You know those times when you go into a supermarket and you get to the end of a certain aisle and there’s some sickly grinning, desperate-eyed woman in a white, straw, trilby hat and green apron standing behind a makeshift counter offering you an unfeasibly small piece of cheddar on a cocktail stick in the vain hope that you will then proceed to the dairy aisle and buy a whole block of the stuff? Well, today I am she, or rather he in this case. I’m offering you a whole lump of cheddar though as opposed to the paltry, and quite frankly insulting, amount the well-meaning lady in Asda is giving out.

I am going to “attempt to tempt” you today to go forth to the Alan Stevenson aisle on Amazon.co.uk and buy my new novel; Mutch Wants Moor. Unlike the aforementioned cheddar, my little noggin of word cheese will be enough to both satisfy and tingle your literary taste buds at the same time. Hopefully your reader salivary glands will be watering by the end of this blog post. And my lump of cheese will be just as lip-smacking as the said supermarket offering but will put a much bigger smile on your lovely face. You see, I’ve piqued your interest already haven’t I? Just by telling you you’re lovely. Well you are in my eyes.

So, without further ado, let me hand you a virtual cocktail stick and first of all invite you to delicately stab it into the back cover blurb from Mutch Wants Moor. The blurb is rather like cheese as it’s quite difficult to create and requires time and patience for it to fully mature. Anyway, here is the blurb. Have a taste.

Mutch Wants Moor is the hilarious new novel from the humorous pen of Alan Stevenson. Pierre Mutch wants more. More money that is. And one way of getting it is to rent out mooring space on his property by the Great Northern Canal. However, when Archie and Aggie Stone don’t turn out to be the ideal, traditional boaters that he had in mind he swiftly decides they must go and be replaced by more desirable and more affluent residents. Thus a highly comical sequence of devious plans are put into action by Pierre and one of his other tenants, the rakish old womaniser Basil Forbuoys, to rid Downing Wood Mill of the pesky newcomers. However, each new plan meets with increasingly disastrous laugh-out-loud results. Will Pierre eventually succeed in his dastardly plot? Read on…

So what do you think so far? Rich and creamy? Or bland and uninteresting. Well, if it’s the latter I will bid you good day and trouble you no further, it’s your loss. However, if it’s the former then I will gladly invite you to plunge your cocktail stick into an even bigger piece and now present you with a passage from the book itself.

This is from chapter 53, where Aggie is angry with Pierre for cutting down a perfectly healthy tree and goes to vent her spleen on him. Personally I think this is more Stilton than cheddar but have a nibble and see what you think. Boy, am I in a generous mood today or what. Ok, here we go…

It was Pierre himself who eventually opened the door believing it to be Basil or Rita to say that some minor damage had been caused to their flats in the storm. If he’d known it was the Stones he would have stayed in bed and sent Mary down to deal with it. He nearly squealed when he opened the door and came face to face with an angry looking Aggie backed by the immense frame of her husband.

‘Aggie, Archie, how nice to see you both.’ He said with a sickly smile.

‘Don’t give me that you po-faced streak of piss. You cut that tree down just for firewood, didn’t you? Didn’t you?

‘No, I-’ Began Pierre.

‘Every single tree on that mooring came down last night because the sycamore has gone. What do you have to say for yourself?’

Pierre hadn’t been to the toilet yet and he began to feel his bowels loosening. He’d never seen Aggie look or sound like that before. She was furious. And, to make matters worse, the enormous, looming hulk of her husband was right behind her. He had visions of Archie’s great hairy hands forming into football sized fists and crashing with terrific force into his thin face.

‘It was diseased.’ Was all he could whine.

‘Shite!’

‘But it was.’

‘Complete and utter shite!’

‘I swear to you.’

‘Shitehawk.’

‘Well that’s what the tree surgeon said.’

‘Another shitehawk!’

‘And Basil.’

‘What’s the collective noun for a group of shitehawks?’

‘They convinced me.’

‘Shite for brains.’

‘It cost me a hundred quid.’

‘A shitehawk and his money are soon parted.’

‘I’m not to blame I promise you.’

‘I’ve never heard such shite in my life.’

‘Please, Aggie, it’s not shit.’

‘I didn’t say it was, I said it was shite. Shite, with an E.’

‘But-’

‘Shite, with a capital S.’

‘If you’ll just listen.’

‘I don’t want to hear any more of your shite. I’m ringing the council. Shitehawk!’

‘Not the council, no, wait, I can explain.’

‘What? That load of old shite about disease?’

‘I’m sorry Pierre.’ Said Archie putting his large hand on his wife’s shoulder to calm her down a bit. ‘But it’s not looking good though is it.’

‘Look, all I know is that Vince, the tree surgeon, said it had anthracnose and it had to come down.’ Whined Pierre

‘How did he know?’ Aggie said angrily. ‘You must have called him in in the first place. Tree surgeons don’t just wander around the town looking for trees to fell. There are laws you know.’

‘I was worried it might be too close to the canal.’ Pierre lied. He was desperate now.

‘Yet more shite. First thing tomorrow, I’m ringing the council. Good day Pierre, or should I say Rapace de Merde?’

‘Eh? What does that mean?’

‘Surely you ought to know. Your mother would have. It’s French for shitehawk.’

Ok, just like the cheddar lady at the shop, I’m biased. But I think that’s comic writing at its very best and probably the best use of the word ‘shite’ that has ever appeared in literature, or at least the English language. I should just clarify that Pierre is half French on his mother’s side.

So what do you think now you’ve tried before you buy? Do you want the whole block (book) or will you leave it on the shelf along with all the other unloved items such as margarine and those funny looking balls of white cheese in a bag of whey. What’s it called now? Ah, that’s it, Mozzarella (sorry but it’s just awful).

If this has aroused your literary taste buds then hop on over to my Amazon aisle and pick yourself up a copy of Mutch Wants Moor. In fact, I’ll go one step further and give you a link at the bottom to get there with. Call it a virtual hand basket or see it as a bit like asking a member of staff where the Quark is. Or perhaps, in this case. The Quirk.

Bit of an obvious and in your face link I know but it will take you there. Whilst there you might like to browse the other Stevenson products on offer. One other thing. If you do read it and think it’s a “Cracker” (see what I did there) then do by all means please leave me a nice review.

Thank you for sampling my wares.