The Lady And The Box

Dive into Pete’s log, an android from planet Hy Man who, along with Mex has been sent to earth to discover the ways of us humans?

So far, they have discovered “hot” means more than just burn your mouth food, “cool” means more than just the inside of a fridge and the meaning of “chilling”, “chilled” and chilly” are as varied as dishes in an Indian takeaway.

Please read on…

It was Woody’s idea to take me to the Edinburgh festival and Mex was happy to follow. We were sitting in an Indian at the time working our way through a selection of curries as hot as Bunny’s temper .My stomach was on fire, I was burning up and sweating at the same time.

“What is this stuff?” I said.

“It an Indian.” said the blond on the next table- like that explained everything.

Normally I’d be enjoying the background music; but I was feeling all tight and crunchy, like one of those packets of crisps. What I needed was a long, lean stretch followed by a position of great twisting, that would help my digestion.

Then I heard of the lady in the box.

Apparently, there was a lady who could squash herself into a box and I was curious. I am a robot of great flexibility, a yoga expert and if a woman can squeeze herself into a box, I want to know about it.

“We’ve just seen a contortionist,” said the blonde on the next table.

“Cartoonist?” said Mex.

“No, contortionist—street performer,” said the blonde. “She folded herself up into a square box . . .”

“Whatever for?” muttered Mex.

“And she can twist…” said her partner “…into knots that would turn a seaman’s hair.

He produced a video that stopped the restaurant and almost put Mex of her Jalfrezi.

“All you could see in the end…’ sniffed the blond, “…was her leotard.”

* * *

I had to go. I took a chance and headed for the back door.

Nobody noticed, the blond was giving her partner “what for” about the seaman comment, while Woody was explaining to Mex the difference be seaman and semen and the waiter was trying to shut them all up with free mints.

* * *

As I entered the festival, I could hear the roar of applause. The street was chock-a-block with people and noisy-cars, buses, and drilling mixed with music, applause, and chattering; people speaking languages and accents I never heard.

I was buzzing off my Teflon tits.

The only music played on Planet Hy Man is the sort of elevator music that puts everyone into a comma and the cars we see are limos driven by robots.

I gazed up at the castle; a piper blasted into the street.

“Am I near the Royal Mile?” I shouted.

“Just around the corner,” said the teenager, “you’re almost there.”

I continued past a magician with a dog; skidded on a leaflet, righted myself on a drunk, ignored the insult, and continued.

It was slow work working through the crowds, but finally, I made my way onto Mount Pleasant. I passed a seedy-looking man with dreadlocks yelling into the crowd.

“You ain’t seen nothing like this, me hearties,” he yelled and pulled a bunch of flowers from his pants.

“Jesus!” muttered someone.

I walked on; past two men playing drums, past a dark man in a duffel coat sniffing into a bottle in a bag.

“Pound for coffee,” he said.

I gestured to my empty pockets then, reading the brown man’s upright-middle-finger gesture, quickly moved on.

The street was lined with performers competing for the attention of the crowd; it was hard to keep moving. I ended up sandwiched between a young girl lamenting her one-night stand and an elderly woman moaning about her bunions; right in front of a man wriggling about in a locked straitjacket.

“Let me tell you a story,” grunted the performer, “of Alcatraz and my escape.”

The crowd muttered and jolted forward. I was about to move on when I heard a chainsaw start up. I turned to see a large, hairy, masked juggler pose with a chainsaw.

The sound drowned out everything.

“Alcatraz the inescapable,” shouted the escapologist.

The juggler tossed the chainsaw into the air. The crowd gasped as his thick muscular arms caught the saw.

The escapologist watching his audience dwindle nodded to his sidekick, who wheeled on a unicycle . . .

“Alcatraz, oh Alcatraz, the place where no bird sings.”

The crowd was silent as he leveraged onto the unicycle, his arms still twisted in the straitjacket. He was a thin man with a thin ponytail and birdlike features, which at the moment were pinched with discomfort as he balanced on the unicycle.

The older woman cheered bunions forgotten.

“This is way better than the lady in the box,” she said. “I mean how long can you stare at a box?”

“Is she still there?” I said.

“Oh yes, she’s still there with a sidekick for comedy.”

“Comedy in a box?” said someone from behind. “hardly call it that.”

I marched up the steep hill of Cockburn Street past more food shops and the smell of waffles,

chocolate, and chips.

“You see the lady? The one in the box?”

“Aye, something else.”

“Where?”

The young man whistled through his teeth. “Just keep going, ignore the comedian he as funny as herpes.”

The street was lined with tables and chairs, people sitting, talking, artists drawing, manipulating balloons into weird shapes.

I pushed through the crowd, skidded to a stop and stared at the Perspex box. Her limbs folded about her body—and all I could see was her leotard.

“Come see the impossible,” shouted the comedian, “a woman who can tie herself into knots any seaman would be proud of.”

Nobody laughed until that I caught the comedian’s eye.

Full of festive spirit and desperate for a twist and fold to sort my rumbling tum, I shouted

“Bring me a smaller box and I show you a few knots a seaman has never heard off.”

Cont. next blog …

 Kerrie Noor Is A Comedy, Romance & Sci-Fi Author based in Scotland. Explore her recent work on Amazon or contact her for more information

Brexit The Planet Hy Man Way

Dive into Pete’s log, an android from planet Hy Man.

He has a way of looking at things that has you wondering, laughing, and at times, glad you’re not a robot on a strange planet.

Pete is a robot that bends like playdough, smells like something familiar and, for those into licking… tastes like something you’d like to lick again…

Mex has licked once, by mistake, in the dark. It’s a story involving a power cut, candles, and a storage heater. A story both Mex and her robot Pete agreed to “keep to themselves’ as the licking of robots by a Man Spy is strictly prohibited on planet Hy Man and, judging by Bunnies’s reaction, not much admired on earth.

Please read on...

I have spent the last month listening to the radio while learning to drive and my confusion has reached greater depth than when Bunny tried to explain to me the “keep em keen treat em mean” approach favoured by both her and her so-called platonic pal Don.

A platonic relationship which as Woody maintains is as plausible as him being a “six-foot giant,” and as Woody struggles to reach the top shelf of a news-stand, I assume he is being sarcastic.

Woody's sarcasm has reached new heights since trying to teach me to drive. Which if I had a heart, I would find hurtful. I mean it was he who talked me into it, claiming that teaching me would be a breeze.

“You’re a robot,” he said. “Driving should be like second nature to you.”

I didn’t the heart to tell him I am a robot of great flexibility and not designed for mechanical things. When I turn my head, it swivels 180 degrees which makes exiting a roundabout about as safe as lighting a fire blindfolded with a flame thrower.

Mex, however, tried to educate Woody, not easy when sucking on a mega sour apple. Now completely off the sugar, she was working her way through whatever she could find to suck, and she looked like she had a mouthful of vinegar.

“Only the lowest order robot drive on Planet Hy Man,” said Mex wiping a dribble from her chin.

Woody looked at her and laughed-spurning Bunnie into action.

“If you're going to teach X man (referring to me) to drive then we are coming too. You can take us to Asda.” She said.

“Asda?” Said Woody, “what about the roundabouts…the junctions.” He looked from me to Bunnie. 

“He’ll never make it.”

Bunnie unmoved had made her mind up, she was hellbent on finding Mex something sugar- free, dairy-free and as they were going to Asda, cheap as chips.

“If you must suck on things,” she said to Mex “then at least choose something softer, tastier and…”

“Lick-able?” Muttered Mex followed by a forget I said that blush.

“I was actually going to say something less dribble-ie.” Muttered Bunnie bristly shoving Mex out the door.

I wanted to impress my friend, show him what I was made of, so I didn’t argue. And when the two women flopped into the back seat giggling about “standing on ceremony” and “this will be a hoot.” I let my head back with my best care-free laugh, flicked the car into gear, turned the ignition on and stalled it.

Which being as it was an automatic had them all, I think, impressed…

Mex and Bunnie sniggering like school girls began flicking through the radio channels…they had a love for all things newsie; obsessing about Brexit, independence and the need for coexistences.

“Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?’ I said finally starting the car.

Woody told me to concentrate and as we headed towards the first roundabout my stomach lurched.

It was the size of a launchpad which Woody explained was a bonus. The size scared me, I began circling it fearing the exit and after the fourth circle, Woody began to grind his teeth as Bunnie joked about “dogs chasing their tails”.

After the fifth circle, Woody gave up reassuring me favouring instead an army like order.

‘Forget about Brexit and take any frigging exit.” Were his exact words…

I, in the middle of trying to understand the difference between a speed sign, the actual sped of a car and the rich tapestry of fingers gestures, stalled yet again.

His shouting didn’t help, and I was just thinking of telling him as much when a horn blasted from a juggernaut of a lorry loomed up my rear.

Even the women stopped laughing.

‘Just frigging indicate and exit.” Woody hissed.

As I headed off some exit to god know where Bunny started talking of “political exits”, “dickheads in power, and “it is all going nowhere just like “X man here”.

“There is always someone uselessly tooting his horn.” Said Bunnie.

And Mex, instead of her usual “she doesn’t know what she talking about” comment agreed, even laughed when Bunnie asked, “if Hy Man also sported dickheads”.

“We had a Brexit type thing once on planet Hy Man,” said Mex, “the men tried to leave, set up somewhere else. They talked of truth, justice, and the manly way …it lasted as long as their so-called, manly ways did. In the end, they ran out of hemp, water, and matches.”

“This is why I didn’t want you to come.” Said Woody “how can anyone concentrate when you two talk bollocks?”

I took a deep breath and tried a few calming yoga mantras. I had just stopped at the traffic lights and was in the middle of attempted a hand brake start despite Woody insisting that a hand brake was not necessary. Woody was giving me the tutting of a lifetime and I was frazzled.

“Forget about all this Brexit bullshit.” He said. “Let's just get to Asda.”

I nodded to the finger gestures from the cars behind. “Are they laughing with me or at me?” I said.

‘Neither,” muttered Woody and finally took over.

As we headed into Asda I for the first time went straight for something sweet, sickly and long.

Mex laughed “something to lick?” she said at the cashier.

The attendant with a look of disdain on a par with the juggernaut driver asked Mex to leave.

“This is a family establishment,” she said showing Mex the door.

“It seems leaving Asda is a lot easier than other exits,” I said to Woody he laughed and this time it was Mex turn to mutter “dickheads”.

First Published www.kerrienoor.com

Kerrie Noor Is A Comedy, Romance & Sci-Fi Author based in Scotland. Explore her recent work on Amazon or contact her for more information.

The Polishing Of A Knob

Dive into Pete’s log, an android from planet Hy Man.

He has a way of looking at things that not only makes you sit up; but ponder a world without drivers, teachers, and voting booths. Pete is still trying to understand the difference between English spoken by the English, English spoken by the Scottish and English spoken by those, not from England or Scotland.

Mex, his boss tries to help but as gravity is playing havoc with her hormones. She spends a lot her time feeling hot, cold and then all “weird and tearful.”

Please read on…

“February is a month never spoken about on Planet Hy Man,” I said to Bunny.

Bunny a master of multi-tasking was spring cleaning and listening. While Mex was sitting on the couch, feet up trying to get to grips with the Radio Times.

Bunny muttered a “hmmm.”

“We used to celebrate it when men were more than footmen and enjoyed festivals, dressing up and coming home to a woman pleased to see them.’ I said. “Back in the days when automation was on the cusp of existence.”

“March, on the other hand, is a month of cleaning,” muttered Mex.

“And what the hell is a footman? said Bunny. Working up a shine on the tv screen.

“March,” I continued. “Is a month of celebration for us on Planet Hy man. It is the anniversary of the first egg fertilization and the slow decline of men and their festivals.”

“It’s celebrated by wearing giant Petri dishes on one’s head,” muttered Mex turning the magazine upside down, the TV guide really threw her.

Bunny stopped ‘what’?

“And for those who can’t afford a Petri dish anything that looks like a large Petri dish,” I said.

“Aye right.” Muttered Bunny returning to her polishing.

“A month where women are “tickled pink” and “spring into action at the drop of a hat,” I said.

“Or pertinent dish if you want to get technical.” Said Mex with a flick of a page.

“You’re taking the piss.” Said Bunny.

“The first day of March is spent filling one’s Petri dish with freebies. The markets are free, and the lower level Building of Opulence is open to all.”

“Women go crazy.” Muttered Mex.

“I find that hard to believe.” Said Bunny.

“And create such a mess that it takes the rest of the month to clean up,” I said.

“March is a month hated by the cleaning team,” muttered Mex rotating the new page with a confused look.

Bunny stopped in her tracks, “wait a minute, you have a building called Opulence?”

“Well yes,” I said.

“Why would you call a building Opulent.” Said Bunny.

‘Figure of speech, Mam”.

“It more a statement,” said Mex tossing the magazine aside with disinterest.

“Of what?”

“Well, opulence, it’s not for everyone I guess.”

Bunny admired her polished TV. “Yes, we all know that,” she said flicking imaginary dust from the top. “But what is opulence in your world?”

“How would I know?”

Bunny looked at her.

“Anything that is in the building of opulence Mam,” I said.

“And what is that?” Said Bunny.

“I don’t know.” Sighed Mex. “I have only been to the Room with a View for orders. I am not a voted in. I am only allowed up the back entrance.”

Bunny moved onto the door surveying the finger marks, she let Izzy in. “I have spent the last month trying to understand a world where men are footman; whatever that is.”

“Men who stand to attention mam, and retrieves things, sort of like a… retriever…”

Bunny eyed me with the sort of look she called cryptic “really?”

Izzy barked, jumped up on Mex lap his favourite place.

Mex cooed.

“We don’t have dogs on planet Hy man mam.”

“That explains a lot, except…” Bunny eyed Mex talking gibberish to Izzie. “You're the great man spy who rid Planet Hy Man of all men-kicked them out.”

“More kicked to the gym Mam.”

“You made it all possible.”

“Well yes.”

“Why the back entrance?”

“Voted in are easily pleased mam, their idea of opulence is anything others can’t afford.”

“And?”

So, Mex and the like choose what to make unaffordable and…”

“Who’s a cute boy?" Mex cooed at Issy.

“Insightful.”

“Turns a vote it is a voted in male or female,” I said.

“I see,” tutted Bunny.

“Manipulatable.”

“What some would call a knob.” Said Bunny now polishing one.

Mex and I confused looked at each other until Bunny gave a way too in-depth description of the true meaning of a knob where as she put it, polishing was negotiable.

“So, the polishing a knob,” I said, “is a term best keep in the same sentence as a duster.”

“Or Mr. Sheen.” She chuckled.

“On our planet,” muttered Mex “polishing is strictly for the robots.”

Kerrie Noor Is A Comedy, Romance & Sci-Fi Author based in Scotland. Explore her recent work on Amazon or contact her for more information.

Rebel Without A Bra' is also now available via Smashwords, Kobo and Nook Ibooks and Amazon

Another Day Another Blog

I grew up in “seventies Essendon”, a suburb of Melbourne and a stone’s throw from Moonee Ponds-Dame Edna territory. As a kid, I met many Dame Edna like women including some of my family.

My parents spent their time 'doing up' the house which in the 70's meant, large flowery wallpaper, brown and green carpet, and wood everywhere. It was like living in a sitcom.

I remember coming back from Scotland having learned how to cook in a hotel. I made egg mayonnaise and lasagne for tea.

“Easy on the garlic,” said my mother tight-lipped. “You know what your father’s like.”

My father looked at it made some comment about “a waste of mince,” then poked at the white sauce. “Is that smelly cheese?”

No one touched the egg mayonnaise.

“It’s homemade,” I said, referring to the mayonnaise, not the egg. Forgetting completely my parent’s low fat, keep your heart-healthy diet, my sister’s dodgy fat averse stomach, and my brother's sniff and I don’t think so approach. Expecting my family to embrace seventies British cuisine when even my nana’s tomato chutney was seen as “alien” was like expecting Dame Edna to throw a compliment to her audience.

Two hours later my dad was at the chippy oblivious to me sulked in front of the Two Ronnie’s. My first “know your audience or die" moment had been painful.

As a comic writer finding my audience has not been easy.

One man’s funny bone is another man’s snooze button, and one woman's joke is another woman's insult. But I have found reading my work out loud helps, especially to a group of readers on their second glass of wine.

So here is my read to you, Bunny and her bouncy chest, inspired by none other than Benny Hill and Rosanne Barr.

Enjoy, I hope you laugh and if you don’t, try watching again after a glass or three.

First Published on www.kerrienoor.com

Kerrie Noor Is A Comedy, Romance & Sci-Fi Author based in Scotland. Explore her recent work on Amazonor contact her for more information.

Her new book 'Rebel Without A Clue' is now available via Smashwords, Koboand Nook Ibooks.