Barry Tighe | Can Write Will Write

Sir Thomas 'British Tommy' Armstrong and The War Between the States

What was British Tommy’s role in the War Between the American States? Much more than he wanted, you may be sure. Shanghaied to California in late 1860, Tommy’s genius for finding trouble (and ability to weasel right out again) asserts itself from the word go. Tommy finds himself caught up in the secret world of the Committee of Thirty and the Knights of the Golden Circle, evacuating Fort Fillmore with the Federals, then marching back in with the Confederates, joining in an audacious train raid ( against his better judgment), fleeing across half a continent, and generally being pushed from Yankee pillar to Rebel post, and renewing his acquaintance with Abe Lincoln. He soon wishes he hadn’t…

Comedy fiction suitable for all. A bunch of more-or-less off-the-grid friends living in the picturesque town of Spawater get together in their favourite bar and peremptorily plot against the not-quite-twin evils of battery chicken farming and bad television. Exciting adventures ensue, but will these outwardly ordinary folk actually manage to save the chickens without winding up in jail?

Jady is unhappy with dumbed-down television. The solution, he decides, is to dumb it down so far even television executives will notice. Kill or cure by any means, fair or foul.
Joanna hates cruel chicken farms. The solution, she decides, is to turn the people against them by any means, fair or fowl.
Police Inspector Josephine Brewe knows Jady and Joanna are as guilty as two horses in a betting shop. She vows to arrest their careers in order to promote hers.
The old Roman town of Spawater has not seen such anarchy since Julius Caesar’s farewell party.

A frightened government has decided to force the entire population to carry Identification Cards at all times. As a trial they introduce them to Spawater. Should the ID cards and their controlling National Database be successfully implemented in Spawater they will be imposed nationwide. Book two of the seven-part Spawater Chronicles recounts the effects of ID cards on the town. Joanna opposes them on principle and joins the National Campaign against Identity Cards. Jady is also against, but spots an excellent moneymaking opportunity. Hanif, the computer expert, supports ID cards and is employed to run the local trial by the senior civil servant, Mr. Dauntliffe, thus causing friction in the gang’s social lives. Michael, a good-natured Austrian – Germany lite – master criminal, sees ID cards as the perfect cover to commit an audacious crime in the middle of town, under the noses of Inspector Brewe and her disloyal assistant. Can the Masked Pimpernel, that anonymous campaigner against paranoid government control freaks, save the day?

Casino is volume three of The Spawater Chronicles, a seven-part series relating the adventures of a group of friends, descendants of the Romans, in the old Roman town of Spawater. It tells how the local Health and Safety zealots have torpedoed that hitherto unsinkable institution, The Lifeboat Club.

By bottom-of-the-pack dealing the council intend to purchase it for peanuts and flatten it to make the car park for a government approved supercasino – Unless Jady and his followers – the winos, dopeheads and gamblers of Spawater – can turn up trumps.
A sidewards look at the glamorous yet dangerous world of highroll gambling, Casino shows how card-counting actually works, how gambling can lead to addiction and demonstrates the cure. Glamour and despair, both sides of the gambling world are here.
Jady stands to make a fortune if he can produce the world’s only unprofitable casino. To get rich his casino must lose a million in six months. But how? For someone with Jady’s ability to deal from the bottom with a smile, anything is possible.
Jady and his followers will defend their lifestyles all the way to the gutter, but can Jady inspire the good citizens of Spawater to turn the tables on Spawater council? Not if Jady’s nemesis, Inspector Brewe can mark his cards. Odds on a good, dirty fight.

The government has decided to build a nuclear power plant on one of the five hills of Spawater to help fight global warming.

Greenies plot to steal the waste and drop it on the rain forests to save them from the loggers.
Meanwhile, that King of the Jobsworths, Master of the Health and Safety Rulebook and Busybody Par Excellence, Harold Wood, is appointed Green Tsar of Spawater by a Council who really should know better.
Harold is on a mission; to save Spawater from global warming by fining environmental criminals for such environcrimes as recycling on a Tuesday, wasting energy using the wrong light bulbs and mixing polymers with non-polymers in household bins.
Between the nuclear power plant and the Green Tsar, Spawater will foist conservation on its citizens for their own good, whether they like it or not.
Harold might not save the planet, but he will raise enough money fining the public to buy a new one.

Alison is campaigning to become a Member of the European Parliament. Not her idea, of course. Alison is far too honest, legal, decent and truthful to consider such a low career move. No, Alison’s campaign can onl

y be the brainchild of a Manipulating Machiavelli of Mandlesonian proportions.

Jady is Alison’s campaign manager, plotting behind the schemes to get her elected by Euro hook or by Euro crook. This is partly because of his love for democracy – or so he tells anyone who asks – and partly because he knows that MEPs and EU officials have lifelong diplomatic immunity for any crimes they may commit while on EU business. Indeed, much to Jady’s Ode to Joy, the fraud squad is not allowed to enter the offices of any MEP without permission. Jady sees EU diplomatic immunity as an essential asset for a businessman of his qualities.

Police Inspector Brewe knows Jady of old, and the thought of her arch enemy lording it over her patch, the ancient Roman town of Spawater, untouchable due to Alison’s diplomatic immunity, has her choking on her latte. She vows to arrest Alison’s political career – and Jady’s diplomatic immunity – before it starts. Leaking Jady’s personal details to Inder Monnet and his assistant Spaak, Jady’s pro-European Union rivals, for blackmailing purposes is a useful start.

Meanwhile Jady needs a hook. Something to raise Alison’s campaign above that of an outside challenger. What better, he decides, than hoisting the European Union on its own petard by demanding democracy?
With Jady pulling the strings, Alison demands a Peoples’ Referendum. The people of Europe have never been asked if they want the European Union. It is about time they were. Alison campaigns for a Europe-wide Peoples’ Referendum on whether to continue the march to a totalitarian United States of Europe, or disband the whole project. Kill or cure once and for all.

The demand for a Peoples’ Referendum catches on, boosted by Alison’s transparent honesty and Jady’s viral marketing manipulation and dirty tricks. Jady’s candidate is riding high in the polls, but Inder is not beaten yet. The European Union can stoop pretty low when it feels threatened. A referendum on its very existence is a huge threat indeed. Meanwhile, Alison shows she is not simply Jady’s cipher. Loaded with principles up to the plimsoll line, how will she suffer the stench of European politics? Certainly not in silence.

Add Joanna; Jady’s EU supporting long-suffering partner, Jenna, forced onto the sobriety wagon and mad as Zeus about it, Hanif, torn between his belief in the EU and his desire for Alison, Young Arnie revelling in his role as illegal Blogger and website hacker, and Lifeboats’ turf accountant Bullet laying off the electoral odds, and politics has never been dirtier. Or more fun.