The rabbit, Warren.

The king of all rabbits, King Flopsy the third
Sat on his throne watched by the herd
He yawned and he lifted a kit by his scut
Said "I name this rabbit Fluffy" and kissed his left foot

He handed each child back to it's mother
Who stepped away smiling, replaced by another
More and more children, his day had dragged on
Then a buck with a book said, "Sir, here's the last one"

He held up the kitten but, for the first time
As hard as he tried, no name came to mind
Each that he thought of he'd given before
He'd used all the names, there weren't any more

Flopper and Tufty and Cotton-tail Jill
Fluffy and Bunny and  Lop-eared Bill
Bella and Topper, Tufty, Snowball
He had no more names, he'd now used them all

He looked left and right and up and around
Until, suddenly, inspiration he found
He smiled at the mother who'd brought him her son
And announced to the world, "I'll name him Warren"

The king of all rabbits made his way through the crowd
As the does did their curtsies and the bucks bowed their bows
And the trumpeter sounded the royal fanfare
Leaving young Warren's mother just stood standing there

Now, young Warren's mother wasn't best pleased
She thought that her son would be mercilessly teased
With a name so outlandish what would others say?
So she spoke to the book buck about her dismay

"But Mrs. McFluffykins, I can't change his name
The king, he has spoken, the name must remain
I've written it down in my book, anyway
And I've not got a rubber on my pencil today"

Kits are like kids, they can't half be horrid
But Mrs. McFluffykins needn't have worried
The others did tease him, though he teased them back
Along with his best friend, a rabbit named Jack

And it didn't last long, before many years
Warren became the kit known as "big ears"
An insult to some, but not to this bunny
Water off a duck's back, he thought it was funny

Warren grew quickly and Warren grew strong
And grew into those ears before very long
Handsome and smart, quick of wit and of mind
Both caring and strong and above all else kind

Then came the day that the old king did die
All the bucks, does and kits in the kingdom did cry
Then, once the old king was placed in his crypt
A new King of all Rabbits had to be picked

The contest was held in the time honoured way
On the top of the hill on the first day of May
The oldest and wisest doe held aloft a stopwatch
And began the contest with "Ready, steady, HOPSCOTCH!"

Thousands of rabbits set off down the hill
Leaping and bounding and racing until
Just the two fastest were left in the race
Hopping and scotching and red in the face

Neck and neck as they neared the finish
Warren and a buck by the name of Spinach
But just as they were about to cross
The line poor Spinach trod on a wasp

He shrieked and tumbled to the ground
Tears in his eyes as he rolled all around
A one rabbit race now that Spinach had fallen
Warren must win, even if he were crawling

But, no, he stopped short, turned around an returned
To the rabbit now sobbing as his poor, stung foot burned
He smiled as he crouched down beside the poor buck
And said "Here was I thinking our feet were good luck"

He put vinegar on Spinach's wound and checked the wasp was okay
Then helped the stricken buck to his feet and was cheered upon his way
When finally had Warren crossed the finishing line
He'd spent so long being kind he was a hundred and eighty ninth

The wise, old doe that held the stopwatch
Met the pair at the line and exclaimed "That was top notch!
You'd already proven yourself the most fast
But the King of All Rabbits needs far more than that"

The trumpeters fanfare filled the air
As the buck with the book stepped forth and declared
"The race has been run and the new king selected
Now let's have a party, get the marquee erected"

You've never partied 'til you've partied rabbit style
The conga alone was over a mile
The carrot cake was delightfully light
A jamboree running right through the night

The new king slept with his crown on his head
Yawning and tucked safe in his royal bed
So proud of himself that he felt he might burst
The King of All Rabbits, King Warren the First

J2H.

The foul chicken.

Racing 'cross meadows and forests and streams

Chasing away the dark and our dreams

The warm, golden fingers of the morning's new sun

Telling the chicken the day had begun

He fluttered his feathers and puffed out his chest

Perched on the gatepost, his back to the west

And signalled the start of a day that was new

With a hearty cock-a-doodle, a-doodle-cock-do

His day's toil over, his job being a doddle

He went down to where the ducks quacked, flapped and waddled

He strutted and clucked his way through the crowd

Of ducks gathered there and announced rather loud

"There's a pond needs be swum in and quacks to be quacked

Now get to work or I'll see you all sacked"

The same every morning, he'd appear with his frown

Squawking his orders and making ducks down

He bullied the cows, was a swine to the pigs

Got on nanny's goat and upset her kids

He scared all the lambs by shouting "mint sauce!"

Then went to the paddock and sat on the horse

Watching and waiting for that moment when

He'd catch a glimpse of that lovely, plump hen

The one that he'd fallen for, hook, line and sinker

Who just couldn't stand him, who thought him a stinker!

He saw her and called out, "cock-a-yoohoo"

But she just called back "Can't stop, things to do"

The horse looked around at the bird on his bum

And said "Tell me, chum, why you looking so glum?"

The chicken didn't answer, just stared hard and long

"What's up?" Asked the horse, "Did the cat take your tongue?"

"Oh my word," The chicken did squawk

"I had no idea that horses could talk?"

Now, the horse had been horsing around and about

Long before the proud rooster had cracked his way out

Of the egg that his mother had laid on the floor

Older and wiser, he'd seen it before

"Go on then, old timer", the chicken enquired

"She really should like me, I'm cock of the yard!"

The old horse just snorted, "If you want my advice

Learn to be nice or she'll never look twice"

He thought it a long shot, but well worth a try

Tomorrow he'd be a far nicer guy

That night he slept with a smile on his bill

And woke as the sun rose from behind the hill

He knocked on the door of the farmer's old house

Then whistled and wandered over to the little duck-house

Popped his head through the door and called quietly

"Cock-a-doodle-doodle, a-doodle-cock-dee"

All that day long he kept a smile on his beak

And took extra time to stop and to speak

With every farm animal, the great and the small

He smiled and was pleasant to one and to all

Silly songs he sang and silly jokes he told

All about chickens crossing a road

He'd struggled at first, he'd have to admit

But by that afternoon he'd got the hang of it

He went back to see his new friend, the old nag

Who stood in the field with his nose in a bag

"I did it, I've managed to be nice all day"

"That's great" said the horse as he munched on his hay

"And was she impressed with the new, nicer you?"

The chicken said "Impressed?  Impressed with me who?"

So busy being nice to the pigs in the pen

He'd forgotten all about the lovely, plump hen

A voice from behind, "cluck cluck cluck cooee

I'd heard you'd be here, waiting for me"

He stammered and stuttered, his cheeks flushing red

Lost for words, he nodded his head

"There's a barn dance tonight, I hear you'd like to go"

"I'd love to", Said the chicken, "but how did you know?

A cough from the horse, he looked over his shoulder

The horse smiled and said, "It was me who told her"

The barn didn't dance, but the barn-dance was great

The cock and the hen danced until late

They giggled and laughed as he walked his date home

He said he liked her eyes, she said she liked his comb

Then she said goodnight with a peck on the cheek

And ensured his new smile would last for a week

The cock of the yard strutted home to his bed

And dreamed of the chicken that one day he'd wed

The farmer's far happier with his new alarm call

As are the cows, the pigs, lambs and all

Each morning's now lovely if you're a duck

And, after a while, the chicken's smile stuck

Now older and wiser, each morning he wakes

And sets off for work as each new dawn breaks

A peck on the beak as he walks out the door

The cock of the yard, foul fowl no more.

J2H.

Games without frontiers.

Playing a game, we're playing a game

He'd told me when the day to leave came

And so began our epic fun

Just me and my daddy on the run

He smiled and he joked as we walked through the night

He promised me soon that all would be right

We talked as we walked and we walked as we talked

Until meeting a van where the dusty road forked

We clambered within and joined playmates new

Who shared with us water and laughter and food

Songs sung and chats chatted along the ride

'Til we finally arrived at the windy seaside

To the boats for our final intrepid expedition

Just this one more peril upon our mission

To leave behind those sandy shores

And find a brave, new world to explore

Smiling and laughing as dad held my hand

We set off for the promised land

We're nearly there, he promised me

As he pushed my boat out into the sea

He and two others clung to the back and paddled the boat with their feet

As I sat with new brothers and a half dozen others and dreamed of the food I would eat

When finally at the end of dad's game I could stop and take a rest

Maybe watch some Sponge-Bob and fall asleep with my head upon his chest

Our little boat was tossed left and right

Giving me and the others a terrible fright

But I'd worried not when that last great wave came

Because, after all, this was only a game

As that wave struck I was tossed from the boat

And salty water filled my throat

Playing a game, just playing a game

Though the deep, briny sea took my life all the same

J2H.

J2H does... Why do men have those?

There's just no point me trotting out my usual apology for these any more, it's becoming less and less sincere.

"Why do men have those?" 

on Audioboom and YouTube.

Why do men have those?

It's true when they say what a difference a single day can make

We had the phone cut off last week but tonight we're eating steak

The arse is hanging out of my jeans and my goldfish, Bobby, drowned

But I found a tenner in these old jeans and a pound upon the ground

So up the road and into town I wandered all alone

Some nice, thick steaks from the butcher's shop and I treated the dogs to a bone

A bag of spuds to go with the meat and my pocket again held nowt

Then slowly home with a smile on my face to find I'd locked myself out

I sat on the wall at the front of my house awaiting Patty's return

I filled my pipe and settled back as the baccy began to burn

I took a puff and looked around both down and up the street

And at my watch and at my phone, then down at my aching feet

Tatty and scuffed with a hole in the sole that my big toe was peeping through

Laces frayed and mismatched socks and I'd stepped in some dog shit too

On hands and knees by a patch of grass picking out shit with a stick

Effing and Jeffing and cursing my luck and feeling a bit of a dick

A shadow fell across the ground where I crouched and muttered my mutter

Then a voice from behind that startled me, "Get out of the fucking gutter"

There she stood above me, made up like a whore and fake tanned

A fag dangling from the side of her gob and a half eaten pie in her hand

She coughed and burped and giggled, then asked me for a light

And sniffed the air and wrinkled her nose and said "Can you smell shite?"

I held aloft my shitty stick and wafted it around

"I use it to beat the ladies off" I explained, but she just frowned

A brief exchange on the pavement by the road on which we live

Revealed she'd not got her key either, though only I was a "div"

Around the back and through the gate, we stood in our own back yard

And spied the window high above that we'd stupidly left ajar

I stripped to the waist and shimmied on up the drain pipe that led to the roof

A task I'd last attempted many years back in my youth

Back when it was muscle, not flubber, that made my manly chest ripple

I'd almost got myself half in when I trapped my fucking nipple

She laughed so much she started to choke upon her fag

Spluttering pie crust and streaming eyes and rifling through her bag

She wanted her phone to take a pic of my dangling, shit soiled feet

To use along with some childish abuse and share with the world in a Tweet

The laughter stopped quite suddenly, replaced with a nervous giggle

"Any chance of a spot of help" I called, continuing to wriggle

No answer from the Dickfingered one, just deathly quiet below

"Hello" I called, "are you still there?" expecting the answer "no"

I craned my neck and looked around

To where she stood upon the ground

Holding aloft a bunch of keys

And saying "Oh look, I did have these"

A prick, a dick, a knob and much more

I called her as she went and unlocked the door

She called back to me "If you want help, Twohats...

...you'd better be nice and stop being a twat"

Now, I'm a nice guy, of that I am sure

But I've a stronger trait that comes to the fore

See that streak in my beard that you all think is grey

Is a streak of pure stubborn that I'm sure one day

Will lead to my untimely death

When I've cut off my own nose to save my own breath

"Bollocks to her" I thought and, lo

I closed my eyes and just let go

She said it was quite comical, the look upon my face

When I'd slipped from sight beneath the sill as downward I did race

She'd only just exploded in through the flimsy door

Then had to turn and run back down the bloody stairs once more

"Are you okay?" She asked of me, lay crumpled by the wall

"Absolutely splendid, the gravel broke my fall"

"So why are you crying?" She asked, now looming over me

"The rest of my fucking nipple's up there and I think I did a wee"

Bruised and bashed and feeling blue

And forgetting about the state of my shoe

I winced and limped in through the door

And traipsed across the kitchen floor

Took my seat upon the couch

Uttering noises like "oof" and "ouch"

Then from the kitchen an almighty din

"There's shit on your shoe and you've trodden it in!"

That day's now over, I'm happy to say

Though the bruise on my arse hasn't yet gone away

And my nipple is still unusually long

My own fault for thinking that I was King Kong

If I learnt one lesson it has to be that

Climbing through windows is best left for a cat

It wasn't a day I'd want to live twice

But the important thing is that our steaks were dead nice

J2H.

J2H and Patty do... Ending

Another, sorry. Thing is, I've gone all anthropomorphic about my stories that rhyme, I don't want any of them to feel left out. 

"Ending." 

on Audioboom and YouTube.

Cracking views.

The town I live in was, and remains, one of my favourite places. I fell in love with the area whilst working here in the middle of the noughties. Great people, nice pubs, pretty churches and some of the most amazing scenery this side of the Lake district.

But my house is a right shit-hole.

Riddled with black mold, not one single operable internal door and with missing floorboards that the landlord has had carpeted over, creating a series of ankle-snapping, mini tiger-pit style hazards to give each nocturnal trek to our outside lavatory that "crossing a minefield" vibe, it is truly a home to be thoroughly ashamed of. On the rare occasion we allow people to visit our squalid habitat they are restricted to the living room, the only room in the property that is free from the cough-inducing fungal spores that have left me unable to climb a flight of stairs without sounding like an Asthmatic mule.

Someone once asked if they could use our toilet. The horrified "NO" both Dickfingers and I screamed in unison led to the lady in question hurriedly departing with a look of abject horror on her face.

Still, when I cast aside the bedroom curtains in the morning I am greeted with a thing of beauty. The magnificent Rivington with it's gardens, follies, lakes and streams. It's dense woodland, it's grazing animals, it's viridescent morning glory. I'm looking out on natures majesty while the neighbours look in on my moldy bedroom and me, scratching my arse.

When the sun is at just the right angle I see it's silvery rays blinking at me from the choppy waters of the huge reservoirs that lie to the left of my vista. The reservoirs supply water to those further downhill, towards the Irish sea. Towns, cities and villages many miles from here, all the way to the coast. The drinkers of the water I see glinting in the distance are people I've never known and never will. Folk that have never heard of the town I live in, that don't realise that they're occasionally sipping on a glass of delicious, Lancastrian water that, relatively recently, flowed around my dogs' ankles as they frolicked on the beach I like to take them to. I get to look out from poverty and see beauty, it's by far the best way round.

Things were very much the other way round when I was a child. A huge chunk of my formative years was spent in Salford and surrounded by dereliction, demolition and development. The terraced houses and small factories that surrounded my father's grand looking pub were derelict when he bought the place, were levelled a year or so later and were, over the remainder of our first decade living there, redeveloped into modern council housing with gardens and curvy cul-de-sacs along with a sprawling industrial estate that would eventually merge with the docks and become the Quays and, latterly, Media City.

I would cast open my curtains in the morning and be greeted by slate-less roofs, piles of rubble or cranes and heavy machinery. Dust, dirt, and destruction all around. But I was a small boy, and later a youth, who had seen nature and it's beauty in the past and to whom all this urban decay was as beautiful as it was fascinating. A very different beauty to Rivington and not a beauty many would appreciate, but great beauty nonetheless.

The houses that sprang up around our pub were lovely, the council tenants that were re-housed there considered themselves to be very lucky, until they began to move in.

Once a few dozen houses were inhabited it was discovered that the ageing water supply which had previously been enough to supply the outside lavs (Yes, they still had outside lavs in the 80s, thank god we've moved on) and Belfast kitchen sinks of the area were in no way sufficient to feed the indoor toilets, kitchen sinks, washing machines, showers and baths of these palatial new properties. At some point something subterranean gave way, the topography having been in some unforeseen and unforeseeable way affected by the mass excavations and erections taking place all around. The water turned green and it had insects in it.

The council turned up with hard hats and clipboards.

"Hmmm," Hummed one official, "that doesn't look right."

And right it was not. We were advised it was okay to bathe in, but for fuck's sake don't drink it. My father rubbed his hands and rejoiced.

The men of the area had an excuse to go to the pub and if ever an excuse was abused it was this one. In those days children weren't allowed in licensed establishments (quite bloody rightly) and so large, wooden tables were purchased and placed on the waste ground by the pub. Et voila, the family friendly beer garden had arrived in sunny Salford, sandwiched between the main road into Manchester and the semi-constructed M602. My dad was coining it in.

Then came the bowsers.

The new housing was split into several, small estates. The water board (Those two words have taken on a very different meaning in the years since United Utilities were formed) began delivering huge storage tanks on wheels, bowsers, filled with drinking water. One was delivered to each small estate and mothers and children began ferrying water home as fathers glumly ordered one for the road.

I swear there was a tear in my father's eye as he watched the happy people fill up their pails from the bowser on his new beer garden. Until then, I'd not realised how caring my old man was.

A day or two later one of the lovely, new, beer garden tables went missing. Coincidentally, at about the same time, one of the new houses over which my bedroom window looked acquired a similar table in the back garden. There followed some enquiries, accusations and denials after which punches were both thrown and landed before the matter was eventually settled out of court.

Now, the children of the family that had returned our table were what I am choosing to call "urchins". Two boys and a girl, the eldest three years the youngest's elder, with Midwich Cuckoos blond locks and surly, snotty expressions. Many a morning I would see them, as I gazed out of my bedroom window whilst performing those bone-popping, yawny stretches that teenagers do so well, harmlessly breaking into empty properties, whimsically spray-painting racist abuse onto the wall of the corner shop or playfully kicking a dead rat around.

The morning after the return of the table I drew open my curtains and gazed out. There they were, the urchins, playfully standing atop the bowser and taking it in turns to piss in it. Even the little girl. The elder of the two boys spotted me watching them perform their morning ablutions and greeted me with two fingers and a cheery "fuck off" before the three of them ran gleefully back home.

I scratched my arse and continued to watch. As they approached their own front door they realised their mistake when their mother passed them, bucket in hand, heading in the opposite direction to fetch the water she would need to give their father his morning coffee or wash the spuds for their own tea. The elder of the boys once again spotted me, his face less smiley now faced with the prospect of drinking both his own piss and the piss of his siblings. I returned his Anglo-Saxon greeting from earlier and popped the top off one of the bottles of spring water my dad had brought up from the cellar for my family to drink, rather than having to keep sending my mother out with the kettle whenever he wanted a cuppa, and mouthed the word "cheers" as I took a glug.

I'm sure the piss-cocktail did no lasting harm to any of those inhabitants of the Village of the Damned, just as I'm sure the faeces that falls from my frolicking hounds hairy arses into the reservoir do no harm to those tea drinkers and teeth brushers farther downhill.

It's not a nice thought, though, is it?

I was watching the news a few nights ago. The town in which I live gets scant mention on the television and so when I heard the delicious Lucy Meacock utter "Horwich" my ears pricked up. It's funny how the mention of somewhere or something close to you forces you to smile when that mention is on the telly. I smiled automatically, before realising the story was about how some greedy bastards are going to be allowed to frack us.

Fracking, along with it's associated protests and environmental campaigns, is seldom off the local news lately. Just a couple of weeks ago the residents of a sleepy and very lovely little village to the north of here managed to stave off the threat of fracking in their own area. They fought hard and long and, although we all know deep down that it will eventually be forced on them anyway, they can now sit back and feel rightly proud of themselves whilst enjoying their lovely, unspoilt environment.

Many of the protesters and campaigners were locals and were described as nimbys, their selfish opinions disregarded as they have a vested interest. Many others weren't locals and were described as rent-a-mobs and disregarded as it was none of their business. What chance does that give anyone?

Some of my townsfolk are already banding together, preparing to fight a fight that they've never fought before against an entity that has fought this fight over and again, that has succeeded sometimes and, more importantly, that has lost a few times too. It's the losses that make you strong, a foe with a battle scar is always more formidable.

Whatever happens, Rivington will remain as beautiful as it is now. The value of my home wont be affected since this house is worth nothing and, given the level of pride my landlord takes in his assets, won't even be standing in a year or two. I live right on top of the land they're to frack and it won't matter a jot to me one way or the other. Even should the tales of environmental disaster regarding contamination of the water supplies be correct, it wont matter to me. My water comes from the Lake District.

But still I'll fight against it. I'm no nimby, fill my back yard with as many wind turbines as you like. But rape the earth for profit using technology that even a child can see isn't environmentally friendly, pumping chemicals into the water table and flushing toxins from the rock beneath our feet in the process? Here, next to your drinking water? Fuck that, my dogs have to swim in there!

Horwich is, as has been pointed out to me on many occasions by Wiganers, just a "shitty little town". A shitty little town with an ineffectual council. (I asked them why it had been on the news before any residents had heard about the plans and why they had no information about the process. The answer, no one had told them. Right there, in a thread on my Twitter account, Bolton Council telling me that they weren't told of any discussions taking place, that they had zero knowledge of the issuing of the licences. I sometimes wonder what we pay that shower for.)

Cuadrilla will get their way, eventually. There may be some lip-service paid to our discontent. They'll promise the council some money and if the council still says "no thanks" they'll bribe someone higher up the ladder to tell the council to say yes. But it'll not matter a jot to me. My beautiful view will prevail and my Lake District water will taste every bit as refreshing.

I'm sure it won't affect you either. Unless you're one of the people behind me, to the west and down the hill. Or one of those that will get thirsty as you pass through the region and stop off for a cup of tea in a cafe. Or a Big Mac and Coke. Or purchase a soft drink from your local shop that was manufactured in that region. Or a ready meal. Or a beer. Or have loved ones that live there. Or have an ounce of decency.

There's no proof that fracking is hazardous to health, but come on... have you seen what they do? It's Jimmy Saville all over again, no one says anything even though we can all tell just by looking that something's not right.

Most people wont give a shit about my back garden being prodded and poked. Why should they? It's not as if my back garden is watering theirs, is it?

Those people, they've no need to worry. They can just rub their hands and wait for their gas bills to go down. I mean, they will, won't they? If we're all sat on top of a big lump of gassy rock, surely we're all going to be better off, and surely no big business would make profit from a process they thought might hurt others? That never happens, does it?

Cheers.

J2H.