Today I’m on the blog tour for Life According To Brian by B.M. Dawes, thank you to Anne at Random Things Tours for organising it and inviting me to take part.
I have an extract for you today, but first let me tell you a little about the book!
Synopsis Life According to Brian chronicles forty-four stories of mishap and misadventure of a scale unparalleled in modern man. Disguised in comedy to protect the seriously guilty, the story follows Brian’s escapades traversing the world and captures not only the lunacy of life but the luck involved in avoiding one’s own death.
The guidebook for the mentally impaired includes: poaching, drugs, imprisonment, kidnapping, poisonings, alien hunters, crocodile suicide and much, much more…
The sorry episodes are being played out via a game of chess. God and Charles Darwin, seeking to save mankind, are plotting Brian’s untimely demise. The winner of each play gets to choose the method of death. Constantly interrupted by visiting deities, kings, queens and E.T., the two main players are frustrated in their attempts to have some peace and play the game, with a nice cup of tea and some Mr Kipling cake.
Send the kids away, euthanise the cat, find a comfy chair, pour a pint of the finest whisky…have a reliable psychiatrist on speed dial.
Come inside and enjoy the ride…
Extract: Family Living, Zambia, 1970s
My earliest memory, Zambia, Ndola, 1976. We wake up Shirley (8), Daniel (2) and my good self (5). Dad is in a rage, screaming down the corridor with his famous white Y-fronts on. We have been robbed, they had cut through the bars on the window entered our bedroom, stole Dad’s keys and made a break for it. Three hours earlier, my mother, ‘Tony, I’m sick of those bloody dogs barking all night, go and lock them up.’
Dad gets out of bed, ‘Yes dear.’
Dad now has a problem, Zambia is dangerous and he knows this. They have his keys, they can steal the car, gain entry to the house; the rest doesn’t bear thinking about. However, Tony is an electronics expert and doesn’t suffer fools or extremely dangerous robbers lightly. Dad was no average man or father, for that matter. He was much more than the sum of his organic parts. His old Cumbrian nickname “The Firecracker” had been tested and proven many times.
Dad wires the car up to the mains electrics, a shrill scream a couple of nights later, the car still in situ, problem solved. It’s Africa in the ’70s. That’s the way it was, you couldn’t take any chances or you wouldn’t survive.
Many years later in Bahrain, over a few beers, Dad tells me…
‘One time, we had just finished a tough mission. They were a team of six raiding an arms cache, which turned out to be a bush hut occupied by three goats and a chicken that was evidently lost.’
Dad continues explaining, ‘I was exhausted and had fallen asleep on a makeshift chair. I woke up to one of the crew whispering, “Tony, do not fucking move! Look down but stay still.” I looked down and joining me for my afternoon siesta was one of the fastest and deadliest snakes, a Black Mamba, coiled fast asleep between my legs. Eventually, my colleague managed to coax the snake away with a stick. On the trip back with bollocks intact, I was ruthlessly mocked with innuendoes that could only be expected by having a large black serpent between your legs. So having scared three goats half to death and repatriated the chicken back to the local village, I thought to myself, Tony…only in Africa.’
However, I reassured him the snake infestation was just as prevalent in Queensland and that I was never falling asleep ever again.
Before Africa, we were living in Western Australia, where I was born. One of Dad’s jobs was the installation of ground satellite technology that could monitor Chinese Atomic weapon testing. Dad was at Aldermaston, at the AWE. The Atomic Weapons Establishment, responsible for the design, manufacture and support of warheads for the UK’s nuclear deterrent. So there had always been a suspicion that Dad’s postings had been a front for many “other” jobs. But he quite rightly would never reveal anything. He wore many hats.
Shirley screams, ‘C’mon Brian, you can climb it, it’s easy.’
My beloved sister is about 10 feet up the tree. I’m struggling to get up the trunk, suddenly Shirl has shaken a branch and a massive snake has dropped not one foot away from my feet. Fortunately, the Zambian gardener, Samuel had seen my sibling’s attempt on my life, comes sprinting over and with a rake held overhead and after several strikes later, kills the venomous beast. I look up and realised that Shirl must have taken a life insurance policy out on me. The ink hadn’t even dried and the first attempt had been made. Do the deed, make the claim, and buy lots of sweeties. Her addiction was getting out of control.
I would have to be on my guard from now on. Not accept free ice cream, unless it has been tested on Daniel first.
About the author: B. M. Dawes was born in Perth, Australia, in 1971, where he first discovered his fear of venomous snakes. This legitimate threat to life would then follow Brian to Zambia from the age of three to six. Escaping not only the marauding bandits and numerous attempts by his loving sister to shorten his already young years, Brian would then flee to Bahrain where he would misadventure throughout his teens. He attended university in Queensland, Australia, where he learnt his trade as a professional drinker and erred on the side of erring. He currently lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with his long-suffering partner and two loving children, who have a pending life policy on their benevolent dad.
If you like the sound of this, it can be bought Here!
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