Peter Bateman | harlow-writers

PETER BATEMAN

(aka Peter la Trobe)

... started work as an advertising copywriter, and frequently provided free-lance journalism for regional and local newspaper groups, specialising in commercial and retail topics.

Retirement in 2010 finally allowed him to concentrate on creative writing.

Peter joined Harlow Writers Workshop in 2012. He is in the final stage of working for a Creative Writing BA (Hons) with the Open University.

He created and edits the Workshop website.

A selection of some of Peter's amusing and off-beat stories is available from

Amazon.co.uk /books /I Killed an Angel.

SWEET 000s

( or the fraught nought)

So many ways to speak the name of 0,

sly shifter of the number naming game.

There's no one word, as this short verse will show.

You start by thinking - logically it ought

to be unmoving, stable, stay the same;

but here's another way to denote 0.

Frost levels at the poles drop, dear-oh-

dear, to something less than nothing, that's insane;

not close enough to call absolute 0.

The no-run batsman is completely out of luck,

stumping to the changing rooms again.

(We'll guess at how he feels about his 0).

Pro tennis players seldom seem to show

what umpires often call out in their game -

they feel no 0 toward their on-court foe.

Whatever value you want it to fill

the naming of that symbol is arcane.

You think you've nailed it - then the list will grow:

too many words for just one shape - the 0.

CHASING RAINBOWS

A story in 100 words

Look mummy – a rainbow.

Pretty.

Two rainbows. There’s a faint one above the other. Does that mean there’d be two pots of gold?

Only if you reach the end of both.

Does it have to be gold if you get there?

What do you mean, poppet?

At the end of the rainbow, do you have to have gold, or could you have a wish instead?

I don’t know.

I’d make a wish.

That’s enough.

I’d wish things were like they used to be.

I said that's enough.

I'd wish daddy was there, at the end of the rainbow..

SPELLING THE END

Another story in 100 words

The war room is tense.

‘Lieutenant. This is an order from the President. Open the Domesday box’.

‘Sir, yes sir. Box open, sir.’

The General, rigidly at attention, listens to the red phone.

‘Lieutenant. Press the orange button. On my order, enter the code. Stand by.’

‘Sir, yes sir. Standing by, sir.’

‘Lieutenant, enter code word ‘Armageddon.’’

‘Sir yes sir. Shee-it.’

‘Do it NOW, Lieutenant.’