Decisions, indecisions
flash fiction Sometimes it’s a problem. Maintaining a focussed train of thought while you’re in a long, tedious… Yawn. Sorry. Where was I? Oh yeah.
Aaaarrghhhhh!
An email flutters in. Arthur Roberts, a US publisher who has a track record of being kind to me. Based on synopsis only… Would like to
A slightly damp and dusty memory
I detoured this evening. Spur of the moment, probably brought on by the hailstones. Partway en-route to Brixton I turned left on a whim. In
Settle down
Sit down somewhere quiet. Plug in your earphones – isolate yourself from the rest of the world. Take a deep, calming breath. Exhale. And listen
It is the end of the world
Lightning flashes towards the ground somewhere between my office window and The Gherkin… Thunder makes this building vibrate. The sky is dark, stormy, ominous. Yet
A slogan isn’t just for Christmas
T-shirted (and polo-shirted!) slogans. Last Wednesday the waitress in the Deli had a message for everyone. “A good girl is just a bad girl who hasn’t been
Polite notice to London cyclists…
Dear cyclist. Bless. You aren’t a superior lifeform. You aren’t invincible. You aren’t invulnerable. You aren’t particularly clever. You haven’t taken a test of competency.
It’s an endangered species you know
My pillow. listening to How to Save a Life by The Fray, by the way. I was lying on my bed, partaking of some serious
Meanwhile, over in Spain
Daughter reports… She’s going to Cadiz. Camping. To a very special water park. Is it the one where they film the children’s television programme La Banda?
Monday evening blues
The Lovely S. Down. And I can’t be there – in Worcestershire – to give her the support and comfort that she needs. This sucks.
Last night…
WTF? I woke up this morning – ten minutes before the alarm – feeling as though I’d run a hard road race yesterday. Except I
Book review: Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
In many ways this is the ultimate children’s adventure: Pirates, natives, exploration, tension, scary scenes, humiliation, exhilaration, excitement, battle, peace-making, new enemies, new friends and
Food glorious food?
I just don’t get this… Müller Light Yoghurts. I can’t eat them, being a vegetarian. Because Müller Light Yoghurts contain gelatine. A yoghurt product? Containing
To the theatre…
On Thursday The Lovely S and I had an evening in the West End. A meal at Bertorolli’s followed by… Monty Python’s Spamalot! What can
The definition of purgatory is…
Shopping. In Worcester. On a Saturday. On a wet Saturday. When every chav in the county under the age of 16 is also there. With
A flying visit to the yard…
Dodging the many thunderstorms The Lovely S and I stopped off at the yard on the way back from shopping in Worcester yesterday. Unsurprisingly we
Holding out for a Hero
there’s been so much going on I’ll have to do a piece-meal catch-up We spent yesterday evening at Stafford (not Stratford!) Castle, Staffordshire. First we stopped
Five and a half hours…
No, not a title for a rude film. It’s the amount of time that it took to drive from Docklands to our home in Worcestershire
My new friend…
Dan. this is bonkers and bizarre and I probably shouldn’t have done it but I am a country boy who just stays in the Big
Why the BBC sucks (2)
clipped from the BBC News website: Many young people do not know how dangerous roads are for inexperienced motorists, a survey suggests. Some 32% thought
Why the BBC sucks (1)
Man sets himself alight at cinema More than 70 people were forced to leave a cinema in Bedford after a man set fire to himself
Not Missing Missy
This (as Eddie Izzard would say) is a true story… About a year before we met, The Lovely S and I were listening to the
Today I’ve been
Struggling: To get out of bed at 04.15 To get out of the house before 05.30 Through the occasionally heavy, squally showers To battle my
Not today you don’t
Nor tomorrow. I’d planned to school Big Vin over showjumps today. Big Vin fancied a weekend off. When I went to get him out of the
Gone shopping, slowly
It’s Friday evening so naturally I’m shopping at Morrisons, Bromsgrove. Wild party animal that I am. I’ve stopped off to have fun do the shopping
I’m an addict and I have sinned
Bloody bookshops. Shouldn’t be allowed! I now have a copy of Dick Francis’ latest paperback ‘Under Orders’ and Billy Bragg’s exploration of ‘Britishness’, ‘The Progressive
The sound of silence
The sound of silence goes like this (are you ready?)… Faintly in the distance: Meow? Nothing. Then, still faintly in the distance but coming closer:
Never can say goodbye
(1973 i think; gloria gaynor) Anyway. I finished Transport – a SciFi short story – last week. Today I’ve just decided… * that I haven’t
Dedicated to the one I love
So. I’ve been thinking. It’s your birthday on Friday 29th June and you’ve cunningly taken that day and the next off. And you’re going
The reverse Midas touch
That’s the one where everything starts out gold and gradually turns to brown, smelly stuff under your watchful eye. I’m not sure what’s gold about
Don’t panic!
I’m sitting here with a mild feeling of anxiety. I mean, it’s 13.48 on Sunday. The weekend is slipping through my fingers like fine Mexican
Candles in the wind…
sniff Phone call to Daughter. sniff She is unwell. sniff She has a runny nose and it’s sore. sniff But (bless) she’s determined that it
Saturday, Dressage
Swallowfields, P10 and P18. I rushed Vin through a hurried grooming, quickly stowed his dressage tack and the rest of the gear, loaded him, gave
Motorways sights…
Friday afternoon. M40, Birmingham-bound. Buckinghamshire. It’s not often I see a need for new legislation but this requirement is long overdue… Vehicle registration plates. I
An ear full…
Today’s playlist (drawn from my current iPod tracklisting below)… * the totally brilliant Hide and Seek by Immogen Heap * the totally brilliant (do you sense a
Disaster Area – Too Many Cooks…
Well actually, too few cooks. One too few to be precise. I put tonight’s pasta on, made sure it was nicely settled then came upstairs,
Custard? Frozen???
Oh my God! It happens once in a while. You hear about a place and think ‘That’s gotta be cool! I have to go there/try
Dim Cymraeg ‘yn warthus’
There’s an English bit below for those of hard of hearing… 🙂 Mae Llywodraeth y Cynulliad wedi dweud bod penderfyniad cwmni teithio i ofyn i’w
Is it me…?
Just outside the Limehouse Link tunnel there’s a big sign that says what is – and isn’t – allowed on the road through the tunnel.
Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast…
do you know how many people misquote that erm quote and say ‘savage beast‘? no, me neither. but it’s got to be a big number… Anyway…
Book review – Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
This novel was the set text of a book group I attend. And… I struggled with it from the outset. But because it was a
History repeats (wiser heads than Bush and Blair)
General Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz (01/06/1780 – 16/11/1831) wrote between 1816 and 1830 his acclaimed and (even now in the 21st Century) influentially pivotal
Having a break, having a Worcestershire Walkabout…
It’s lunchtime, it’s so quiet that a veil of complete and utter silence hangs over the valley. Except for the twittering of the birds in the
Short shorts, medium shorts and long shorts…
Yay! I’ve just finished the SciFi short that I’ve been working on for a few weeks. Yeah I know, shorts shouldn’t take a few weeks, I