Tag: local author

Local Author’s Book Reveals Why Devizine Isn’t Funny Anymore

Devizine can reveal how a new book by a local author might possibly be the reason why Devizine isn’t as funny as it used to be….

Devizine, it used to be funny, but sadly it seems it’s not so much anymore. Who took the banana skin from under its flip-flop? Who failed to give it a raspberry on the bouncy belly? Editor and creator of Devizine, Darren Worrow might have discovered why.

He said, “It’s a disgrace. This so-called author Darren Worrow has channelled all his pathetic attempts at humour into his new book Murder at the Scribbling Horse, and hardly bothered sharing anything the slightest bit amusing here on Devizine, as he once did; typical liberties from a loony leftie! And now he expects me to blow my own trumpet and sing his praises; what a pretentious twat! Shamelessly plugging his own book on his own website is surely proof.”

“Set in the fictional Wiltshire market town of Slapam-on-the-Fye, which is nothing like any real Wiltshire market town you might know of, it claims to be a murder-mystery, but the only true thing it murders is English literature.”

“Neither is there any subtlety in it either, like there is with Devizine,” Worrow waffled on sorrowfully wallowing. “Worrow takes no prisoners, has gone all out and created an absolute work of filth; an offensive joke book with a sham narrative, just so he can say disgusting things about various celebrities, politicians and anyone else he doesn’t like, despite the good honest work they’re doing to keep Britain free from logic and empathy.”

“With the mouth of a sailor, it downright disregards any level of intelligence locals might possess, and paints them all as so utterly idiotic the narration of the story has to be conveyed through the point of view of the pub dog; I don’t think that’s funny at all. The dog is a depressing nihilist, who uses the opportunity to put the human world to rights, rather than getting on with telling the story, that’s why it stacks up over 500 pages. 500 plus pages of meandering woke filth, I might add.”

“Using a facade of a murder mystery, in which the frontman to a tribute act is murdered in the pub whilst they organise a fundraising music festival, as the plot thickens like moulded yogurt around his genitalia, it goes as far as disgracefully making a mockery out of petty local politics too. It’s the biggest crime against pop since David Bowie and Mick Jagger’s cover of Dancing in the Street. I’d rather lick that yogurt off than buy this book, but that’s probably what this sick perverted tyrant wants us to do.”

“You’re not going to enjoy reading it, as tea can scold you if dropped in your lap through laughing too much. Therefore I call upon Steer Karma and the government to ban this book for health and safety reasons.”

“This thing wouldn’t have been published under Farage, you know? And thousands of flagpoles will now have to be erected to counteract the unpatriotic damage done, at the taxpayer’s expense too.”

The author of the book, Darren Worrow, rebukes comments made by the Devizine editor, Darren Worrow. “That guy is as thick as a Boxing Day turd and pissing into the wind,” he said. “Other than the fact I have released a new book, the rest is slanderous lies and Devizine will be hearing from my lawyers. Murder at the Scribbling Horse is a fascinating psychological study and critique of the modern world, questioning our nonacceptance of aging and the social and political issues it raises; with added knob jokes.”

The author became irate, claiming, “for eight long years I’ve been tirelessly promoting everyone else for peanuts. I’ve not even had the opportunity of taking a bath since, and I look like a Yeti past its sell by date. It’s about time I thought about myself for a change, and everyone can bloody well return the favour by buying my book!”

Eighties post-punk sensations Johnny Bunion and the Verrucas’ most successful album, The Legend of Castle Grey Scholl, 1981.

Whatever happened to Johnny Bunion? His legend burnt out long before his candle ever did.

But the more pressing question must be, was it connected to the murder at the Scribbling Horse public house in the narrow-minded Wiltshire market town of Slapam-on-the-Fye, some forty plus years later? And if so, how?

To answer this you’ll need to research, and my book, Murder at the Scribbling Horse will be the only way to do that.

If there’s ever any proceeds from the book, they will go to a much needed new Lynx Africa deodorant set, and a Brazilian back, sack and crack wax for the obnoxious author; the twat needs it, he looks like Posie from the Flumps’ rustic vajazzle.

Seriously though, being funny is the only thing I’m serious about. If you laughed at any part of this internal press release you’re a bit weird, and the ideal target audience for my book! You’re going to laugh a kazillion times (that’s a zillion zillions) more with a copy Murder at the Scribbling Horse in your grubby mitts. And even if you’ve no sense of humour, you know a good Christmas present idea when you see one!

You can buy the paperback online here. And the e-book here. It’s out for global distribution but buying direct from Lulu cuts out the middle man and gives the best royalties to the authors. 

Not for sale to children or the over sensitive, though; as if I needed to say!

Murder at the Scribbling Horse is available at Devizes Books for a reduced price of £20, and next Saturday 22nd November, I’ll be in the shop praying to the Norse god of biscuits someone might stop by and purchase a signed copy at the super reduced price of £20!

If you cannot make it, you can message me and I’ll personally deliver you a copy if you live locally. I still need to work out posting & packaging costs, so message me if it needs posting and I’ll let you know about that asap. Happy reading…well, I say that but do I really mean it, I mean, really?!

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Lady Nade; Sober!

Dry January, anyone? Well, Lady Nade just plunged into an outdoor 4°C eucalyptus sauna for a social media reel. But whilst I’d require a stiff drink to do such, our beloved Somerset soul singer says she’s swapping ice-cold cocktails for ice-cold baths. There must be warmer ways to promote a January single?! Sober is that…

Darren Worrow's avatar by Darren Worrow

2025 on Devizine; Review of the Year; Part 1, Jan-June

If past years seem to be racing by me on roller-skates, now they’re in Formula 1 cars! 2025, in a word, was “average,” though the Devizine annual stats fell for a second year, at 6% lower than 2024; you lot still here?! I’m not concerned about that, you filthy traitors; you’ve been digesting the clickbait…

Darren Worrow's avatar by Darren Worrow

Awesome! Talk in Code Immortalised as Lego Minifigures!

Ah, let’s talk about Talk in Code one more time this year, because we’re secret Talkers here, and everything has been awesome this year for them, but now they’re being immortalised as Lego minifigures! Surely, the piece of resistance of local merch, it doesn’t get better than this! Lego minifigures have become something of a…

Darren Worrow's avatar by Darren Worrow

Killers, Catalysts and Devizes Author Dave McKenna’s New Novelette

On impulse I speculated, just short of a quarter way through this book and at the conjunction the format of the narrative is sussed, that if the author, Devizes’ Dave McKenna, has a favourite Quentin Tarantino film it might be my favourite too, the lesser acclaimed Jackie Brown. Not for its plagiarism of blaxploitation nor usage of derogatory slangs, rather for the multiple point-of-view conclusion, because The Killer & The Catalyst follows this formula throughout, and this is what makes it engaging….

This and breakneck volatility, conspiracy inducing, disloyal and sadistic action from nearly every character and the intense velocity it’s all delivered with. Coincidently, Dave cites Tarantino as an influence at the back matter, alongside Harlan Coben and Stephen King. Some of the book’s settings are drawn from actual features and places in Devizes. Most commonly the now closed and speculated as haunted Roundway psychiatric hospital, and an alley besides it in which Dave elucidates his inspiration for the story’s events set there were developed from a real incident at the location. It’s with these eerie settings, familiar if you’re local, I find understanding for citing King as an influence, especially to begin with; it feels like a horror, yet while the book has an unnerving ambience, a crime thriller might better pigeonhole it.

It’s causally written in a loose style with nothing academic about it, making it simple to digest, as if the narrator is on equal level to the characters, as if rambling the yarn to his mate in the pub. Breathes a sense of reality into it; the characters talk like you and I, therefore you identity, why not the narrator too? I like this relaxed and contemporary approach, particularly suits the plot and macho target audience; lads need to read more, and if that’s the case, this might be the book for them. Hyper popcorn-munching movie violence fashion this is.

Apostrophes are used instead of speech marks. This, and the abbreviation of okay to ‘OK’ out of speech makes the grammar police inside me cringe, to be honest. Such usages and the out of speech line, “That was a piece of piss,” implies this is hardly Dickens quality! But I’m willing to overlook and ignore these niggly criticisms for this book, because Dave McKenna can weave a story, dammit. He can evoke an appropriate mood within his readers, twist it, and he can suspend you on the edge of your seat. That makes him an author, not an ability to whisk long and misunderstood words (like wot I do to make me sound more intelligent than I is!)

Identifying the protagonist from the antagonist is questionable, when this periodic method of returning to the same opening scene with each point-of-view occurs, and that’s genius and a narrative difficult to construct. It conveys everything is not as it might seem from the angle of each individual and engages you into understanding the bigger picture. That is what makes The Killer & The Catalyst an absorbing and worthwhile read.

With the current state of the literature industry being it’s who you are rather than how good you can write, I wouldn’t imagine finding this on a supermarket shelf alongside ghost-written celebrity autobiographies. This is an example proving the asset of self-publishing, that which a mainstream publisher wouldn’t touch, doesn’t mean a person hasn’t got an exceptional story to tell and the ability in which to write it, it simply means it’s not commercially viable.

People merely need to be brave and take a lucky dip on a rising author, rather than accept what Waterstones throw at them. The Killer & The Catalyst is the good example of this, should you wish to be held in suspense and driven to question which characters were right and which were wrong, not forgoing indulging in some nasty scenes of violence to boot!

You can get The Killer & The Catalyst as paperback or Kindle on Amazon, or pop into Devizes Books for this page-turner, and you’ll look forward to reading future yarns of Dave McKenna, of that I’m certain.

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Rooks; New Single From M3G

Chippenham folk singer-songwriter, M3G (because she likes a backward “E”) has a new single out tomorrow, Friday 19th December. Put your jingly bell cheesy…

by Darren Worrow

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Local Book Review: Dad’s New Dress

Spent most of Pride month, and the following month too (what? I’m a slow reader and a busy chap!) reading an apt book, given to me be by a local amateur author, Molly Anderson……

Okay, it’s blatantly obvious from the off Molly is a pseudonym and while written third person narrative the motivation to write this comes from personal experience. Dad’s New Dress is the eye-catching title, immediately evoking the archaic comical connotations of a Carry-On film. Yet while there’s subtle elements of humour, humour and drinking concerns away are just two of the initial coping strategies of the main character, Suzie, when she receives an email from her father informing her, he’s coming out of the closet at seventy-years old and wants to identify as female. Shock and concern are the others. Now you see the reasoning for anonymity.

I like to think I’m acquiescent and submissive towards homosexuality and transgender, as is the virtue of modern thinking. Despite not being a construct I personally gravitate to, I take the opinion as someone’s gender preference affects me in no way whatsoever, why should it matter or bother me? Then I sympathise with the unpleasantness and misery anyone in such a position must face by the prejudices of others, and, taking this with the historical pretexts which has progressed us to this common acceptance, I feel, as the month of June suggests, pride. Pride that we now live in a society where the majority accept and are supportive of homosexuality and transgender rights.

Though we’ve reached this triumphant stage in equality there’s a concern rearward thinking traditionalists promoting homophobia is growing. As an open-minded person, I assume I wouldn’t succumb to such, but while I’ve had a few friends come out as gay, I’ve never had something so monumentally significant as a close family member tell me they want to change gender, like my dad.  Dad’s New Dress raises this alarm, challenges one’s resolution towards the notion, should the reader put themselves in Suzie’s shoes, and perhaps they should, perhaps we all should, for it brings to the boil several areas of common concern.

Though they live in separate countries, the twenty-something daughter Suzie was clearly once Daddy’s girl, and the revelation has shocked her, the progression of the narrative is her coming to terms with it.

It’s loosely written, chatty, the dialogue often obscures the darkest thoughts of Suzie or otherwise, perhaps too much, for me; I wanted to get deeper inside her head, and feel a first person narrative may’ve worked better for this. This is a feminine orientated coffee break read, and, without stereotyping too much, women tend to favour this style; chick-flick! You’ll get expansive off-topic conversation, subtly humorous and thoughtfully laid out, and know precisely what every character is wearing! Rather than a more masculine approach; Suzie doesn’t murder her father and escape hanging out of a helicopter while a rainbow uniformed SWAT team try to pick her off!

If you’re looking for comic book sensationalism, this isn’t for you. It’s steady, reality-driven substance which knowledgably raises several interesting questions. Could you maintain your acceptance of the equality of gender preference, knowing next time you see your old man he’s going to wearing a dress?! It must be said, Suzie’s concerns teeter on the homophobic to begin with, or at least confusion as to how she will now interact and address her father. If that is, to be concerned for her own wellbeing and future interactions with her father isn’t rather selfish, the emotions her father must be dealing with are not really covered from the one-sided angle the author has taken.

We’re treated to many of Suzie’s reminiscences, recollections of interactions with her father as a young girl, and while there’s vague hints of his gender orientation, it goes obviously unnoticed by the innocence of her childhood. It is these parts which are the best written and emotive. They will come to the forefront when Suzie reunions with her father and rebuilds their relationship. The family bond shapes her blossoming acceptance for her father’s desires, despite the growing intensity of the issue, from the initial etiquette in public and the paranoia of other’s reactions, to the later concerns for his gender realignment operation and partners, and throughout, her complete failure to use the correct pronouns!   

Yeah, so it’s diary-like, with an erm, an open-ended but happier ending, and it is certainly thought-provoking. The creativeness of writing and ability to drive a plot here isn’t as polished as it could be, yet it is inspired, and written with honour, dedication and emotion. Its charm is this individualised touch.

We live in a better world, not only for those with gender matters, but also for the scope of literature. Mainstream publishing limits material to the select few experts, whereas self-publishing opens the opportunity and freedom of expression to everyone. Everyone has a story to tell, this is Molly’s (or their real name,) and it’s told for anyone to read.

You can buy Dad’s New Dress, (not buy your dad a new dress!!) at Devizes Books, or online here.

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