With all that happened last weekend, I didn’t get a chance to blog about our big appearance on TV.  Okay, it was for less than a minute and, okay, it was on BBC Scotland which possibly can only boast a daily viewership of three elderly women in Troon and a deaf sheep in Kingsbarns, but we were broadcast and potentially piped into every living room in the country.

At Granite Noir 2025, my wife Cat and I were both featured as ‘locals in the limelight’ which meant we’d open an event reading a noir(ish) story.  Cat opened for James Yorkston and Belinda Bauer, while I warmed up for the Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers.  Additionally, we were asked to be interviewed for a TV featurette and, on the Sunday afternoon, we headed to the Music Hall where we spent half an hour with presenter Alice Cruickshank (who I was pleased to hear also hails from my native Elgin).  The premise was fully explained to us: it’s a playful piece involving Alice conducting an investigation into the nefarious doings of “Tartan Noir” writers and, as young upcoming unknown writers, we should push the future of the genre, talking about contemporary writers and why Aberdeen is so perfectly a place to write it.  I could have said something pithy about it doing for the genre now what Vienna did in the 1940s, or used it as a platform to big up some of my favourite writers but, instead, I giggled, stuttered, hesitated, deviated and repeatedly spoke utter tripe.  ‘I’m all about fruit and veg‘ stands out as one particularly bon(kers)-mot.

Contrast the last time I was on TV, if you will.  In 1984 the team from ITV’s Child’s Play were snooping around primary schools for characters and they chanced upon our class on a day where I was in a ‘show-off’ mood.  I can picture them now, hot-footing it back to whichever region produced the show, grabbing Michael Aspel and crying ‘We got one!’  The only problem, of course, was that a few weeks later when they actually plopped me in front of a camera, I was in my shy, reclusive mode.  So, the only footage they broadcast in the next series was me describing, in a perfunctorily po-faced and mind-numbing fashion, a hammer.  ‘My Dad sometimes uses one,’ I mused, knowing full well this was an absolute lie.  I’m pretty sure Liza Goddard buzzed in within a few seconds putting both me and the nation out of our misery.

Still, I’ve yet to end up completely on the editing room floor…and, just going back to the new interview, Cat is absolutely brilliant and more than makes up for me.  Thank God!

You can watch the episode until the 8th April.  Zoom on to 12:10 for the Granite Noir feature in full or 15:15 if you just want to see us.  Note: the episode of Child’s Play linked above is not the one featuring me.  If anyone does have that episode then please, please do send it to me!

Yesterday, I buried one of my best friends.  Frank, Frank Moggington, Miggly Mog or just ‘Miggles’ was our constant companion for eleven years and eight months.

Our story begins the day he was born in Dyce to a prawn-loving mother and a prize-fighting father.  We would not meet him for another five weeks, but it was while on holiday in Cambridge, my first with my then girlfriend Cat, lazing on the banks of the Cam under balmy weather that we decided we should get a pet.  We were unanimous: a ginger cat – Beryl if a girl, Frank if a boy.

Finding him wasn’t so easy, though.  We had both recently started new jobs, leaving little scope to answer the small ads.  When we did,  we found the cats had already been sold.  One morning, however, I found a quiet corner at work and answered a brand new listing.  Later that day we had found him.  The only problem was that we had to come back the next day as we’d neglected to purchase a carry box – much less a bed, litter tray, cat food bowls, cat food – you know, all the things Frank would need.  Anyway, box or not, he spent the whole of the short journey back to Aberdeen cuddling into my jumper, emitting regular peeps.  Peeps which would eventually evolve into the loudest purr in the world.

As he grew older – through regular rough and tumble sessions with me and cuddles from Cat – our flat became a problem.  He would run the length of it in seconds, tagging us on the shoulder as passed.  Then he’d spend hours looking out the front window at the world (and the birds) beyond, but we were too afraid to let him out due to the fast-moving cars outside.  We became engaged, started looking for somewhere bigger for ourselves and found an old headmaster’s house in Arnage, Aberdeenshire.  When viewing it, we decided to take Frank with us and, within seconds of surveying the newly-carpeted house, he lay down and declared for us, “this is the one.”  A few weeks later, we moved in.  Shortly after, Frank was given his first taste of outdoor life.  He took his first few steps crouched, cautiously appraising the coarse blades of grass and stones.  Then he ran, and he sprang straight up the tree at the other end of the garden.  An hour later, as cat’s seem to be pre-programmed to do, he jumped up to the window to let us know he wanted to come in.  Only he wasn’t alone.  Underneath the sill sat the neighbour’s  cat, Puss, with whom he enjoyed a friendly rivalry for years.

The following Valentines Day he was rewarded with his first cat flap, and his first and possibly only planned visit to the vet to have his bits off.  It was the making of Frank the hunter: from the Schoolhouse to Mintlaw, critters met to warn each other in hushed tones of the ginger assassin (unfairly named, he was always more toffee than ginger).  Every morning we were presented with voles, shrews, rabbits, birds and, one time, a mole that was, as they often were, still very much alive.  If we managed to catch a vole and re-release it outside, it felt like a triumph.  Frank, of course, would assist us, trying to recatch his catch, until we closed him in the spare room.  Soon he was joined by another keen hunter: his ‘sister’ Tilly, our Bengal / Maine Coon cross with whom he enjoyed cuddles and brawls alike, until we closed him in the spare room.

These keen hunting skills helped Frank enjoy a varied diet and almost certainly kept him strong during a three week holiday he took – God knows where.  We canvassed the neighbourhood several times, drove and cycled for miles, but he could not be found.  Then, one Sunday night, as we watched someone appraise a particularly ugly vase on the Antiques Roadshow, we heard the cat flap sound and he walked in, licking his lips and miaowing for his missed suppers.  He seemed absolutely fine, so no need for a visit to the vet.  But, another time his hind leg was clipped by the only car on the road – which just goes to show you, doesn’t it?  It also gave Frank the chance to break the record for the shortest time to escape the cone of shame – one he still holds.

After the pandemic, and with Frank cutting his unscheduled holidays down to 9 days, we realised we missed people and moved back to Aberdeen.  This time home became a house in a quiet cul-de-sac near Duthie Park with a back garden.  Frank and Tilly could still come and go as they pleased, but the critter body count massively decreased and yet Frank didn’t quite settle into his pipe and slippers, setting up new rivalries with several neighbourhood moggies.

Then, this weekend, we came back to find only Tilly queuing up at the food bowl.  Frank was upstairs.  I picked him up and he wailed.  Another scrap we thought, hoping he would just shake it off.  But he wouldn’t eat his pouch of Felix.  We opened the mackerel pate we’d bought for our lunch and offered him some.  Nothing.  We put down a litter tray.  He wouldn’t use it.  With heavy hearts, we packed him into his carry box, hearing him cry and hiss.  Then we had the conversation with the vet.

We were given time with Frank to say our goodbyes.  He was sat, comfortably in his box, bandages on his paws.  He had been given morphine for the pain and when I placed my hand on him and rubbed, that famous loud purr sounded.  I stayed with him for what felt like a lifetime, though in reality it was mere minutes, rubbing the back of his neck, the purr remaining constant.  He opened his eyes and looked at me.  He seemed to be saying, “I’m ready.”  I think we both knew we were saying goodbye.

Frank was always a good traveller.  We would drive for miles without a sound coming from his carrier.  Today the silence was deafening.  As we arrived in our driveway, the denouement to Brahms’ German Requiem began playing on the radio.  We paused for a minute and observed the passing of our friend.

We buried him just after 10am on Sunday 9th March in our back garden, next to the fence where he would come and go.  As we laid him in the ground, I played ‘Broken Wave’ by Frank’s favourite singer James Yorkston (this is true, there’s something about James’s voice and the light vibrations of acoustic guitar that he seemed to love.  It was the only thing we knew that would chill him out) and we stood by the fence and hugged before filling in his grave.

Frank was loveably complex.  For all the paw hugs and intense headbutts he would give, he could turn and clamp his claws and teeth into my forearm.  In fact, I have scars that have outlived him.  But he was one of my best friends and there’s a huge hole in me right now.  I know time will heal, but it will take much longer than the cruel speed at which he was taken from us.

As I climbed the stairs to my office this afternoon, Tilly looked me straight in the eyes and she winked.  Three times, she winked.  And, whether I believe in an afterlife or not, I knew – those winks were from Frank letting me know he is at peace, he doesn’t blame us and that we might have buried him a little less close to where he defecated.

On Sunday 23rd February 2025, I became a two-time local in the limelight at Aberdeen’s Granite Noir crime-writing festival. My story ‘Psychedelic Shortbread’, a wotdunnit set in a remote Scottish recording studio, opened an event featuring a quintet of (very!) established crime writers. Led by Former Tracy Brother and foe to Maid Marian’s Merry Men, Mark Billingham and ably backed by Chris Brookmyre, Doug Johnstone, Stuart Neville and Luca Veste, they riffed with Peggy Hughes on what it’s like to moonlight as musicians in their side project Fun Lovin’ Crime Writers. The story was very well matched and I was pleased to hear the audience chuckling along, sometimes where I intended them to.

The next step for me will be to find a home for the story, so unfortunately I can’t publish it here. But, hey, you can enjoy it for yourself through the event livestream – after all, the perpetrator can never resist returning to the scene of the crime, can they?

Christmas with the Cromwells

‘Oh Mother, must I attend?’

‘You know you are his favourite nephew, Henry.’  My mother firmly tugged a white coif down over her ears, then fixed an austere wimple.  ‘Besides, James will be there,’ she continued.  ‘You get on splendidly with James.  And Mary and little Frances.’

‘He smells worse than putrid pottage, Mother.  As well you know.  Or he has done for the last two weeks.  Ever since…’  I pulled my most disapproving face.  ‘Since the war ended.  Since the fun ended.  Since they won.’

I slumped down with my greatest harrumph, creasing my sky-blue silk, French pantaloons as I did.  Mother took one look at me and shook her head.

‘You can take those off for a start.  Black breeches and clean, knee-high stockings only.’

The tradition of visiting Uncle Oliver every December 25th was never one I looked forward to.  Christmas 1653 looked like it may be the worst yet.  Far from making us feel welcome when we arrived, Uncle Oliver, or My Lord Protector as he now insisted on being called, merely nodded and gestured to us to recline upon the barren floor of his once great dining hall.  Cold, uncomfortable and with several splinters spurring my buttocks, I sat chewing on mouldy cockle bread and sipping a frankly tiny measure of very weak, distinctly eggy mead.  Around the hall, a hundred guests did likewise and I counted not one smile between us.  There were no holly bunches, no mistletoe hung from door frames and, in the grand fireplace, no Yule log burned.

Cromwell cleared his throat.  ‘Friends, I bid you welcome to a new celebration.  A time to reflect, in the sight of God, on another year passing.’  He bowed his head as if in prayer.  ‘Silently,’ he whispered.

My cousin James stood beside him.  Although he too had bowed his head, he raised   it shortly after.  Perhaps to check we were following suit.  Perhaps out of boredom.  I tried to catch his eye with a raise of my eyebrows.  He sneered back at me.

Pottage breath, I thought to myself.  Scurvy carbuncle.  A pox on your family, you great cat-a-mountain.  Oh, how I wished for a mince pie.

The collective silence was broken by the loud peal of the doorbell.  A minute later, the great hall doors opened and a maid entered, followed by the baker, the butcher, the farmer and several of his seasonal workers.  Their arms were laden with baskets full of the most wondrous fayre: a giant tureen of steaming pea soup, roast woodcock, a juicy suckling pig, savoury bread, quince tart, cinnamon custard and enough smoky, mulled wine for us all.

Cromwell’s eyes bulged.  ‘What do you mean by coming here today?’ he roared.  ‘You dare to bring the devil into my house.  Out!  Out!’

The butcher raised a hand.  ‘But we have an order for you, your, er, maj…your maj…’

Cromwell rolled his eyes.  ‘I’m your Lord Protector.’  He placed his hands on his hips and turned to face us all.  ‘Didn’t I make that absolutely clear?’  He turned to face the butcher once more.  ‘An order you say?’

‘Um, yes, that’s right,’ stammered the baker.  ‘A full banquet, you see.  To be delivered on December 25^th to this address.’

‘You placed it last year, guv,’ said the farmer. ‘Been fattening the pig ever since.’  He patted the glistening pig in the basket he carried.  ‘He was my boy’s favourite, Peregrine Porker.’

‘Mmm,’ agreed the butcher.  ‘Broke my heart to kill it.  Little mite’s still crying in his cot, so I heard.’

‘Poor wee beggar,’ sniffed the baker.

‘Well, that’s right,’ said the farmer.  He doffed the peak of his cap to Cromwell.  ‘Not that we hold it against you, Sir.  It’s just–’

Cromwell strode forward.  ‘It’s just heresy.  I did no such thing.  And I will thank you not to accuse me, Your Lord Protector, of such acts.  Now, I suggest you take these hellish victuals out of my sight at once.’  And with a mighty shove, he sent the farmer headlong into the others, knocking them one by one to the ground.  The baker managed to catch the bread and juggle the tarts to safety.  The butcher tightly grasped the woodcock to his ribcage with success.  But the tureen of steaming pea soup flew high above them all, tipping out its contents like a swarm of verdant locusts.  I watched, and I must admit watched with some glee, as the rich, green mixture landed on Cromwell, covering him from his head to his sober brogues.  Cromwell fell to his knees, gasping, clawing at the exasperated farmer who in a gesture of self-defence, brought the pig down hard upon the Lord Protector’s head.

‘Guards!’ spluttered Cromwell, sending globs of pea this way and that.  ‘Soldiers!  Come quick.  Quick!’

The door was flung open and four soldiers ran into the room, each wearing the unmistakeable pikeman’s helmet of the Roundheads.

‘What goes on here?’ asked one.

The second took one look at Cromwell and shook his head.  ‘Looks like we got ourselves a Mummer.  Dressed up just like the Green Man, is he not?’

‘Only with a pig’s head,’ said the third.  ‘Pagan dress!’

‘Or it’s a mormolukee!’ shouted the fourth.  ‘Right before us as we live and breathe!  Bundle it up, my brothers.  Bundle it up and we take it kicking and screaming to the dungeon.’

Despite his protests, Cromwell was bound, gagged and led away by the soldiers, spending Christmas in his own cell.  They would learn their mistake the hard way when they finally relented to Cromwell’s beseeching family and took him some mouldy cockle bread and very weak, distinctly eggy mead later that day.  In the meantime, we danced, drank and feasted like it was 1652.

The Christmas Cake

It’s December the first, it’s the start of the verse
at the moment I’m flour, eggs and sugar.
Add dried fruit and almonds, then cranberry jam
And I’m ready to bung in the cooker.
I’ve a measure or three of fine VSOP
to get once-a-year tipplers tipsy
and an hour or so later, the cake decorator
gets my icing all well-whisked and whippy.

In some paradox, I’m then chucked in a box
not to be opened ‘til Christmas.
I’ve no best before date and there’s no need to wait –
all the year round I’m delicious!
But it’s over a fortnight ‘til next I see daylight
when somebody opens the lid.
There must be a visitor!  The mayor or the minister?
Oh no, it’s a snotty-nosed kid!

He grins and he sniggers and soon his fat fingers
are dipped in me, testing, appraising.
His hygiene’s obscene and it’s turning me green –
well, at least what he’s left of my glazing.
But for all that he’s candid, he’s soon caught red-handed
And sent up to bed with no supper
and me I’m recovered and chucked in the cupboard –
once again I am tupperware-scuppered.

I can see, clear as light, that on Hogmanay night
they’ll be begging their guests to devour me.
But some kind of cretin claims eating is cheating
and drinks, quaffs and boozes profoundly.
At ten to midnight, he’ll put down his snakebite
And say he quite fancies some cake.
But that merry old swine will just sing Auld Lang Syne
and put the slice back on the plate.

At the end of December, all bakers remember
that although your intentions were good.
Your big Christmas cake’s an ambitious mistake
amongst all that other rich food.
So here’s my expressive and deep festive message
from the depths of the old biscuit tin:
‘Have a fabulous Christmas, enjoy your spiced biscuits’
and a ‘Happy New Year’ from the bin.