The greatest thing I've seen on screen this year

So I watched all 16 days of the Olympics. Saw Mo win twice, the country drop to its knees in praise of Jessica Ennis and the sailing psychotic that is Ben Ainslie but nothing sent shivers down my spine like this. The Paralympics advert for Channel 4: I hadn't seen it - I don't know why, maybe I just don't watch enough TV - but seeing this  90 second advert set to a track by Public Enemy on a cinema screen yesterday i got the same sense of anticipation and wonder i got from the action movies of my childhood. 

Check out Jonnie Peacock, Claire Cashmore, Ellie Simmonds, Jody Cundy et al showing their preparation and their mettle in a montage that includes scenes of explosions, hospitals and car crashes that have impacted these amazing athletes' lives and Peter Finbow launching a massive half court shot (where there's nothing but net).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuAPPeRg3Nw

The Wrong Call

‘It is simple.’ The Nazi officer was one of a list that Lord Halifax had seen over the past months. Although he was no longer Lord, or prime minister, now he was just Edward Frederick Lindley Wood. Pawn and puppet.

He had stayed when the others fled. He had hoped to reason, to negotiate. He had hoped to buy them time to reorganise. He had to believe it had not been in vain.  The German war machine had rolled across the Home Counties in a matter of days. The efforts put into the sea defenses were the barrier that could not break, but it had.

They had found him in his office, alone as Prime Minister, something he had been since that fateful day in 1940 when he and Churchill and Chamberlain had reached their arrangement.

Now he was in a stark, dank cell. A wooden table and a German officer. The only other man was a sole SS guardsman.

‘It is simple Herr Wood’ the officer repeated.

‘It really isn’t’ Edward cradled his withered arm. He would kill for a cigarette.

‘Your co-operation is now needed. You will need to call for calm, for peace and for an end to the resistance.’

‘And if I don’t old boy?’ he scratched at his shoulder, ‘what then?’

‘We are civilised men’ he officer leaned forward, ‘your status, your title, perhaps a role in the government of the British protectorate?’

They were promises he would never keep.

‘Is Winston still giving you a hard time?’ The pit of his stomach was growling again. The food had been bad enough at Eton, but at least plentiful.

‘Churchill has been caught and killed’ the officer said, but it was too nonchalant. Edward forced himself not to smile. Winston was still alive, and no doubt at large in the North.

‘I am here with a final offer’ he paused, ‘or’

Edward finally realised why they had been going at it for so long this time. The SS guardsman’s hand clenched on his rifle. He sighed.

‘Well I’m sorry it has come to that’ Edward said finally, clenching his jaw, forcing himself to do it, to sign his life away. ‘But I cannot accept your kind offer.’

‘Know this’ the officer lowered his voice. ‘You will just disappear; there will be no martyr’s death.’

Edward said nothing. The Officer waved his hand and the guard opened the cell door. Outside were too more soldiers. Edward stood.

‘The Lord will forgive you for what you do’ the gaunt prisoner smiled at the officer, ‘but if I were you I would ensure that I really do disappear and that no trace of your hand is left in this.’

He cradled his arm again.

‘The Lord will forgive you but Winston, no’ he looked the officer up and down, ‘Winston never forgives anyone.’

The trooper gestured to the door and Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax walked as purposefully as he could towards it.

‘Good luck old boy’ Halifax said loudly as he limped away, ‘good luck.’

Nails

Martin Luther crept out of his front door. He was being watched, that he knew. The Pope had spies everywhere. The eve of All Saint's Day, October 31, 1517; this would be the day that they would take notice of his fears, of his criticisms.

The ideas were set, they had been printed and were to be posted on the on the door of the Castle Church of Wittenberg, as it was done according to university custom.

His was a protest of thought, but a protest against simony and indulgences. There was no way to gain admission to heaven other than through the lord. He would show them that he was right and that their practices must end.

It was daybreak and there were a passing few in the square as he made his way with the parchment rolled up, nailsand hammer concealed in his habit.

At the door, a few watched, knowing that some priest was doing something. They were here at the turning point, of that he was sure. He could hear them breathing, their mutterings, and their discontent as he took out the hammer. Then their silence as he held the first nail. Hammer poised over it.

He turned and saw their silence made flesh. Ten, maybe more, black cloaks, Dominican Friars edged towards him from the periphery of the square: appearing like shadows form the doorways, from the shadows. They were masters of concealment, masters of deceit.

They had known, he was betrayed.

Luther took the parchment in his hand and held it aloft. He would tell the people and they would tell their children and their neighbours, someone would take what he had written and read it and know he was right. The people of Wittenberg scattered, not daring to look him in the eye.

He bellowed his words.

‘I charge the church…’ his cry cut short with a twang of a crossbow. He looked down and saw the bolt protrude from his chest before he ever felt the pain. It was an explosion through his bones and sinews. He lost breath, his raised arm drooped limply to his side, the parchment fell to the floor and covered the slowly growing pool of red.

He sunk to his knees. He hadn’t realised three more had struck him. His chest, his torso pegged out in the Stations of the Cross. The dark figures continued to move closer. He tried to move his arms,his legs, to breathe, but nothing was working. He tried to speak, to say something, maybe a final word, a last plea would be carried from his dead tongue to others through a sympathiser amongst them.

He opened his mouth.

‘Nothing?’ A dark, Castilian voice came from a hood not three metres in front of him, ‘no final words heretic?’

Luther tried to communicate, tried to force his words upon those who would not hear them, but all he could speak with were his closing eyes, saddened that he had come so far and yet made so little difference. He felt his weight fall forward.

‘Burn him’ he heard as he fell, ‘and his followers. Let god sort them out.’

Little bird

The rain lashed down. My face stung and the air steamed. It was a summer storm: no respite for me, no respite from me.

The forest road, boggy and without feeling for the slow carts made travel almost impossible. A team of men just to heave the treasure wagon through each of the muddy holes we had dug the day before.

‘What is this?’ I heard one cry, ‘This is stupid, where did the road go wrong?’ I heard another.

The driver did not hear the sound of the bowstring against the rain. He clutched at his chest as if taken by indigestion, thinking to knock it out of himself.  He thumped his chest twice and fell forward. The wheel caught on him and at the back the six men heaving against the sudden blockage were taken by surprise. Arrows few from the undergrowth. They fell like broken trigs into a fire. Some twitched the last of their life away as men with no name scurried like rats, sharp metal in their hands they opened their throats quick enough.

The two soldiers following on horseback had been unseated a hundred yards before. As I walked to the wagon one of the younger ones dragged a carcass through the rain and presented it to me.

‘Said you wan one alive’ he grinned, missing teeth and a hole where his nose once was. Before they sliced it off.

I pointed and he grinned again, running through the sandy slop of a road to unload the cart.

I knelt and pulled the soldier’s face close to mine.

‘Name’ I asked.

‘King John will have you in chains before the week is out’ he stumbled over his words, assuming he was to die he wanted to make it a man’s death. He was right.

I took the shard of metal. Bad forging, bad smith, but it’s point worked. I dug the blade deep into his face and prised out his left eye.

He screamed for his mother soon enough

‘Name’ I asked again calmly.

‘Stephen, Stephen de Montford, squire to the sheriff’ he howled, tears flowed through his other eye as he forced it shut. I pressed the point against his cheek.

‘Property is theft brother Stephen’ I said very slowly so he would remember. It was time I sent them a message. ‘Repeat’

‘Property is theft’ he wailed. I pressed the point deep into his cheek.

‘Open your eye’ he did not, I held the point deep in his cheek, it bit and he screamed again. I whispered the words softly. ‘Open your eye, or I will take it from you and wear it about my neck.’

His blue eye opened, fixed upon me.

‘Remember this face’ I said, remember my name. I pulled the hood from my head so he could see who had bested him and bared my throat and the small bird tattooed there.

‘You, you’re’

‘Repeat’ I screamed.

‘Property is theft, property is theft property is theft, property…..

Cool Blog

Check out this very cool website - Science, science fiction - and he even lets me submit fiction...

http://scifiblog.net84.net/?p=254

Have a fantastic Friday

CBAx

Patsy

The patsy sat in his seat. Right down the front at super bowl sixty six: the greatest show on earth. Two teams he didn’t care about had already been introduced and the armoured millionaire beasts now prowled up and down the lines hollering insults at each other as the announcer went through the fuss in the middle. Coins tossed, dying children carried off the field for their final wish. He could see the celebrity tight end wipe his hands on the grass after lifting a skeletal leukaemia kid into the air. All smiles until her back was turned. Just a Billion people saw him act an ass.

It didn’t matter thought. He tapped the case at his feet. Undetectable, unbeatable, he had his response to the hideousness of western capitalism. Fifty megatons.

He flicked the safety off on the underside of the handle and looked at his companion.

Tall, dressed in a way that made men turn their heads he would be a martyr with her for the new order. Her black hair, her deep red lips and her pale skin were all too perfect. She smiled at him and pointed to the clock. Not yet, not yet.

The clock had not started, the game should start, the world should be watching, they needed to see the fire of retribution, the cleansing flame of the new order. Their Budweisers would spill, they would choke on their ‘chips and dip’ and he would be at ground zero, his body torn into its constituent parts as painlessly as falling asleep.

Roar.

The clock started, there was a cry from the crowd and a ball was heaved form one end of the field to the other. Both teams hurtling towards one another. He looked at his companion and he flicked the switch.

There would be a delay, ten seconds. There was no going back.

But there was a change. She had a phone in her hand, she had a look on her face that he had not seen before. It was pity and then it was glee. She tapped her phone and whispered.

‘Bye bye’

As she faded into the background the heat began. He called for her and grabbed the air, catching only laughter.

He heard the detonator switch and then realised the stories she told him were a lie as his every nerve cooked in the first nanoseconds of the explosion. 

Around the world people watching their TV sets spilled their beer and choked on their ‘chips and dip’.