Slapstick and Tickle We met at The Accident Prone Society Annual Dinner and Dance. Always a messy affair. I’ve been going for three years now and it always seems to consist of a group of awkward people dancing in their dinner. I can never work out why they book the same ballroom, up three flights [...]
Editor Edited ‘I know I shouldn’t be doing this,’ I said to the frightened man tied to a chair. ‘But your physical pain will be much shorter-lived than the psychological traumas you have inflicted on me.’ Of course, he couldn’t talk or scream with the parcel tape over his mouth. His eyes expanded under [...]
IT’S THE BLANK page which causes all the trouble. Or the blank screen with the vertical flickering text bar. Crying out to be filled like a hungry dog in the back streets of Sorrento it needs to be silenced with some crumbs of creatively-inspired comfort. One solution is to dredge the swirling wells of experience [...]
The Duvet Factory Girl NOTHING EVER HAPPENED to Jim Collins. Nothing, that is, apart from commuting into work at the bank and commuting back. Five days a week, then a weekend taken up with the lads down the pub. And Sunday spent recovering and regaining any reserves of strength to start the whole cycle all [...]
1pr thick rubber gloves Rope, 2 foot. Meat cleaver Hacksaw Heavy duty plastic bags Swarfega Disinfectant Bleach Shovel Grass seeds Library for book on local beauty spots and book on theatrical make up Balaclava Black sweater Airline ticket to South America (one way).
YOUR DAILY LIFE is punctuated by a series of unbidden pronouncements, commands and warnings. Wherever you go you are warned to ‘keep off the grass’, ‘clean up after your dog’ (even if you only have a goldfish) and to not ‘play ball games’. It seems nigh on impossible to walk for five minutes without receiving [...]
THE AROMA OF greasy chips lifted me from an abstract reverie to confront the vision of a grossly overweight woman stuffing her face with fried food from a greaseproof bag. If you ever notice someone eating in public, apart from restaurants, you can bet your life savings that they will be fat. And you can [...]
THERE WAS A Peach Melba once that has never been equalled. I had it as a boy during a Christmas trip to Paris. The details of the drive to Paris, the hotel, the shops, The Mona Lisa in the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower and Midnight Mass at The Notre Dame Cathedral are all as nothing [...]
PART ONE: THE MINISTRY of Clichés and Aphorisms (MOCA) gave me a bell. ‘I just want to touch base to run an idea by you, Jack,’ said Mr Armitage. ‘I’ll be there before you can say “Jack Robinson”,’ I lied. Actually, my name is Jack Robinson, so lots of people say it to me all [...]
AT THE AGE of fifty-five, Norman Plummer had honed to a fine degree the art of failure. Plummer by name, but Cheam Station ticket clerk by occupation, Norman had failed to grow a completely joined-up moustache which resembled a blurred, follicular SOS in morse code above his thin upper lip. He had succeeded, however, in [...]