In my own debut, “Hatred Ridicule & Contempt”, recently elevated law firm partner Alex Harris found himself with unexpected enemies – his own fellow partners – who were looking for convenient scapegoats when their law firm ran into difficulties. He had arrived at his destination. What would he, and indeed what would Simon Haines, think of Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous words of wisdom from Virginibus Puerisque in 1881, “Little do ye know your own blessedness; for to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive”? That is the question.

Before I forget, a resounding five stars for all three.

Marrakesh Express revisited: a song for Stop HS2

Well, fancy that. Having thought for many years that “Marrakesh Express” by Crosby, Stills & Nash was a song about indulging in Morocco’s finest (by which I do not mean tagine), I now find that Graham Nash was inspired by an actual train journey he made in 1966, southbound from Casablanca.

Fast forward by fifty years to the present day, and we find HS2 proceeding at full steam ahead in the UK. Or at least it was until Carillion collapsed yesterday. Might this be an opportunity for the political class to admit that HS2 is nothing but an unaffordable vanity project that ought to be derailed with all due alacrity? Time will tell.

Perhaps this is where Stop HS2 and any associated campaigns might find themselves in need of an inspiring song to help get the message through. With grateful acknowledgment to Crosby, Stills & Nash for the original, here’s a lyrical contribution in reverse parody style – from a joyful rail journey to a joyless rail project – that keeps as close as possible to the sound and structure of Marrakesh Express. And it works on solo acoustic guitar, if slowed down a touch and played in Nashville listening room style – at least it did for me.

Looking at England through patronising eyes

Plan to drive the train through unspoilt countryside

Ducks and pigs and chickens flee

Animal carnage plain to see

Equestrian ladies scatter, black and blue

Talking cobblers from the dark depths of our mind

Keen to get away with grand designs unkind

Hope our pack of lies ahead

Keeps you back and well misled

Listen not to what we’ve said to you

Don't you know we're riding on the HS2 Express
Don’t you know we’re riding on the HS2 Express

Inflicting much unpleasantness

All on board the gravy train

All on board the gravy train

We’ll be squandering all your money just to take you there

We sell you garbage and despair

Plot the train from Manchester going south

Blowing smokescreens from the corners of my, my, my, my, my mouth

Noise pollution hangs in the air

Thundering locos shake the square

Country dwellers, we’ll knock down their homes (don’t want to hear you now)

Don’t you know we’re riding on the HS2 Express

Don’t you know we’re riding on the HS2 Express

It’s burning money to excess

Don’t you know we’re riding on the HS2 Express

Don’t you know we’re riding on the HS2 Express

Vanity project of distress

All on board the gravy train

All on board the gravy train