Ragtag Giggagon

Every week, there is a Flash Fiction competition run by Siobhan Muir over at here . A line is taken as a prompt from the previous week's winning story. Limits are min 100 to max 250 words. The previous week had been won by Cate Derham , with a rodeo-tastic piece that had a smidgeon of gender subversion and other gems to recommend it. Her piece is at this page here . So the line taken from Cate's tale last week for this week was: "Go get the man". You have 12 hours for the task. You'll find all the other relevant rules at the wonderful n talented Siobhan Muir's site . This week's winner was Anne Odon for a wonderfully dark tale involving the harvesting of organs (or some such)! Reading the story, I suppose it's just the kind of thing that happens when two psychotic women become the best of friends. And kudos to Anne for highlighting the issue. We have to stamp out this kind of thing, for the safety of the menfolk. (It might be a bit wampyric too.)  :-)...

The 8th March disappearance of what many in the West have dubbed the "Mystery in History Flight 370" has once again been addressed by the Malaysian authorities - to vocal disgust from the international community. In an effort to put out the fires caused by insensitive text messages that were sent from the government to relatives of the flight passengers, the acting Malay Man transport minister - whose name is completely unpronounceable - held a press conference in Koala Lumper to explain that China, Australia, and France have now shared satellite pictures and associated imagery in an unprecedented spirit of sharey-ness. However, he subsequently angered several journalists in the international community - many of them sitting down to their breakfasts at home in the UK or the US - by claiming that the Malaysian Remote Sensing Agency (MRSA) was working alongside the international community. "I have an uncle who died of a hospital superbug!" roared one journalist, thro...

Rural villages and leafy burbs are frequent locations for crime fiction, whether on the box or in the bukes. The people behind Malahide's first crime writing festival, Something Wicked , hosted an event on 13 March at Manor Books in the leafy, coastal satellite town of Dublin - a felicitous setting for such an event, as it's a location scout's dream village for Barnaby, or Inspector Frost, or Gabriel Byrne's Quirke, perhaps. Or whoever else.   The Malahide bookshop made for a great venue. A long table accommodated some 18 burgeoning scribes (I didn't count everyone but apparently it's on the record), with free coffee, tea, and cakes n stuff like that. Crime fic author Louise Phillips doled out some terrific advice for more than an hour and a half. Given that the event catered for peeps at various levels of experience, she was very comprehensive in her wisdom. (And it turns out there were 18 writers present according to Louise's blog.) Louise's latest...

The blogger who posts to the Twitter account @ragtaggiggagon was delighted to reach his one thousandth tweet today. He received a phone call from his Twitter text number inquiring if he was at home. When informed that he was, the Twitter employee asked him to expect a knock at the door. "You're the guy who does the blog about red hair, right? In Ireland?" asked the Twitter employee. "The Living Ginger, or whatever it's called?" "No," the blogger said. "I'm in Ireland, alright." "What's your blog about?" "I don't really know," the blogger admitted. "Well, just pretend, about the red hair. You are reaching your one thousandth tweet, isn't that right?" There was a sigh down the line. "Yes. But what do you mean, about the red hair?" he asked. "When you get the rewards package," the Twitter employee said, "just pretend your blog is The Living Ginger. There's been a mixu...

PHONE CALL BETWEEN ALL-ROUND HOLLYWOOD LEDGE JAN THOZOMAS AND UNLISTED NUMBER, 14:24 PST, FEBRUARY 27 2014 FROM THE COMPUTER FILES OF PIERS MORGAN JAN THOZOMAS: Hello? WOMAN: John? JAN THOZOMAS: Hey Adele. WOMAN: Where you now, John? Are you with that jumbo again? JAN THOZOMAS: No! No. WOMAN: You leave that plane alone. You hear me?  JAN THOZOMAS: I'm not at the airstrip, Adele. WOMAN: Where are you now? You home? JAN THOZOMAS: That's right.   WOMAN: So you can't talk? Is that right?   JAN THOZOMAS: Ummm Hmmm. WOMAN: You can't talk? JAN THOZOMAS: That's right. WOMAN: When you gonna leave your wife, John? Huh? JAN THOZOMAS: Hold on. WOMAN: You tell me you love me, that we'll be married a year from now. You say that every year, John. JAN THOZOMAS: Hold on. I'm just going into the bathroom. WOMAN: You want me call back? JAN THOZOMAS: No. No. I'm going in here for some privacy. [SIGHS.]  WOMAN: So I still don't like how you abused that jumbo of yours.  ...