The young lounge the hours on the benches of the dead: their carefully careless hair skew-wiffs caps. Scratched and battered skateboards slung at their outstretched sneakers. Energy drinks clutched in one hand, handset in the other. Sickly, sticky-blue smiles on insect faces. You rarely see anyone riding a board these days. The older guys, sure. … Continue reading The Ancient Skate Punk.
It was chalked on the bog wall and spread quickly round school - a whisper to a chant in the playground. “Pippin’s mum’s only got one tit!” Odd. • We’d played darts at Pippin’s last summer. The house on the corner, halfway up Steep Street. I kept score. We smoked his mum’s cigarettes, drank his … Continue reading Withered Apples.
Martin Kettle, once of Stoneyclough (the pronunciation, if I remember correctly, being ‘-cluff’ rather than ‘-clow’), a town a long way north of here, but now resident of Penn Beacon, was stood on a table in the Eight Kings. He was busy sellotaping the corner of a large poster of Bob Dylan high up onto … Continue reading The Bristol Arm.
We are waiting for the driver to finish his smoke. He paces the concrete. The bus is half-full. There is quiet chat and nobody grumbles. This is how it is in a small seaside town. The bus service is limited. It is a luxury. We wait with our bags of shopping. We wait with … Continue reading Seagull Sips Cappuccino
