The Pub Gardeners

By Jon Lymon

When AI steals away their careers in advertising, two desperate creatives, Darlington and Waverley, steal a van full of gardening equipment from the scene of their final ad shoot, and search for new meaning to their lives which, being English, means they head to the pub.

 

In the Dog & Duck they find a business on its knees, threatened with closure by a new, cheaper local venue that's stolen all their regulars away.

Seeing a mirror image of their own struggle in the dire situation the Dog & Duck's landlord is facing, Darlington and Waverley vow to help save the pub in any way they can, but soon find that in a lot of ways, they can't.

 

THE PUB GARDENERS highlights the negative impact AI is having on the lives and careers of creatives. It's the latest, and perhaps the most light-hearted Anti-AI story from the keyboard of Jon Lymon, a copywriter turned author who's determined to remove all AI from the creative arts, a world in which machines are most assuredly very unwelcome.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jon Lymon
• Release date: Apr 30, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224238989

Jon Lymon

The truth isn't stranger than my fiction.Jon Lymon writes thrillers for adults and cute animal stories for kids, though one day he might swap that around. He lives in south London and likes cheese, and biscuits. But not cheese and biscuits.

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Table of Contents

The Pub Gardeners

Camping 1

The Last Shoot 1

On The Road 1

The Last Shoot 2

On The Road 2

The Last Shoot 3

Penney’s 1

On The Road 3

The Last Shoot 4

The Dog and Duck 1

The Dog and Duck Pub Garden 1

The Dog and Duck 2

The Dog and Duck Car Park

The Dog and Duck 3

Penney’s 2

Penney’s Car Park

On The Road 4

The Dog & Duck 4

The Dog & Duck 5

The Dog & Duck 6

Penney’s 3

The Dog & Duck 7

The Pub Gardeners

© 2024 Jon Lymon

ALSO BY JON LYMON:

Novels:

The Diamond Rush

Last Night at the Stairways

The Wronged

A Dead Chick and Some Dirty Tricks

A Big Bluff and Some Green Stuff

A Killing Spree and Some Bloody Zombies

The Zombie Cop

Flying Ant Day

Last Writer Sitting / Only a Tool

Short Novels:

The Lace Partnership

The Ghost of Christmas Threeve

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The Pub Gardeners

This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the author’s consent.

The use of this text to train AI is strictly prohibited.

#CreateDontScrape  #INotAI  #SupportHumanArtists

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The Pub Gardeners

Camping 1

The barrel of a twin bore shotgun tapped the entrance to a haphazardly erected tent, causing Darlington to wake up inside with a start. After hastily gathering the majority of his bearings, the dishevelled twenty-nine year-old unzipped the canvas entrance and poked his head between the flaps. What he saw: a tall man with a fulsome, grey flecked beard in a Harris tweed cap holding what looked to Darlington like a thick stick.

You don’t want to camp here, the man said looking down at him disapprovingly, and using an accent that spoke of the southern English countryside, ploughman’s lunches and a fair bit of cider the night before. They’re shooting pheasant here today.

It’s ok. I’m not a pheasant, said Darlington, squinting in the bright light of day before withdrawing his head into the tent like a tortoise retreating into its shell.

What about your companion? The man with the stick raised his voice and Darlington poked his head out again.

Waverley? He’s not a pheasant either.

Darlington fully retreated into the tent and zipped up this time, immediately regretting it as the temperature inside was close to what might be expected in an active microwave oven, he and Waverley having pitched very late the previous night in a spot of field that had been in direct sunlight since sunrise which, it being June, occurred at about 4.45am.

Sweating like an armpit in a thick woollen jersey, Darlington watched the silhouette of the man with the stick trudge away, hoping to never see his like again.

Is it morning yet? Waverley asked groggily, lying beside him, fully submerged in his sleeping bag, save for his head poking out of the top like another tortoise out of a much flatter shell.

It’s close to afternoon, Wavers, said Darlington, having briefly activated his mobile phone and discovered 11:56 displayed on its screen before quickly turning it off again.

The events of the previous day flooded back into Darlington’s frazzled mind and he wished he could flush the recollections away, but they remained as obstinate as a turd the size of a baby’s arm blocking the U-bend.

We’ve got to make a plan, Wavers.

Plan, said Waverley, dreamily. I wish there was some way I could show her just how much I love her.

Not about her, us.

I can’t think about us right now, mate, I’m in love.

Yes, and not very subtle with it either. I’m sure the whole agency knows you’ve got the hots for her.

I’ve never met anyone like her.

That’s probably because she’s from the other side of the tracks. She lives in West London for heaven’s sake. In a million pound townhouse with her millionaire boyfriend. And her accent is pure money.

Waverley sighed. Her hair, her smell, her smile. Her eyes. If only I was the one with a million.

We are who we are, I’m afraid.

Waverley turned away from Darlington to face the canvas wall of the tent. I bloody hate what love does to a man. He punched the side, rocking the entire structure.

Then a crack of a gunshot shattered the silence.

What the...

They both sat bolt upright.

Wavers, I just realised, that bloke wasn’t holding a stick, it was a bloody gun.

What?

Double bore if I remember correctly.

So he could shoot both of us with one flick of the trigger?

Yes, I’d imagine one bullet goes one way and the other another.

Might he mistake us for pheasants? Waverley asked, his fear rapidly rising like the pheasants who’d been shocked out of their roosts by the gunshot.

Darlington pondered, arriving at another unwelcome conclusion. It’s worse than that. I’m not sure if he said pheasants or peasants.

The two shot out of their sleeping bags and scrambled out of the tent. Half dressed already, they completed the other half of the process in record time.

I hope you’re quicker at taking down tents than you are at putting them up, said Darlington, flapping as Waverley ripped their previous night’s accommodation out of the ground.

Waverley had the frame, pegs and canvas in the back of the gleaming white Volkswagen Crafter panel van before ten more gunshot cracks had a chance to echo off the surrounding grassy hills.

Packed and ready, Darlington afforded himself a moment to breathe in the fresh country air. Ahhh, smell that, Wavers, freedom.

The crack of another gunshot.

The great British countryside.

A series of gunshots.

Why are they slaughtering pheasants? Waverley asked. What’s a pheasant ever done to a man?

Tasted good with roast potatoes and seasonal vegetables on his plate, I’m afraid.

Waverley shook his head. They’re just birds minding their own.

Darlington placed a consoling hand on his friend’s shoulder. I’ve never eaten one if that’s any consolation, so I couldn’t tell you how great they taste.

What are we going to do? asked Waverley, looking at Darlington.

Let’s get in the van, have a drive and a little thinkies. Heads or tails?

Tails.

Tails it is, you’re driving first. Well done.

The Last Shoot 1

If a device had been present to measure it, Waverley’s blood pressure would have been off the scale. Like a dream come true, he found himself sitting in the back of a battery powered Uber beside Natasha Kidd, the Senior Account Manager from Duffle, McKinley and West, the advertising agency for whom Darlington and Waverley had been hired as a freelance creative team, Darlington the words man and Waverley pictures.

The vehicle was conveying them to a studio in Wimbledon, South London, where they were due to shoot scenes of three television advertisements. Idents to be precise. Conceptualised, designed, and written by Messrs Darlington and Waverley no less, a creative team of ten years’ standing.

The spots were promoting the services of a chain of garden centres in southern England and due to be broadcast on satellite and cable channels a few months hence as the world moved into the summer, a garden centre’s second busiest time of year (after Christmas).

Even though the clock had not yet struck seven in the morning, their car had hit traffic and was crawling as slowly as a beetle along the handle of a felled broom.

Natasha reached forward