There was blood on my pillow. And a tooth on the floor. And a snake in the corner, coiled around the arc of the rocking chair. The snake I don't believe had anything to do with the tooth or the blood on the pillow, but if that cold blood hadn't clicked me from sleep, opening my eyes on the tooth on the floor, I might not have rolled my eyes to the corner where the snake hugged the rocking chair. It's an old chair and probably felt the dry ribs of hundreds of snakes around its legs. But never in...
"The McDonald's Arch Deluxe. Thee layers of disgusting terror."
The ad flashed by on the R31 bus, and I quickly completed it in my mind. Damn those people. As a vegan, I feel these ad execs should not be allowed to penetrate my air space.
Before I was strong-willed, such an attempt used to stand a chance at luring me from my modest, then-vegetarian diet.
Now, it had the chance of an earthworm in a swimming pool.
At loss of time and options, and very hungry for no apparent reason, however, I stepped into a nearby Burger King and ordered...
"This is a little weak on the nose, and blunt in taste. To put it mildly, I wouldn't serve this wine to my guests, nor likely drink it for pleasure." Those were the only words I have ever received, in written communique, as it were, from the famous wine critic Perry Daniels. It was also my first review as a vintner. Unfortunately, besides being in the show, it was also published in the Post. A shame. And great annoyance.
Because of this man, my start in vintering is in somewhat of a decay. I am looking in to brewmaster jobs...
Write as you please, in six minutes, like a breeze.
They make it sound so easy, like it is as easy as taking a bath or brushing your hair. Omitting the fact that it is actually quite challenging, a formidable task, failing to mention the fire details.
Then again, I guess, to an elderly person or someone who is physically impaired, bathing and brushing might be considered challenging too.
So I am sitting here, in this large, airy room, surrounded by other nervous candidates, trying to recall everything that I have learned over the past six moths, endeavouring to capture...
£18000 was how much it was going to cost to get him out of jail. Such is the price for public indecency in front of the queen.
It wasn't even that it was so...indecent. It was more along the lines of public infantilism. We'd both been to London before, and we had done all the touristy things, all the things that young men with wild oats were desperately in need of doing, but this time, Adam took it too far.
Adam, he of the propensity for humping things, took one look at the Royal Guard, and in a moment of...
"Travel light, but take everything with you. No cases full of cuddly toys. No toys, in fact."
These were the terse instructions from my mother as I prepared to pack the contents of my life into one tiny, child-size suitcase, a suitcase barely big enough to accommodate a change of clothes, let alone anything sentimental, useful or practical. What on earth had possessed her to choose such a ridiculous object for such a momentous adventure? I couldn't even begin to think. It was completely unsuitable and my mother was usually such a meticulous woman. Nothing escaped her notice. The house...
There's somebody standing in the corner of my room. I have no idea who they are. I don't recognise the outline, the shape. I think the figure is a woman. She, if she is a she, is tall and slim, almost skeletal, like a witch. This thought scares me. I don't want to be visited by a witch, especially not the ghost of a dead witch. Which is worse? A live witch, with a wand and a broom? Or a ghost witch, with neither because she is no longer a physical substance? Would the live witch or the ghost witch...
"Even in a finite universe, a rock doesn't keep being a rock. Things are always disintegrating and becoming other things." Our Tragic Universe, Scarlett Thomas
There was once a rock, a very old rock, a rock which had laid low for a very long time. It couldn't remember how long that long time actually was but somehow knew without needing to remember that that long time was long enough. It was a rock that took great pride in its appearance, habitually watering its neat lawn of grass, combing its thick coat of moss, trimming it at least once a week....
Travel light, but take everything with you. Everything that you might need. The bare essentials. Nothing that might be termed as excess. Nothing that might weigh you down, nothing that might, at the other end, end up in a cupboard or a loft, forever after forgotten and stored away.
That's the problem with belongings. You accumulate so many unnecessary things over the years, things that once meant something to you, perhaps even a lot, but that, over an indeterminate period of time, lost that once owned meaning and became, instead worthless, meaningless. The Valentine's Day card from an old lover,...
Bombs, were the last thing on his mind. Jack turned and spoke " It's funny, that today would have to be the day we become history." Jack lifted his left hand looked at it. and laughed. I puzzled said to him, What do you mean Jack, honey we can make it come on don't talk like th-." He said to me " you know what tomorrow is right?" still puzzled I didn't answer. " it was our to be our wedding day."