Eagle rides Horse.

I'd just like to thank everyone for their kind words about the below extract from Tears of a Duke. The cards, letters and phonecalls have really warmed my heart. I received so many comments on the entry (all but one of them positive - fuck you Craig), that there was some kind of glitch with the Blogger site, and it's actually showing as zero comments. When in fact there were comments. Loads of them. Not none. I definitely received some comments. It may not seem like it, but I did.

For everyone who has been hammering on my door asking when the next instalment will be posted, I can only say: wait and see. Before long, you will revisit the fantastical world of Edna, like so many shell-shocked war-children trying to force their way through the back of a wardrobe - all splintered and bloody.

***

I've been trying to think of a new version of rock-paper-scissors.

It's not a very good game, because paper is rubbish. Paper covers rock? So fucking what. I'd rather live in a rock-house than a paper-house. Also, as Lucy has pointed out, rock doesn't blunt scissors, it sharpens them.

At my school we played rock-bomb-scissors. That's really true. Did anyone else play it?

The hand-signal for bomb is basically a thumbs-up (the thumb is the fuse). Bomb blows up rock. Scissors cuts the fuse.

It's better. But not perfect.

My version is perfect. And here it is:

Horse, Eagle, Bigger Horse

Eagle rides Horse.

Bigger Horse eats Eagle.

Horse acts as advisor to Bigger Horse, stabbing it in the night.

Once again, Lucy (Little Miss Practical) has raised objections, saying that it will be difficult to differentiate the hand signal for 'Horse' from 'Bigger Horse'. It might work if you have one hand bigger than the other. But when playing the game, your opponent would be able to tell what you were going to do by what hand you extended.

In any event, it's an improvement.

It certainly surpasses my original idea: rock, paper, wasp.

That was just stupid.