Bad News

By Francis Skelton

If Richard Linklater's movie "Boyhood" is a window to an alternate take on modern life, Francis Skelton's "Bad News" throws the corpse of a tabloid journalist, pocket full of fifties in a gimp suit, through that window. What starts as a little current affairs section on his website, late in 2003, launches Skelton on a righteous crusade, a tirade of passion and laughter, that mutates into his second novel, "Bad News".
And "Bad News" is News like no other, with headlines like: “Britain says NO to Sky Marshals"-"Media Machine Gun"-"Detention Lite"-"Cat Killer". Readers describe Skelton's first novel "Untitled" as "Blistering", "Wickedly funny and achingly sad", "Passion, energy, wit, commitment and insight" (Irvine Welsh). And "Bad News" offers the same emotional velocity. As Skelton puts it, "If I can give even one person insight into experiences that help them critically assess and improve their own life, take a chance to be happy, I will have done what I set out to do." That person could be you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781326262082

Book preview

Copyright © Francis Skelton 2015

First published in 2015 by www.skeltonshead.com

ePub Version 2015

The moral right of the author has been asserted

All characters and events in this publication, other

than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious

and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead,

is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced for circulation nor otherwise circulated, copied and stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission in writing of the publisher.

Contact: [e-mail]

To read original content by Francis Skelton, please visit www.skeltonshead.com

Well. There's good news and bad news.

Well. There's good news and bad news.

The good news is that some of this, that you are about to read, is fictional. Some of it has been made up; fictionalised and narrativised for artistic effect.

That's the good news.

"How clear everything becomes

How clear everything becomes when you look from the darkness of a dungeon.

Umberto Eco , Foucault Pendulum (1988)

We are sitting in front of the old computer at our Headquarters: the new, big computer has been acting funny; Terry says he will look at it later.

It's just before Christmas, in the year of our lord two thousand and three.

I feel my most anxious at this time of year. You see it is around this time that I realise that the festivities will soon commence in earnest and I will not be able to do any writing or development for about a month. My anxiety around this is usually heightened by the fact that I spend much of the Christmasy months just a little bit hung over (Okay. Sometimes a lot). Post alcoholic guilt reminds me that another year is almost over, and yet again, look at all of the things that I haven't done, all of the things I haven't finished. So that is why Terry and Ed have forced me to do what we are doing.

Also, it's Saturday morning, and I am in that state that I have just describe ( A lot) .

We have had to do this today as Terry is going back to the Colonies for Christmas and Ed is also going off to stay with his parents.

Okay Francis, so here we have Skelton's Head: www.skeltonshead.com. Terry starts to click through the pages. You've got your extract from Untitled. He clicks again, You've got..fucking..Who the fuck Am I..profile page, (the hardest coding I had ever done at this stage), And you've got your fucking crazy Rants.

Yes.

Well.  They're pretty awesome....but it's not that much...content-wise.

Fucking hell, Terry, cheers!

No..what I mean..

Don't you think I've worked hard enough on this?

Ed tries to chip in, Er, I don't think Terry meant..

No, ya Cant. What I mean is, you want something that you regularly update..

What do you mean? Like a blog?

Well..

I don't want to do a blog..I'm not interested in a fucking blog..they aren't..pretty enough..I want good stuff.. I pause, frustrated (and too hot). They get ready for it.

You know..Beautiful Fucking Art!

We all laugh.

Yeah, but the Beauty takes time.

You betcha.

Terry smiles.

You need something that is easier...like a blog.

I get up and look out of the window. There is a pause. They wait.

No. Too dull..needs to be focused.

Terry turns his head towards me.

But you need something that you can regularly update...if you don't.....

You know I love you for all of the absolutely critical help you have given me, Techi, but remember this is my..

If you don't! People will stop coming back....

Nobody says anything.

And you will be fucked..

We stay silent.

Ed is waiting for me to kick off.

I turn to Terry, about to speak. Unknown to me, as is often the case, I am gritting my teeth. Ed is visibly wincing. I pretend not to notice this, but it does make me pause for thought: be constructive, asshole. I ponder. So then I say, Well. I did have an idea.

Yeah?

I was thinking about...something along the lines of..well, like Rant, but more immediate.

Waddaya mean, Mate?

Like a commentary.

On what?

(Please Note: Ed was much less vocal in these early days.)

Like..about current events..you know, The News,.....like another view of the The News..like other people's views of what is going on.

Like who's views?

Like your views, Like Ed's views.  Like the ideas of real people.

Well, that sounds like...

Yes, that will do.  I will have something for you by the time you come back.

So what do you want to..

Leave it with me, eh?

So what will we..

I think that's enough for today.

"Everything we hear is an opinion

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (180)

So it has started. It's pre-Christmas. It's the first of the nights out. Well in fact, to be accurate, day and nights out, as we started at three. It's around 7 o'clock now and most of them have gone home. So we are sitting in this empty little annex of this pub on the Quayside. It's weird, it's like fake Dickensian. Can't remember what it's called.

And so.....

......But you know, I get so annoyed by alla this shite.

Waddaya mean.

Alla this shite on the telly, in the paper, in the news.

Waddaya mean?

You know...fucking....er......adverts!  Alla the adverts.  You need to buy this new hair gel, You need anti-ageing cream, Try this new coffee maker.

Waddaya on about, man?

Well do you? Do you need a fucking sixty pound coffee maker? Do you need anti-ageing cream? Does it even work?

Ha ha ha.  You're a fucking nutter, yee.  Wha' are ye on about?

You know! It's just... I take another big swig.  ...the fucking bullshit we are always getting bombarded with!  It's fucking everywhere.  I feel I have got something now.  Look around here, even in the pub, I gesture towards the bar, pictures on the wall, Adverts everywhere.

So what though?

So what?..  I pause.  There is something there.  At the back of my mind.  Something that is like an itch I can't scratch.  But then..

Why are we being told this shit?

Why? Don't be stupid. So we buy things.

Yeah, but... I am struggling here. (I have had a little to drink). But...Yeah but who says we are interested in this message? Who has decided that this information is the priority?

Ha ha ha. The cunts who are trying to sell you all of this shit!

But why is there so much?  It's everywhere.  All of the time.  You can't get away from it.

We sit quietly for a moment; straining to focus on processing.

Hey, you know, that's not wrong.  It is fucking everywhere you look!

Yeah!

Whatsisname, er....Gore Vidal says something about this...in that...the thing I was reading...er...

Which one?

The, er, something about a club...er..you know..I told you about it.

Oh yeah...er...something from The Club...

A View from the Diner's Club!

That'll be it.

Yeah. Er. What was I saying?

Gore Vidal said something..

Oh yeah..it was something like Corporations have got a total grip on all of the media...and no other opinions is ever heard. and something about no objectivity or dissent.

That's the sort of thing I mean.  Exactly.  What we get told in the papers and on the telly. Well who are these people that are telling us this, and why are they telling us this? I don't know them. And why do we trust them?

Well we don't. Do you?

No.  But you're missing the point.  We can't escape from this. I've got it now, you know.  Maybe I don't realise it, but the idea is taking shape in my slightly(?) drink addled head.

Really, to get around this onslaught we need to get opinions from sources we can trust.

What do you mean?  I'm not really in this conversation anymore, I am away with this idea.

People.

People?

Yes, other people.

What People?

We need to listen to people's opinions, what they have to say.

The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity – much less dissent.

Gore Vidal, A View from the Diner's Club (1991)

"It is precisely facts that do not exist

It is precisely facts that do not exist, only interpretations.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Notebooks (1888)

We had just finished watching '28 Days Later'.

No, I think the whole thing was deeply existential.

Hee hee hee.  Most people would say it was a zombie movie.

He wakes up alone, with no-one around him, and we, like him, have no idea what is going on, no idea what has happened before, no notion of the context.

Ah, yes.  Like the beginning of. Ossessione.

Why yes. Good call.

At the beginning of Ossessione he even arrives in the back of the truck in the foetal position...was he like that in this?

Don't recall, but there is parity. I would argue this film runs the whole gamut of primal human experience. Developing relationships, burgeoning trust earned from experience, boundaries and extremities of human conduct..

Yes, and the final climax, an existential one, of how far one might have to go to defeat evil.

Yes.  Very well done, Mr Danny Boyle.

Yes, smart work!

Talking about 'smart work', you were saying?

Yes. So, I was a bit pissed up, but what I was saying to him was along the lines that all of the information around us is feed to us deliberately.

Well, come on Francis. That is too obvious.  There is no revelation there.

No, no, that's not fair.  It's not obvious to most people.

Only if they are knuckle dragging clods.

Don't be such an elitist.  Do you think most people are sitting around analysing all of the information they receive?  Most people aren't even conscious of the fact that they are being bombarded.

Yes, touché.  It does get to us subliminally, in the flashes of the Ad break, at the bottom of each newspaper page, from the corner of the eye.

So, my thinking, as you say, is that information is overly directed, controlled and always delivered with a purpose....

Yes, a commercial or political purpose....

Okay. But I don't believe that people are generally conscious of this and I think it would be interesting, insightful and liberating to actual ask other people to say what they think of what is going on. What their take is on what they read in the newspapers, TV, the radio, wherever.

Really?  And who are you going to ask?

Anyone.

Each day a few more lies eat into the seed with which we are born, little institutional lies from the print of newspapers, the shock waves of television, and the sentimental cheats of the movie screen.

Norman Mailer, Advertisements for Myself (1959)

"If you would be a real seeker after truth,

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.

Rene Descartes, Principia philosophiae (1644)

Still not quite Christmas.

You know I, like many other people, have to eat. Also, I like people. As a result of this I find