Divination is published over at Ink, Sweat and Tears.

As you’ve come to expect, it’s a little peculiar but, on the plus side, it is quite short.

It’d be nice if you could pop off to read it. Then, as per the usual agreement, if you like it, send money and/or crisps.

What this case has done though, is to call attention to issues with how libel cases are dealt with in the UK and give impetus to a campaign to reform UK libel law.

Now, as an Irish citizen and resident, how is this relevant to me. Truth is, it’s relevant to everybody who ever commits a thought to print (or pixel). Libel tourism is an interesting practice in which someone from any country in the world can be sued for libel through UK courts. Also, while the UK’s laws are considered pretty poor as far as world standards go, let’s face it, those in my own country are little better.

With all that in mind, I’m happy to support the campaign. Remember, you can sign the petition no matter where you live – you don’t need to be a UK resident.

The Mass Libel Reform Blog – Fight for Free Speech!

This week is the first anniversary of the report Free Speech is Not for Sale, which highlighted the oppressive nature of English libel law. In short, the law is extremely hostile to writers, while being unreasonably friendly towards powerful corporations and individuals who want to silence critics.

The English libel law is particularly dangerous for bloggers, who are generally not backed by publishers, and who can end up being sued in London regardless of where the blog was posted. The internet allows bloggers to reach a global audience, but it also allows the High Court in London to have a global reach.

You can read more about the peculiar and grossly unfair nature of English libel law at the website of the Libel Reform Campaign. You will see that the campaign is not calling for the removal of libel law, but for a libel law that is fair and which would allow writers a reasonable opportunity to express their opinion and then defend it.

The good news is that the British Government has made a commitment to draft a bill that will reform libel, but it is essential that bloggers and their readers send a strong signal to politicians so that they follow through on this promise. You can do this by joining me and over 50,000 others who have signed the libel reform petition at

http://www.libelreform.org/sign

Remember, you can sign the petition whatever your nationality and wherever you live. Indeed, signatories from overseas remind British politicians that the English libel law is out of step with the rest of the free world.

If you have already signed the petition, then please encourage friends, family and colleagues to sign up. Moreover, if you have your own blog, you can join hundreds of other bloggers by posting this blog on your own site. There is a real chance that bloggers could help change the most censorious libel law in the democratic world.

We must speak out to defend free speech. Please sign the petition for libel reform at

http://www.libelreform.org/sign

It’s available to view online: Schlock Magazine – The Sea. This link opens a PDF version of the issue which is rather nice. It’s crammed full of stories, with a smattering of poetry and non-fiction. It also has some splendid illustrations from Thom Cuschieri (although my own story is decorated with Behemoth and Leviathan by the wonderful, mad old William Blake).

You can, if you wish, eschew the assembled, PDF version and read my story as a regular, old web page. It’d be a shame though as the magazine looks great.

I’d quite like it if you could have a read, tell your friends, send money, whatever.

I’d like it if you could take a look.

You can read it here.

If you like short/flash stories, you should definitely subscribe to Metazen as there’s always lots of consistently good stuff there.

I’m off to find a corner in which to curl up.

INT.  HAYES MEGALOMANIACAL GLOBAL DOMINATION HQ – MORNING

GERRY, a ruggedly handsome, goatee-sporting rake in his 30′s (just), strides purposefully into the dispatching chamber. He stands at the bottom of the murder platform and crosses his manly arms.

GERRY

So, Monday... We meet again.

MONDAY, strapped to the murder platform and whimpering like a girl, looks up with tears in his annoying eyes.

MONDAY

What? Do you expect me to be fun?  Is that what you expect?

GERRY

No, Monday.  I expect you to die.

Gerry nods hunkily to a technician who turns to a console and twiddles knobs. A laser COUGHS and SPLUTTERS, emitting a weak, stuttering beam of light before extinguishing completely.

GERRY

Oh for fuck’s sake-

The laser suddenly leaps back into life.  Radiation gets all stimulated and emitted, amplifying light and heading straight for Monday’s crotch.  Monday looks worried – like some little bitch or something.

Gerry smiles an evil, yet charmingly attractive, smile. His muscular legs walk his buff torso up the exit ramp. He laughs as he goes.

MONDAY

If I fail to report, Tuesday will just take my place.

Gerry stops short. His attractive face scrunches (strikingly) with awful realisation.

GERRY

Shite!

It will also appear in the Metazen Christmas Story Book which is being sold for charity.  If you pop over and donate more than 15 Canadian dollars (via PayPal) on Metazen, you will receive a printed copy of the book.  Smaller donations receive a PDF version of the book.  All of the proceeds are donated to the Sunrise Children’s Villages Charity in Cambodia so you get a snazzy book and help a good cause.  Everyone’s a winner.

Hurrah for me.

Last year, I made it this far but no farther. I think it’s a better effort this year so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Oh, and hurrah for me.

A dozen of them, maybe more.  They glare and chatter in that penguiny way they have.

“We have classics,” they gloat, “many, many classics.  Great works; wonderful, worthy works full of magnificent, moving, powerful prose.  Prose that changed the world, that shaped imaginations and perceptions and lives.  Prose that touched people, that inspired, provoked and incited them.  Wonderful words that people have read and read and carried with them a lifetime.”

They add, slowly for emphasis, “we have beauty.”

The penguins wait, making sure it sinks in.

“And what do you have?” they ask.  “What do you have but an inferiority complex and a bunch of scoffing, anthropomorphised, flightless birds?”

I have no answer.

Bastard penguins.

I Sat Through That? – M. Night Shyamalan.

Incidentally, it seems that my fingers believe there to be an extra ‘P’ in the word ‘triple’.  Every time I type it, I always put in an extra P – it comes out as tripple and I have to backspace to correct it.  I may have to write to the Merriam-Webster people.

I Sat Through That? – Planet Of The Apes