Author Book Presentation - Mark Shearman

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Flip Flop Flamenco

Available from Amazon and Smashwords

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Expats Spain

Release date - October 20th

 

No bulls were harmed in the making of this book or any other animals, punctuation may have been strained, grammar rules broken, that is not the author's fault, but the school he was sent to. A great place to learn how to fight or talk your way out of a fight, watch the teachers spend the majority of their time organising strikes for more pay and better students. Consequently, there wasn't much to do apart from throwing snow balls at buses and date opinionated school girls - who wanted so much more...

I found music and a sense of fashion, unfortunately no one else agreed, hence the constant invitations to rendezvous after school at the gates, confusing, as we didn't have any school gates. Some students found if you wore Margaret Thatcher badges it upset the militant teachers and some actually broke down and cried when the Tories won the elections. School days seem to brighten, the teachers in the last year of school started teaching, just before most of us braced for the road ahead, which had UB40 singing about 1 in 10 being unemployed. My last school report from head of house simply read: 'I found mark to be admirable - nuff said!!!'

Questions that go unanswered - Anecdotes about living in Spain - All based on real events.

Is Tough Enough?

July saw the finals of the women's world cup football with the UK coming in a respectable third as they played off against our favourite rivals Germany and the Americans, who still feel the need to call the game soccer, won over Japan - kudos. Certain things that stood out again, not only the level of skill proving every bit entertaining as their male counter parts, yet again proving just how tough these female athletes are some journalists comparing them to the men. Close up camera shots of multi-million Euro players like, Renaldo being palmed on the chest and dropping to the floor like a bad actor missing his cue and then making an embarrassing meal of it. Subjecting paying punters to a few minutes of rolling around on the ground holding his face and screaming for his mama. 

Whereas American rugby seven's players Georgia Page broke her nose, jumped up and made a crucial try-saving tackle, her face smeared in claret with a come-on-let's-get-the-game on attitude - that's rugby tough.

You will see some male players take a hit and wince in pain and bypass the Oscar performance and chin through. Watching the women’s' world cup last month you saw a lot more chinning through than grass hugging and the aggression level was on a par with the blokes.

Living with the female of the species for over thirty years, admittedly spread over three or four, they all had one thing in common. They never seemed to get jungle flu. The kind that drops you into a stupefying, thumb-sucking, mummies boy grasping your last will and testament while flicking through the medical books on rare fatal diseases. They simply had colds and soldier on hardly showing symptoms and seem to recover fast – often saying: "If men had to go through the excruciating pain of childbirth the human race would have become extinct long ago," or as they say in the Midlands men are just mardie.

So why is it that woman seem to be tougher than men at least mentally?

Tests have been conducted, well to be honest - hold it - I could fill this space with brain scan info and impress you with research into this and that, but there isn't anything conclusive because pain in my opinion is down to the individual person those who have had a lot of it know what to expect.

Losing the love of your life is painful it's a longer emotional pain and again down to the individual.

When I was younger, and without really knowing, I had something inside me that automatically blocked out emotional pain; often being accused I could have watched my family being butchered on a Sunday and be at work Monday morning embarrassed at everyone giving their condolences. I used to treat my relationships like it. I was there I loved them, if they disappointed me I would leave.

Bottling everything up works well in groups of men who admire your resolve whilst moving in formation through a jungle armed and programmed. Fighting so certain western powers can sustain its oil thirst. It's a short lived grenade waiting to explode and one day it will happen sat in a car looking out to a grey sea whilst singing along to Coldplay's Yellow, holding a recommissioned service revolver you bought from some short, thick-eyebrow geezer in Nottingham. You are faced with unhelpful self-talk, "come on, you're this far - have you got the minerals - end the pain."

Something happens, you drop the bottle of Jack Daniels, Coldplay's song stops and you actually start feeling sorry for yourself remembering what the old man said when you used to cry as a boy and hate his cold reaction. You then miss the old bastard and burst out crying. You can't believe you're actually crying because being macho you've always said the last time you cried was when the midwife smacked your backside, so you accompany it with laughter - it's too late, you are crying like a fat girl on hearing the doctor say “no more chocolate young lady” and you can't stop.

You let it go, years and years' worth - you shout, "okay I'm a woman with emotions I don’t care, it feels so good oh-my-god it feels good." It's liberating. The pain doesn't stop there you realise what a complete ass you have been the past ten years and think, if I was a women what would I do now? To which you realise a woman would say - fuck it, now you have defragged your brain, move on. Unwrap the chocolate bar, find a bottle of white wine, worry about your thighs tomorrow and stop crying you lightweight!

We can talk about men being physically stronger, that has nothing to do with pain thresholds because we are all different and whilst having a high pain threshold can get you through a lot of after time pub fights it doesn't serve you well when your body is crying out for you to see the doctor because something is seriously wrong.

My old man used to say: 'It's all in the mind' - when he would tweezer out a splinter in my six year old finger, suggesting I was moaning like a spoiled rich girl who and had her shoe allowance stopped - take the pain, put yourself in a happy place and eventually I got it.

The next week when he was pulling out another splinter he'd said you didn’t bat an eyelid son where did you go? I said I was buying high heel shoes that seem to disturb the old steeplejack now who was wincing like a chocolate starved girl.

Bull Tormenting - Twelve Deaths this year from Bull Running in Spain

Bull Tormenting

My latest rant has been bubbling inside for years. I covered the subject in my novel Flip Flop Flamenco. Each summer, something kicks off and it sparks my hatred for such things happening in my adopted country.

If you want to see blood-thirsty pack animals: tormenting, toying, and torturing its victim then get yourselves to the many towns in Spain when the hot sun has them baying for blood.

The first time and last, I attended one of these despicable fiestas was in a small village, Jalon valley - a decade ago. They, as usual, erected steel bars to protect the doors and windows of local businesses and provide a safe place for the village idiots to stick their limbs out of.

The bull, which they usually have some kind of cute name for, was released and straight away darts were thrown at it - panicking the animal. Someone rushed by and prodded it with a sharp stick drawing blood to the cheers of his drunken peers. When the bull moved too close to the steel protection railings, cowards reached out and pummel the bull with bats and lengths of four by twos, more darts pierced through its skin.

The scared bull looked around for help, but nobody was coming and nobody looked on in sympathy, there was no empathy and compassion here. The laughter from women got louder, mothers, who you would think had at least a sliver of humility, spat on the panting, watery eyed mammal. A youth sprinted in front smacking its face with a rolled up newspaper barely making it to the safety of the railings on the other side of the street as a bottle smashed in front of the bull - after deflecting off its bloody rump.

This went on for hours until it finally and inevitably happened. A slowcoach chanced his luck, jogged near the bull. The desperate bated animal swung its horns catching the ass-clown. Tossed him in the air got a few swipes in and gave him a hoofing. Now he was no longer cute and fun bull, he was evil bull. You think he was being punished before, what comes next is despicable and makes you ashamed to be there and part of the same race as these heathen.

I've seen some bad things in my life and been toughened by experience. Watching drunk cretins risking their lives in the name of fun makes you sick and angry. Not all Spanish are like this and as I look around at certain Spanish people, deemed the more educated, you could see shame creep across their faces, not daring to protest for fear of reprisal, rationalising with self-talk - this is tradition we have been doing this for centuries.

The father and sons pulling off the heads of chickens competition had been done for centuries, but that has stopped - hasn't it?

The latest incident in the town of Coria in the Province of Cáceres. A 43-year-old man, during the

San Juan bullfighting festival, unfortunately died after being gored through the protective railings by the tormented bull, whose cute name was 'Guapetón', which translates as "super handsome". It soon changed to evil bull who must die and was shot to death by a local man wielding a shotgun - using fire arms illegally, witnessed by two local policemen and others who cheered with lusty, blood thirsty delight.

Welcome to Spain the sun is always shinning - at least for some species.

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The new Spanish gag laws are starting to gain revenue

The new gag laws are starting to gain revenue as people are fined for photographing the Police.

A woman posted a photograph on facebook of a police car parked in a disable person parking place and was tracked down and fined €800.

How do you stop people filming cops beating up the innocent and the not so innocent? Do what Spain have done with their latest gag laws. Anyone taking a picture of a cop or videoing them will be fined up to €30,000. Their justification, they say you are putting the lives of the police and their families in danger from reprisals by revealing their identity.

When you see them laying into your friend or family member, even when guilty of — DWF — Drunken-While-Foreign. It's instinctive to press record, if only to note the crimes against humanity these cops are committing. The Spanish police usually have their faces covered up when they are about to kick off. So if they do approach you wearing turtle-necks pulled up over their noses, it ain’t no fashion statement, drop to the floor, do a hedgehog and wait for the smiling, lusty-violence - hidden by their paramilitary masks - to abate.

Is this get out of jail free card going to course onlookers to take action as the camera was starting to make the police realise they can't be judge and executioner and think twice before they react as fast as a petulant child on hearing it's bedtime.

Does this mean that the press are not allowed to record disturbances where the police are called in to control – yes because any gathering of people in protest is against the law unless organised with permission. Which means the press will be controlled, only those that show favour to the government will be allowed passes. If this doesn’t work, because some rouge journalist showed a cop sticking in his size twelves, then eventually cameramen will be wearing special police uniforms with their own unique insignia, complete with jack-boots and flamboyant style of saluting.

Save the cat moment

You see it in many films and once you know what it is you recognise it all the time. Politicians, especially in America, referred to as the 'howdy factor', playing sports and allowing the public to see this display of human behaviour, which they can relate to. These staged moments help people to step into their shoes and identify with them. Equally Politician's sighting their service record in a way it highlights their personal sacrifice for others.

In Blake Snyder's book: 'Save the Cat', a must read for any inspiring screenwriter and fiction novelist. Suggest a moment where our hero does something that will make the audience like them portraying him/her as nice, so the audience will root for them. You can also give your evil, despicable villain a save the cat moment so as to create depth of character, after all they can't be all bad. Another way of making your evil character likeable is have him subordinate of someone more evil than him - this is save the cat by proxy.

It, of course, doesn't have to be someone really saving a cat.

Do we, inadvertently, use this in our lives to motivate people to like us? I think so. We just have to be subtle or it will be noticed. Teen movies showing some desperate boy paying a friend to steal his new date's hand bag and then gives chase. Pull some impossible gravity-defying marshal arts moves making the last kick up the thieves backside humiliating and letting him go with the words, "let that be a lesson - go straight punk."

This works in several ways, she buys into it totally impressed and the date is a success, she is hanging onto his arm as he walked her home. Or she sees straight through it and kicks off throwing a hissy-fit saying you sad bastard calms down and laughs at you for trying to impress her and making an effort.

But was this a save the cat moment or a desperate attempt at being seen as someone he is not. His ability to take an assertive action that would "save the cat." Or in this instance the handbag and personal belongings of a potential love interest.

The reality, as times are changing, the not so helpless female passes him running after his friend drop kicks him first with a hay-maker kick, a superman punch and a spinning back fist. Sprays him with pepper spray she bought off of Ebay, kicks him in the gonads with the conviction of a seasoned female football player realises her date was in on it, pulls his jacket over his arms launches an extended index knuckle punch and kicks him in the boys too - that’s call a save the cat fail.

My mother was an expert on using a combination of flattery and save the cat moments with my teen friends, stood in my kitchen to make them feel at home. She would complement them on the way they were dressed, their aftershave or hair cut that kind of thing and always followed up by trying to embarrass me. One of her favourites, hiding in the hallway and shouting in a convincing voice: "I'm having a bath do you want me to save you the water?" Amused it sparked thoughts of, wish my mother was a laugh like this.

"It's a shame you haven’t passed your driving test yet," she would say. "You could have taken my car I've just filled it up with petrol."

What a blatant lie, she wouldn’t let God drive her baby. She was making sure if I ever said anything negative about her. I would look like a person with sour grapes. So you could say she was using the save the cat moment to control me and my friends thoughts of her through possible action.

Anyway I have to go it's my turn to muck out the Donkeys at the sanctuary, serve the homeless soup from my kitchen, drop off some gifts at the children's home I have collected from different charitable businesses. And I noticed the elderly lady's pet, both who live next door, is stuck up a tree again. I must risk my life and literally - save the cat – honest!


Spoils of the Moon    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spoils-Moon-Mark-Shearman-ebook/dp/B012J07TVG

Spoils of the Moon - Amazon Five Star Review

Spoils of the Moon is a delightful new book by Mark Shearman. Well-written in straightforward prose, the book focuses on Jordi and Greg, two Londoners who embark on a journey to find the truth about their past, unearthing information that suggests their absent father was part of a gang in the early seventies who stole some moon rocks from South Australia museum and also they may have family living in the outback who could fill in the blanks.

On the journey they are tracked down and captured by an American who has a personal connection to the stolen moon rocks and is also looking for their whereabouts. The journey delves into the complicated relationship that is causing much friction between Jordi and Greg and eventually acts as therapy as they had issues with their recently deceased mother. The road trip starts in Vietnam and then the outback fraught with obstacles and funny situations and some crazy off-the-wall characters.

This heartfelt story is full of hope that even after decades of secrets, and dysfunction, estranged families can come together and work through their problems. There are so many things to like about this book. The characters come to life and tell a poignant story in a humorous, but not overly sentimental way. Great dialogue drives much of the storytelling and the story moves at a fast pace.

http://www.amazon.com/Spoils-Moon-Mark-Shearman-ebook/dp/B012J07TVG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1439563536&sr=8-1&keywords=spoils+of+the+moon