Janie Cobweb first saw the light of day in December 2007, when i was writing a blog for another well known blogging site called MYSPACE, due to popular demand i found myself writing a whole series of related blogs, almost 30 in number and since then i have reworked them and issued them as a paper back book available to purchase on lulu.com.
What follows here are faithful renditions of the original blogs and not those published.
THE MAN FROM THE SKIES
"If you set light to me nothing good will come of it," muttered Artie Archer, looking directly into Billy of the Big Belly's eyes.
"If you don't set him alight right now I'll kick you where it hurts, just you see if I don't," squawked the shrill voice of young Janie Cobweb. "My mummy always said I wouldn't be a proper woman until I'd seen my first really good burning, and I want to be a proper woman so I want it now!" she added, her eyes locked onto Billy's like two desperate cat's-eyes.
"If he does set light to me there'll be no more sweet little stories for lovely little girls," hissed Artie at her through clenched teeth.
"Put a bag over his head and get on with it!" called somebody with a gravely voice from the crowd, which was beginning to display the first stirrings of impatience.
"No bag!" shrieked Janie. "I want to see his eyes burst and the juices turn to steam as they evaporate on his crumbling cheeks!"
"You're not a very nice child," grumbled Artie. "A nice little girl would beg for my life! I nice little girl would tell everyone here they should be ashamed of themselves for demanding that an innocent little man like me was burnt to death just because he wrote the kind of stories that melt ice-maidens and cause ancient cats to drop down dead!"
"I'll burn him!" announced Billy, aware of the growing impatience of the crowd. "Now if you don't mind, little girl," he added to Janie, "if you don't mind I'll ask you to take a couple of steps back or the juices from his snozzle when they explode from him might fly onto your precious skin and burn you, and consequently scar you for the rest of your life, and I dared say you wouldn't like that!"
"I want to stay exactly where I am!" snorted Janie in a very loud, very shrill and very imperious voice.
"Your mother ought to give you a slapped bottom, then," suggested Artie, mildly. "You remind me of a little girl I know of who always wanted her own way. She would create all kinds of havoc if she didn't get exactly what she wanted until one day she insisted that she wanted an old Friesian cow as a friend. Her mother said there was no way she was going to have an old Friesian cow in her house, especially one with an incontinence problem, but the little girl shrilled and shrieked and declared that she wouldn't stop until she got her old cow. So she cried and moaned loud as sin both day and night, and first her mother got a headache and then her father got a migraine, and still she moaned and wailed and filled the whole neighbourhood with horrible sounds. In the end, in total despair, her parents got divorced and went their own ways and it turned out that neither of them wanted their daughter with them. So she was taken into care by the local Beadle, and put in a children's home where she was beaten every second day whether she deserved it or not, and had nothing to eat except bread and water and her Christmas presents were bars of soap, which she ate because they tasted far better than any of the food she was offered."
"That's all lies!" screeched Janie.
"Is it the truth?" asked Billy of the big Belly, fumbling for a third match in the box of matches that had cost him an English Pound.
"Of course it is," observed Artie. "It's the kind of things that happens to little girls who think it's perfectly reasonable to behave like spoiled brats and get their own way over everything, including the burning of the local village story teller."
"I'm going to burn you anyway," muttered Billy, striking the third match.
"What's that?" asked a slimy thin man with whiskers who happened to be in the crowd, pointing into the skies above his head.
Every neck craned to see what he was pointing at.
Every head was twisted until every head was pointing to the stars.
And high above their heads, higher than a man can see properly, there was the outline of a row of what were almost clearly horses. And that row of what you might have thought were horses was pulling something behind it. And that something that they were pulling had the oddest character imaginable sitting on it.
"What on Earth's that?" asked Billy of the Big Belly, still holding a match that was slowly burning down until it singed his fingers, and he had to drop it with a petulant "Ouch!"
"It's a fat man in a cart!" exclaimed Janie Cobweb. "Why, he's even fatter than you are, Billy of the Big Belly! And he's got a sack," she added. "Do you think he's going to come down here and put us in that old sack of his and cart us away to some strange land where we'll be slaves to princes? Do you suppose he's an evil sorcerer who's going to trap each and every one of us and march us to another planet where we'll be roasted on spits and toasted over an eternal fire?"
"You'd make a good story teller, Janie," muttered Artie. "You've got the kind of imagination it takes to make a really good story teller!"
But nobody else could find a single word to say because everyone else had his or her mouth open and everyone else was staring so intently at the strange apparition in the skies that a passing sparrow pooed in one person's mouth, and he didn't even notice.
And the thing, whatever it is, drew closer so that the crowd of people gathered for the Burning could see it more closely.
"They're not horses!" shouted a boy out loud. "They've got trees on their heads!"
"They're antlers," called a girl in a gym-slip.
"The fat man's wearing red and he's got a white beard!" called out another. "And his sack isn't empty and waiting to be filled, but it's full and waiting to be emptied!"
"I've heard of that character before!" announced Billy of the Big Belly. "He goes around the world giving presents to all the children in every land, and when he's done the idle sod sleeps for a whole year before he has to do it all again!"
"You mean…?" asked the crowd as if the hundreds there were one person.
"It's Father Christmas!" shouted Billy. "Quick! He's sure to land here! I'll let this writer idiot go and we'll have a bigger burning tonight! We'll tie Father Christmas up and he can burn! He's big and fat and full of grease, and he should blaze really well!
Without waiting for the advice of anyone, not even of Janie Cobweb, he untied Artie Archer and hissed into his ears, "You'd better get off, squire! This is a reprieve, but if I were you I'd not come back to this village, not even if you live to be a million!"
"You can't burn Father Christmas!" shouted Artie. "He's a really wonderful man and does all the good in the world! Without him the world will become a sad place and little children will go without Playstations and misery will reign supreme!
"Sod off!" ordered Billy, "If you know what's good for you," he added. "And if I were you I'd change my pants before the stink gives you away."
Artie shrugged. There wasn't much else he could do, just shrug and wander off. He whistled a jolly little tune to himself when he thought he was out of earshot of the terrible Billy and his matches. Somehow, he needed cheering up
Meanwhile, the fat man in his sleigh landed on the field, right next to the wooden stake that was still driven menacingly into the ground. Billy of the Big Belly slouched up to him.
"What have we here, squire?" he asked, clenching and unclenching his fists.
"Ho! Ho! Ho!" came the joyous reply.
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