Thug (with pinkie extended).

Voting nine to one in favour of, the members of the annual general meeting of the Mill Dam Seamen's Mission deemed that the sale of alcohol and bar food would be more advantageous to both the charity's future coffers and present patrons than the traditional offerings of hope, faith and charity, and so, later that … Continue reading Thug (with pinkie extended).

The Dream Job.

At Penn Beacon market last weekend, I bought a dozen National Geographic magazines (dated some four decades ago, but for one with a beautiful African savanna on the cover, that was from April 1982; the paper of which was considerably thinner) from a man who, as well as cheap collections of periodicals – such as … Continue reading The Dream Job.

Sumner Road.

  Scarce of traffic, vehicular or pedestrian, Sumner Road stretches east-west across the early evening dereliction that was once lined with kempt and pretty red bricked terraces and local businesses, but now is bordered only by bombed-out and mostly abandoned buildings resembling broken teeth. Some are so destroyed that the backyards, wild with nettles, can … Continue reading Sumner Road.

Notes From a Fragile Island. 11

January 16th 2009 (Hook Farm, Uplyme) 8am. There is a doe outside the window. She is nuzzling the wet grass. She glances up at me after a while, stares, chewing, then continues foraging. Later, I scoop and crumble the insides of yesterday's french stick and I scatter the bread on the grass for the small … Continue reading Notes From a Fragile Island. 11