King Albert's Words of Advice: And Other Extraordinary Stories [Paperback]

In these short stories you will meet King Albert, who has a harem of 500 wives, and problems in keeping them all happy; then there's a young lady whose Granny asks her to sleep with a ghost; Budgie Bill, who prefers a feathered bird to the charms of Samantha Ramsbottom; and a host of other engaging characters. This box of narrative delights contains a variety of emotional flavours: all different and yet all satisfying.

Michael Allen has written eleven novels (under various names) which have been published in the UK, USA, France and Denmark. He has also had work successfully produced on the stage, television, and radio.

THERE’S A BLOKE DOWN OUR pub – name of Bernard – who reckons he’s got a time machine in his shed. If you buy him a pint, he’ll tell you about places he’s been to in it. And some of them are really weird.

Course, there’s other blokes who reckon that Bernard’s just making these stories up, so that blokes like me will buy him pints. But I’m not so sure. I’ve been and had a look at his shed. He keeps it locked, naturally, because they’d nick anything round here – but he’s definitely got something in there. It’s got dials and that. You can see it through the window.

Like I say, not everyone believes what Bernard says, and I once heard a bloke with red hair tell Bernard to his face that there’s no such thing as a time machine. But Bernard wasn’t having any.

‘Listen, smart-arse,’ he said. ‘If H.G. Wells could build a time machine in 1895, there’s no reason on earth why the Japanese can’t build one today. They just take a little while to catch up with western technology, that’s all. And as a matter of fact it isn’t just a time machine. It’s a time and space machine. It can visit parallel universes.’

Well, this bloke with red hair never said a word after that, because he didn’t know what a parallel universe was. I don’t either, of course. But Bernard’s mum told my mum that Bernard has a GCSE in physics, and he uses a computer at work, so I reckon he knows what he’s talking about.

‘This machine I’ve got is made by Sony,’ Bernard said. ‘I’m beta-testing it for them.’

Well, this bloke with red hair looked dead impressed when Bernard said he was beta-testing this machine. Because this bloke didn’t know what beta-testing meant. I don’t either, of course.

‘Yes,’ said Bernard. ‘It’s all very interesting really. I reckon it’ll transform society, once it becomes generally available. Bit like the internet. And of course I can go to all sorts of interesting times and places in it. Watch the French Revolution, visit Queen Cleopatra. All sorts. I had a really interesting experience just last night, as a matter of fact.’

‘Oh yes?’ said the bloke with red hair, who had stopped not believing in time travel. ‘Where did you go to?’

Bernard pushed his empty glass towards this bloke. ‘Buy us a pint,’ he said, ‘and I’ll tell you.’