Scratching Shed Publishing

Prepare to scream… with horror and mirth!

By Steve Nallon  – with illustrations by Scott Brooker

Comedy writer, actor and founding Spitting Image cast member Steve Nallon presents twelve Spooky Tales of Supernatural Strangeness …and Weirdly Wonderful Goings On.

‘These ghost tales are vivid, grotesque, funny and curiously believable. Compelling reading for the young, old and in-betweens… The Oath of Aesculapius is a lovely, twisty, gothic horror story about a dining club – think Bullingdon – where rich men eat rich food and – hallelujah! – get their just desserts.’ Jonny Maitland, Tonight television presenter and author of the play The Last Temptation of Boris Johnson

‘These are absolute GENIUS! Perfectly formed, individually wrapped treats, to be consumed by the fireside, a large sherry in hand, the fingers of long branches scraping across a window. A mixture of Wodehouse, Conan Doyle and fresh Nallon, these spooky tales chill and thrill in equal amounts.’ James Dreyfus, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme and The Thin Blue Line

‘With a fine grasp of character and idiolect, Steve Nallon conjures up worlds with a great sense of authenticity and an even greater sense of imagination… Steve has an uncanny ability to find fresh and disturbing images – of life and death – in what we think are familiar worlds.’ Alistair McGowan, BAFTA winning comedian and actor

Ever wondered what happened to one-of-a-kind comedian Phil Cool?

Well now you can find out, as told by the man himself…

Young Mick, next door, played drums and bagpipes. Separately, of course, but it still annoyed our neighbours. He’d say stuff like: ‘I’m quitting my band. They’re a bunch of big-heads; not one of them is as talented as I am.’

Then one day, in the early 1970s, he said something sensible. ‘Phil, if you don’t start doing proper gigs now, you’ll be too old and it won’t happen.’ So I made a decision to get serious, leave my job and make the transition from wage to stage. By 1985, after playing every dive in the UK, I’d honed a few hours of decent stand-up and landed a series on BBC2. Game-changer. After that I landed another, which won a Royal Television Award for originality.

A third series, a special and two ITV series followed. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the phone didn’t stop ringing; my memorable face was everywhere. I had realised a dream. Then, as far as most viewers knew, I all but vanished. It’s true big theatres progressively grew smaller, but in fact I carried on walking the boards until my retirement, aged 65.

I am now 76. So here’s the book. I think you’ll like it. For a fair price, you get the head … the tale … the whole damn thing.

by Lee Stuart Evans

The late 1980s.

Robin dreams of becoming Jim Kerr, singer in the best band in the world, Simple Minds, despite having no talent whatsoever.

Fliss is a musical genius, perhaps the East Midlands’ answer to Kate Bush, if only she had more confidence.

Until rock stardom inevitably descends upon him, Robin takes a job at the local garage, where for the first time in his life he finds a sense of purpose; while Fliss, pushed by her mother, reluctantly auditions for TV’s biggest talent show and proves an instant hit.

When dozens of fast cars are stolen, old mechanic Vern recruits Robin to help him investigate suspicious goings-on at a derelict railway yard on the edge of Sherwood Forest.

It’s all a bit of a lark until somebody gets killed and Robin and Fliss find themselves entangled in a police investigation.

But does death mean the end of their romantic and musical dreams, or is it only just the beginning?

‘Alive and kicking with big laughs and an even bigger heart…’ – Patrick Kielty

‘My favourite funny writer…’ – Harry Hill

A Funny – and Tragic – Memoir of Life in the Met

by Paul Byrne

Paul Byrne joined London’s Metropolitan Police by mistake. By day a Detective Inspector, by night a stand-up comedian, this is a memoir of law enforcement not exactly going to plan. DI Byrne walked a tightrope of death, destruction and disaster, much of it caused by himself. From a near-death experience at the hands of the Australian SAS to causing a diplomatic incident with North Korea, it was a hell of a ride. Yet sucked into a dark and troubling whirlpool of police corruption, eventually he would be forced out of the service a broken man. Paul remains the only serving police officer to be mugged on duty – and the only one to be sacked for writing satire. His story shines an amusing, and at times horrifying, light into the darkest corners of Britain’s largest police force.

“A fascinating account – full of tragic and hilarious stories shot through with Byrne’s wonderful appreciation of the absurdity of life…” – ARTHUR SMITH

The Selected Writings of Martin Kelner

With an introduction by Gary Lineker

‘By popular demand’ is one of those phrases like ‘we must do lunch’ and ‘your delivery will arrive between 9.00am and 10.00am’ that we have learned to take with a pinch of salt.
But in the case of the pieces in this book it is arguably true.

Admittedly, we only have the author’s word for it, but he swears that barely a week goes by – okay, a fortnight – without him receiving an email or a Tweet asking why an adoring public can’t enjoy his gimlet-eyed take on broadcast sport and addiction to half-remembered street jokes in the press or online these days.

The answer is that the current broadcasting landscape means we are all streaming madly or scrolling through our phones at different times, meaning a joke about the late football commentator John Motson’s jacket, which might have played to an appreciative audience of millions a decade ago, might now evince no more than a puzzled frown.

However, on rescuing these pieces from the dustbin of history – Martin’s laptop actually – there seemed merit in the view that a half-decent joke is a half-decent joke whenever it’s told. We think there are a few in this collection.

Where possible we have tried to supply a bit of context, and there are fragments of memoir too, previously unpublished, for anyone interested in the author’s ‘journey’ – as publishers seem contractually obliged to call everybody’s life these days.

We need a laugh in these difficult times – unless there’s been a recent economic miracle, in which case disregard. The good news is that age has not withered those in this long-awaited volume, nor custom staled their not quite infinite variety.