Since the changeover I've been unable to access my blog.  Obviously I can post (I assume).  I just can't see the bloddy thing because it is, apparently, password protected, and whoever's password it is, it ain't mine.

I did contact 20six support about a week ago, but with no response so far.  So if any nice person can advise me, I'd be happy beyond belief to receive your magic words.

I had thought that in between earning a living doing other stuff I'd write a story based on commenators' suggestions, and indeed I did begin doing that.  But then other stuff intervened and I stopped even having sufficient time to do the minimum required to keep a story going.

That said, I incorporated all the suggestions I wanted to use, even if latterly in an implicit way.  More to the point, I found that the experiment taught me that you can't just write at random.  Maybe you can write a story like that for a short period, but eventually a plot needs to emerge to keep a thread going.  I've now invented a plot for the story I will not write.

Here goes.  Karl is astute about his (mostly illegal) business dealings.  He's a small scale crook with pretentions to legitimacy.  But take him out of what he knows and he's fucked.  He doesn't have a clue.

The story opens in an Employment Tribunal.  Karl is being sued by his pole dancers for unfair dismissal.  The case goes part heard, i.e. unfinished.

Meanwhile Karl has bigger problems on his mind.  The mysterious Polkey wants Karl to let him use his clubs to effect a tax scam.  That's about all Karl knows, though Polkey is making life difficult.  We find out that Polkey is more ambitious than that.  He is using the VAT fraud to get into really lucrative international crime.  Ultimately he wants to be a big league arms dealer, but he wants to finance it by illegal art and antiquities dealing.

Karl tried to protect his interests via his cleverer agent, the lawyer Perle.  Perle hatches a plot involving a cat with a phone scanning device implant.

The estate in Wales is a huge opportunity.  The sisters who owned it until their death were sitting on a pile of real estate in a beautiful and developable location.  They also had an art collection, very badly catalogued, which included some magnificent antiquities.  When they dies without heirs, the university inherited their estate.

Whilst Karl is at the estate, the cat is stolen as a laugh by an ex-SAS hippy called Tristram.  He takes the cat back to his teepee in Machynlleth and teaches the semi-electronic beast to enjoy a spiff.

The university cleared the estate out of the Monets, Manets, Picassos, Matisses and the like for auction.  The estate was put up for sale, as it needed massive investment to realise its potential.  Enter Polkey.  His people find a hidden cache of artifcats in a farm outbuilding cellar.  It's all crap, but that doesn't matter.  The ledger of poorly described antiquites is perfect.  Polkey can import - illegally - lots of stuff looted from Iraq and pass it off as legally owned stuff from the Welsh aristos.  He just needs a stooge with (plausibly enough) money to but the estate.

Karl is the anointed stooge.  He doesn't like it.  He doesn't understand waht's going on.  He suspects that his most trusted ally Perle is getting one over on him.  This isn't true, but Karl isn't always too bright.  He doesn't suspect that one of his dancers, the silky Pole, is using his contacts to set up a net porn empire.

Karl accidentally, because he's not happy about any of it and doesn't know what's going on, ends up very much richer.  The story ends with the Employment Tribunal case being resumed. Karl loses, which is no big deal, but when the Chairman of the Tribunal starts talking about 'remedy' he makes a point about Polkey.  Karl goes incandescent, thinking that even here, Polkey is getting at him.  Little does he realise that the Chairman is making reference to a House of Lords decision in 1988 in the case of Polkey V AE Dayton Services Ltd. [N.B. This is a real case].  Polkey sees red and rushes at the panel, smacking the Chairman in the jaw and getting arrested.

Dismantling a bender requires as much care as its creation.  Rope must be untied and branches gently released to spring back without injury to their original position.  Plastic sheeting must be smoothed and folded for reuse.  The debris of woodland living must be cleared, ashes scattered, and anything that will not swiftly return to the earth packed away for removal.  There are rules about living wild.fficeffice" />

Not that the man looked like an outcast from society reduced to sleeping rough.  He had already bathed in the river and shaved using a tiny bottle of olive oil and a cut throat razor attached to his Swiss Army knife.  As he packed his belongings into a small green rucksack, liberated the day before from the Haverford West branch of Millets, the man appeared remarkable only in that he was lithe and strong, with longish dark blond hair and startlingly blue eyes.

Crossing the rapid, foaming river at a weir, the man climbed the riverbank and slipped into the abandoned mill.  Making his way silently to the other side of the building he slid through a rotting doorway to see two cars and a Land Rover parked between the mill and the gate to the lane.  This was a stroke of luck, affording the man extra cover, though had he been seen no one would have guessed at his illicit use of the bed and breakfast facilities in the private woodland.

Instinctively the man tried the car doors as he passed.  The first was locked, and a quick scan of the interior did not suggest that it was not worth forcing entry.  The second saloon looked more promising.  Within silent seconds the man had lifted a small roll of £20 notes and a tin of Fisherman's Friends.  The Land Rover's glove compartment yielded a small paper bag containing three postcards of Llanelli and a couple of Welsh slate drinks coasters, one engraved with the image of a griffin, the other a harpist with a tall hat.  Although unsentimental, the man returned these petty souvenirs to their place and was about to move on when he heard a faint mewling sound.

            'Shush, cariad,' whispered the man soothingly as he lifted the pet carrier from the vehicle.  The red plastic box would be an indiscreet addition to his luggage, but somehow he could not resist the challenge of removing the cat from the vehicle.  As an afterthought he also rolled up a book of Sudoku puzzles and shoved it into a mesh pocket on his rucksack.

The cars halted next to an old mill, a derelict stone building beside the river, its water wheel still intact.  To the right was an unlikely array of buildings; a colonnaded courtyard on a grand scale, an ugly modern barn like an unfinished DIY superstore, a row of cottages in which lines of washing fluttered like bunting, and beyond that fields sloping gently up into hills.  Straight ahead, past the mill, a footpath beyond a stile led down to an eroded cliff before dropping steeply to a sheltered bay with a pebble beach and a small jetty.  A sheepdog appeared silently from behind a wall and scrutinised the visitors from a distance with dark, knowing eyes.fficeffice" />

            'Curiouser and curiouser,' muttered Perle.

            'I am not happy about this,' said Karl under his breath.

A man emerged from a door at the rear of the courtyard and walked towards them.  He wore navy overalls and black ffice:smarttags" />Wellington boots.  A bright red scarf was knotted around his throat.  The sheepdog trotted towards him, its tail waving a vigorous greeting.

            'Bore da,' said the man in a deep, sonorous voice.

            'Bore da,' replied Ade keenly.

            'They're talking fucking African,' said Karl.

Ade held up a small book with the title Welsh for Beginners.  He seemed eager to converse.

            'Evans,' said the Concrete Lady seizing command of the situation, 'these gentlemen are here on business.  Will you let Rhiannon know we'll need hospitality?'

Ade sat in the car and looked at his reflection in the mirror, a broad smile fixed to his face.fficeffice" />

            'I am one brilliant man,' he said to himself, and possibly also to Spinoza who was mewling in his box in the back of the Land Rover.

He looked out towards the front of the bingo hall, to which he had moved the car, to see Karl, Perle, and the Concrete Lady and her associates emerging slowly from the building.  The latter party walked over to a couple of dark saloon cars and got in.  Karl and Perle approached the Land Rover, Karl climbing in to the front passenger seat, Perle into the rear.

            'Where to, boss?' asked Ade, turning the key in the ignition.

            'Follow the blue BMW with the Concrete Lady in it,' said Karl.

            'We're going to somewhere called Pontnewydd' said Perle.

            'Christ knows why,' added Karl.

            'Nice work with the cat, Ade,' said Perle. 

Ade smiled again.  Praise from Perle was rare indeed.

            'It's just as well I had the building checked out,' added Perle, 'and plans made'.

Ade bit his tongue and said nothing about the uselessness of the plans and the brilliance of his own reconnaissance work.  He and Perle were both hired hands, but Ade understood his place in the order of things.

The journey took them out of the small town on a winding lane wide enough for a single vehicle in most places, widening bulbously on occasion to permit other cars to pass.  Horned sheep with black faces dotted the fields, and odd clusters of ugly corrugated iron farm buildings scarred the green landscape.  Suddenly the road widened to two lanes and they found themselves looking out from a cliff top at the great sweeping curve of the bay.  The ocean was deep blue flecked with silver, the sky clear and bright, and dotted below were empty pebble beaches.

            'It's just like ffice:smarttags" />Côte d'Ivoire,' said Ade admiringly.

            'Without the coups,' said Perle.

            'Or the heat,' added Karl.

            'Or the beautiful women,' added Ade testily.

The blue BMW in front took a sharp left turn and headed down a steep, narrow, unmade road.  Gravel shot up from the surface, rattling against the car body and occasionally ricocheting off the windscreen.

            'I think we brought the right vehicle,' commented Karl, pleased to have demonstrated his worldliness.

The BMW halted before a gate with a cattle grid, and one of the henchmen got out of the car to open the gate to allow the party to progress.  He moved awkwardly, prissily, all too aware of the mud and dung oozing over his hand made loafers.  As he stood there holding the gate open for the BMW and the Land Rover to pass, his suit became flecked with spots of mud - or worse - thrown up by their spinning tires.

            'Can we get on with it?'  resumed the Concrete Lady plaintively, 'I've put a proposal to you, Karl.  It's a good one, but I need an answer quickly, or we go elsewhere.'fficeffice" />

            'I'm a businessman,' said Karl, 'a legitimate businessman.  I don't need the aggravation of getting into anything complicated, anything risky.'

The Concrete Lady yawned. 'We're going round in circles here.  I think you'll find it easier to make a decision if you come with me to see the property portfolio.'

            'I've seen this dump, and I don't want to see any more.  What would I want with a load of crap buildings in the middle of nowhere?' said Karl tetchily.

            'We will do you the courtesy of taking a look, of course,' said Perle smoothly, 'But it would be an uncharacteristic business move on the part of Mr. Rove to expand his interests outside the M25, and it would be equally uncharacteristic for him to take on a business partner who has, how shall I put this, been more than a little unhelpful in his dealings with the company.'

            'Let me put my cards on the table, Perle.  I've always been straight with you, haven't I?' The Concrete Lady gave a slight open handed shrug as she said this.  Karl coughed.

            'We have reached an understanding, we have a functioning relationship,' concurred Perle without warmth.

            'What do you say, Karl?  You're the businessman.  I'm a businesswoman.  Our dealings are always businesslike, aren't they?'

            'For fuck's sake, Bel., let's not kid ourselves.  You're a brothel-keeper with nice little sideline in marrying rich old men.  I've got a few pole dancing clubs and pool halls.  It's what we know.  We don't know shit about art dealing, or arms dealing, or any of that world, and we're better off that way,' said Karl.

            'You wouldn't have come here unless you understood that you don't have a lot of choices,' said the Concrete Lady harshly.

            'We all have choices to make,' said Perle, 'The problem is the circumstances in which we make those choices.'

            'That sounds oddly like one of the Theses on Feuerbach,' said the Concrete Lady admiringly. 

Perle allowed himself the merest twitch of a smile.  Karl looked from the Concrete Lady to Perle with a look of faint perplexity.

            'There's no way I'm letting that bastard Polkey get his hands on my clubs,' Karl said mildly.  He had been mollified by the Concrete Lady's persuasive tone.fficeffice" />

Perle remained sceptical.  As he looked absently around the room to evade collusive eye contact with the Concrete Lady he noticed a slight movement to the door behind Mrs. Moore and her associates.  He dropped his gaze innocently to the floor to avoid alerting his adversaries to what he had seen.  If this was one of their tricks it was as well that they did not know he knew.  It was then that he saw the cat sniffing meticulously at an electrical cable.  He squeezed the clip on his fountain pen to activate the device in the cat whilst maintaining a discreet eye on the second hand on the wall clock.  With luck the cat would not be noticed, let alone ejected, before Spinoza had achieved his objective of downloading all the data from their opponents' mobile phones.  How they then managed to remove the cat securely was a problem without an obvious solution.

There was a knock on the door.  One of the Concrete Lady's aides peered through the peep hole and opened the door a fraction whispering hoarsely, 'What do you want?'.

            'I need to tell Mr. Rove something,' said Ade stubbornly, shouldering his way into the room.

            'What is it?' asked Perle.

            'The car.  I've had to move it.'

The Concrete Lady looked displeased at the interruption.  She looked even more displeased when a large cat leapt onto the back of her sofa and began vigorously to claw the upholstery.

            'Get rid of that disgusting creature,' she yelled.

Three of her minders made a grab for the beast, but he deftly evaded their efforts, slinking under the sofa.

            'You'll never catch a cat like that,' said Ade, smiling broadly as one of the men yelped and withdrew his badly clawed arm from beneath the sofa.  'Everybody sit down quietly and I'll coax the pussy cat out'.

Ade reflexively pulled up the fabric of his trousers at the knees as he dropped to a crouching position and extended a hand in the direction of the cat.  He began to make strange shushing noises.

            'Oh, for Christ's sake, this is supposed to be a business meeting, not a remake of ffice:smarttags" />Animal Hospital,' said an exasperated Concrete Lady.  Ade crossly redirected his shushing sound at her.

            'Who's a nice kitty!' called Ade softly, ' here, kitty, kitty, kitty…'.

Spinoza edged forward cautiously, a nose emerging from under the seat.  Ade continued to coo at the cat whilst everyone else watched, the heavies apparently fascinated by the work of this Dr. Doolittle in their midst.  The cat stretched its head and shoulders forward leaving its haunches safely anchored beneath the sofa.  Still Ade did not move, his outstretched hand remaining unthreateningly where it was.  The cat strained further to sniff Ade's large fingers.

            'Good cat, pretty cat, nice cat,' called Ade encouragingly.

Spinoza relaxed, languorously emerging from his hideaway and rubbing the side of his head against Ade's knuckles.  Ade scratched the cat's head, stroked it beneath the chin, and lifted it into his arms where it purred loudly and contentedly.

            'Now get rid of it,' said Perle before Ade could bask further in the admiration of his peers.