Good news, Dear Reader! Underdog Anthology XI: Tales From Loch Doon will be published in time for Beltane…

*Me either, Clicky… /lights up… Leggy’s had… /drags… an ‘ell of a year so far… /plumes smoke… Still, we’re nearly there…*

… It features 14 stories from 9 authors and each is a little cracker…

*Nah, we missed the Easter deadline this year, Clicky, wot with one thing or another…*

… And to get us in the mood, the Afterword, with mutilated poem by a dead poet, is reproduced, below…

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Afterword

by Roo B. Doo

2019 was generally considered a whacked out, fucked up and completely bonkers year, Dear Reader. Then 2020 arrived with a polite request to ‘Hold my-‘

*Clicky! There’s no gifs in the book… /flicks ash…*

Today is Easter Monday and, as I write, the majority of the global population are locked in their homes, patiently waiting for curves to flatten and Coronavirus cures to be found, so that they get out and get on their normal lives. Currently there is no end in sight.

Hopefully we’ll still be around for ‘Underdog Anthology XII’, due out in October, but in the meantime, Leg Iron Books have generously slashed the price of its Kindle offerings to 99p/99c, so there is no need to be bored. COVID-19 is a novel virus, doncha know 😉

Leg Iron Books

Now for some more butchering…

Beloved children’s author A.A. Milne authored the Winnie-the-Pooh books. The Public school, which his father ran and where little Alan Alexander grew up, employed H.G. Wells as a teacher. Herbert George famously wrote the novel ‘War Of The Worlds’ in which a thriving population was wiped out by a microorganism. If you’re not at all familiar with that story, then apologies for the spoiler.

*Cut it out, Clicky… /rolls eyes…*

Fortunately, A.A. Milne was also a poet and now joins the ranks of Shakespeare, Blake, Lazarus et al. on the slab of an Underdog Anthology Dead Poets page, with a mutilation of his children’s verse ‘Now We Are Six’. It lends itself rather well to the current times…

Now We Are Sick

When it was One,
It had just begun.
When it was Two,
It was Wuhan Flu.
When it was Three
People start to flee.
When it was Four,
Italy at death’s door.
When it was Five,
Boris is alive!
But now we are sick,
Locked down and Covid-clever,
So I think we’ll be sick now for ever and ever.

Keep well, Dear Reader, and if you can’t free your body, then free your mind.

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Have a Song, Dear Reader… ❤