Unleashed: The Reluctant Writer Series, #1

By rob radcliffe

Rob loves to rant, and then write it down and put those musings in silly little books. Here he does just that, keeping it light hearted and very un-PC as he battles and rants about the ever changing world in which he lives in. Never holding back, and always hoping to entertain, UNLEASHED covers his soul sappers (kids), and why Pets@Home refused to sell him a dog cage once they worked out it was actually for the children to "play in", indie-publishing, why parents should die early to give their kids a chance to enjoy their inheritance, and being single and approaching 40 in this digital age, as well as many more other day to day irritations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mr. Muse Publishing
• Release date: Mar 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215442470

Book preview

Ok then, I guess we should make a start…

Hi, my name is Rob and I will be your guide through this montage of scribbles. Hey, who knows, some of my scribbles might actually make sense, although don’t complain if they don’t, I tend to write late at night when the horribles (children) are asleep and I can finally breathe a sigh of relief and have a little time to myself.

So I guess I should tell you a little about myself, seen as we’re both here. Beats an awkward silence right?

I am a guy who, after getting suspended from school at fifteen years old and grounded until the end of time, decided (because I wasn’t allowed to watch TV, play on the computer, or even breathe very loud during my two week not holiday period from school), I would write a book. They say write what you know, and at fifteen all I knew was how to get suspended from school, so I went out on a limb and, shock horror, made shit up and wrote it down.

It went well. I’m not grounded anymore and I am still scribbling stuff down, always hoping it’ll be coherent enough to be understood.

A few years ago I published my debut novel Meat Market, and haven’t looked back from there really. There have been ups and downs within the past few years but I still love telling tales and hope you enjoy this collection of those ups and downs. Upon the release of Meat Market, I started out on an adventure, I became an indie published author with little clue what to do with my scribbles. I had a full time job, I was stuck in a rut with and two full time children who have and always will love to sap the soul from my very being.

Sometimes when I’d be in the middle of writing a novel I’d have had no words for the story I’d be working on, and this would drive me crazy.

‘Why don’t you write a blog?’ an author friend suggested while I was plagued with no word syndrome.

‘Because I don’t have anything to say about anything,’ was my response.

‘You write books, what do you put in them?’

He did have a point and after absolutely no research into blogging whatsoever I started writing bits, about my writing, about the kids, about my life, the stuff I wouldn’t put in my novels because it would have no place being there.

These short stories and rants have come sporadically over the last five years, (so this is why the ages of both me and the kids may yo-yo somewhat, this is why I’m single and then I’m not, and then I’m with a new beloved…it’s all over the show, a lot like my life half the time). I called myself The Reluctant Writer and got a bit of a following. Some of my readers scream out for me to write more about the life sappers (kids) but I write whatever comes. The following pages is a hand picked selection of those posts. I hope you enjoy.

So without further ado…that’s the end of the bit at the beginning, welcome to Unleashed!

Growing Up And Kids Of Today

I turn thirty five next year, so I suppose in outward appearance I do very much resemble that of a grown up. I have hair springing from places I wasn’t aware hair could grow, like the inch thick big black pube I found growing on my outer ear a few days ago. How long it had been there and at what point my body felt the need to sprout this unnecessary hair hero, is beyond me. Did that particular pin prick of skin get really cold one day and decide to fight back? Who knows.

Another thing I have noticed recently is my skin’s elasticity isn’t quite as boingy these days, and you only notice this when it’s fucked. Deep red lines like to stay on my face for some time if I’ve been laughing quite a lot, and more realistically for me, when say I frown because I’m concentrating (all my writing is done with my brow furrowed) I walk about the rest of the day looking like I’m searching for my next innocent victim to brutally murder.

Then of course there is the true testament of being a grown up and not just a kid with a beard, and that is grey hairs. Now, I have a strange relationship with my hair greying/whitening, in that I obviously don’t fucking like it, but it seems to like me. So much in fact that two years ago I had a bright white strip of old man hair in my beard which then decided, ‘well we shit him up there fellas, come on, let’s give the guy a break…for now,’ and turned back beard colour.

What the actual fuck?

I was always under the impression that if your hair lost it’s colour then that’s it, goodnight Vienna, but no not mine. They’re dicks which like to play tricks on me for shits and giggles. Yes I’ve a few strands of greys at my temple and a small patch of whites at the back of my head in a clump which resembles a bird shitting on me, but hey these are all the things which mean I can get served for beer without showing any ID right?

Outwardly I am very much a grown up, but I have a secret you see. In my head it feels like I’m getting away with something because I still feel fifteen years old. I am very much under the Peter Pan syndrome. Yeah sure, I can act grown up, but this is all it ever feels like it is, a big pretence. So much so that the last time I walked out of the supermarket with a pack of beers I actually said out loud to myself ‘got away with it again.’

I know. I’m in my mid-thirties and I feel like I’ve been granted this power to fool people into thinking I’m old enough to buy beer. It’s crazy and I’m sure I’m not alone. I blame not having a war to fight in or getting caned as a child by the teacher and then going home to face the belt buckle. Damn you society, going soft on us and raising men-children.

And this feeling is exclusive to men.

Girls still turn into women because girls get pregnant and then have to fire another human being out of their pee-pee (see what I mean?  Pee-pee?  Really?  I am a forever child). Yes, the act of childbirth and then motherhood does change a woman’s perception on the world. Not only do they have this little person to care for and nurture but now they have to come to terms with the fact their other half is not and probably never will be ready to be a MAN. Yes he can rub your back and contribute to the household and stuff, but still he’ll sulk when you tell him he can’t play on his X-box because he has to do the dishes. And still he’ll give himself a mental high-five when he gets served for beer at the shop at thirty four…or is that just me?

Woman do grow up and leave us in their wake but we are also grownups and now have children of our own who will look to us for advice inspiration, and model their behaviour on ours.

I’m a single dad with two beautiful children.

Sophie is six going on twenty-five and shouts at me to stop being a slob, tells me that I need to start getting dinner on otherwise she won’t have time for a shower before she goes to bed, and chastises me when I’m being immature.

‘Dad grow up will you,’ is a phrase frequently heard when she wants to play on her tablet and I am covering the screen with my hand, tickling her face, or burping in her ear.

Then there is little Robin, my three year old who I am relying upon to carry the Radcliffe name into infinity. He is just leaving the baby phase in my eyes and has become self-aware which is not cute in the slightest because he will now question and then disagree with every decision I make on his behalf like what he is eating for breakfast or when it is time for bed.

One day my little man will grow up to be a man-child too (unless I send him off to war and whip him with my belt) and then he will understand completely that when I hide behind the living room door for twenty minutes waiting for him to come downstairs so that I can jump out at him and make him cry, it is not because I want to see the tears, it is because I am really just a child still myself masquerading as a grown up.

I’ll end these thoughts on a completely true story which happened to me today.

With no kids to get up for this morning I was looking forward to a bit of a lie in, so imagine my dismay when I was woken to a high pitch beeping at 6 am.

Had I set an alarm I’d forgotten about?

Was there a fire and that beeping was actually the fire alarm telling me to get the fuck up and out of the house?

No it was my phone, and as I opened my eyes and looked at the screen I saw that Tom really needed the toilet.

Now I have no friends called Tom so I was interested, not just in who this person was, but why they felt the need to tell me they really needed to go to the loo. Opening up my phone I was met with a picture of a grey cat holding it’s privates and withering about on the spot.

Was I still dreaming?

If so why was I dreaming of this, bit weird right?

On further investigation I discovered that no, I was not dreaming, and Tom was actually part of a game of some sort my daughter had downloaded on my phone and it now really needed to go to the toilet as mentioned.

When I was six I played Mario and Sonic the hedgehog, but now taking imaginary animals (because Sonic was in no way imaginary) to the toilet is what these crazy kid games are all about. To stop the phone beeping I was forced into the game where…sigh…at 6am on a Sunday morning I found myself watching Tom the cat stood up pissing into a toilet. Half way through he looked back over his shoulder and winked at me. Why this action needed to be incorporated I have no idea but we finished, I didn’t have to wipe anything which I’m thankful for, and then I dropped my phone and was planning a bit more sleep.

Beep.

Guess who.

The little fucker was hungry now and it was up to me to feed it an array of different foods ranging from roast chicken to vanilla cheesecake, for breakfast.

So not only did I have to take this little shit to the toilet, I now had to feed it non-breakfasty food for breakfast. What is this teaching my children? That if you bug me for long enough and continuously beep then you will get whatever it is you please?

Anyway, horrified and now awake I’ve decided to get up for the day and make some breakfast myself…that chocolate fudge cake in the fridge needs eating, oh and I think I’ve some rocky road ice cream in the freezer. Result!

Beep.

Oh god what does he want now? I've happened upon my very own digital life sapper while the kids are away.

It can fuck off if it thinks I'm dressing it.  It's a bloody cat!

No More Pocket Money At 35

Do you remember when you were a kid? When the days were long and full of adventure, when you’d have jam butties (sandwiches) for tea (dinner/supper depending where in the world you’re from) and the school holidays seemed to take forever to come around and then passed in the blink of an eye. Do you remember?

Do you recall what it was like living in the house you grew up in? You had your bedroom which was your sanctuary, no fucker could touch you. It was your little piece of privacy which, for the lads at least, hitting puberty and wanking like chimps, made it a very special place indeed. That knock on the door would give you enough time to abort mission, pull your pants up and pretend you were dusting or something before being caught cock in hand to the horror of your parent who was only braving to enter the sweat pit because they had run out of plates downstairs now you had piled them all up on the side in your room after a month of eating tea in the hovel/sanctuary/ wank pit.

I remember this and a thousand other happy memories (I never got caught, I had my abort procedure down to a fine art), but this was some twenty years ago for me and I guess you grow up, it’s either that or die young but I never did that so grow up I did. I pissed about for a few years, barely recalling my early to mid-twenties because I was in my early to mid-twenties and so I was perpetually pissed. The law of averages caught up with me and I duffed someone up the oven…no, that’s not right, but yeah she was pregnant and so my pissed up fun had to stop.

Monogamy ensued and then too a baby neither of us had a clue what to do with. She didn’t die either so we must have done something right, and then the arguments began. A young family, her with the baby blues, me with only the frequent day dreams of sleep keeping me going. Life was rubbish but it was also enchanting because of our daughter, the most beautiful little sick and shit producer you’d ever seen.

More fights and then this tired boy was thrown out of the house, told I’d never see my daughter again, see you in court, you never loved us anyway…the usual spiel…and then I ended up back at home, mum and dad’s, the place I had left many moons ago so that I might wank like a chimp in whichever room takes my fancy and not have to worry about the knock of doom on the door ruining my day. There were of course other reasons for me flying the coop (baby on the way, time to grow the fuck up Rob, you’ve got responsibilities now, the usual).

Being back home was strange.

I wasn’t a child anymore.

I had a child of my own, one I wasn’t allowed to see sure, but still, I was a grown up and I had the nine-month-old little girl to prove it. And then in a shock twist of fate that little girl ended up in my care while the ex and I slogged it