Issue 20

..arrived in England courtesy of the English soldiers who were then campaigning in the Lowlands as part of the Thirty Years War. Gin almost became the national sport. It was estimated that every fourth house in England was a gin mill and employers provided gin as part of their pay to workers. It is alleged…

..a polished head emerging in a straight line from the type of neck generally owned by South African rugby hookers or Gestapo torturers. Those tight rolls of flesh extrude out of a too-tight collar and there is too much gold jewellery that once characterized used car salesmen or proto-Mafiosi. His legs look like Christmas hams…

..nowadays being arrested in underwear representing the flag of your host country. They don’t weigh you, no matter that you look like a beached whale and you’re being constantly towed out to sea. On they go, over-flowing the aisles and seats. This is in stark contrast to the old days when they weighed both you…

As a young person I read some of the writings of Carl Jung. There was a section in it that I couldn’t quite come to grips with about how inanimate objects are living, sentient beings in a living, sentient world. I think that my story demonstrates that my scraps dish and bread board, otherwise perfectly…

..staggering Lear-like around a deserted caravan park. What legacy will he leave? Missed opportunities, doors closed that might have been opened, darkness where there should have been light. The opportunistic gall, the sacrifice of principle to expediency and the denigration of truth and transparency will rankle less than the utter mediocrity of the man and…

Mike’s Pith & Wind cont. .. under my breath, I eventually opted for XL, and then spent another five minutes trying to find a Bonds’ five pack in the right size. I eventually found a pack of gaily-coloured XL cotton hipsters down the back of the L rack. By this stage I just wanted to…