So Long, Whale-Bum To give you some idea how seriously I took it, that’s what I called my first solo album. The public, if such a noble beast still exists, agreed with my low opinion of myself-as-a-musical-entity. If we’re counting individuals, there are only three-hundred-and-three of them to blame for my desire to record a […]
Fiction
Expecting
EXPECTING The calendar indicated spring, but the weather was equivocal and kept the city on hold. Steep sunlight, as yet unfiltered by any leaves, dazzled the eyes and burned the skin, but the winds were icy. A month of recidivist weather: tomorrow it might easily snow. Leonard and Halli Losco were driving home after their […]
Miranda July
MIRANDA JULY It should not have surprised me that during a business trip to LA, my father arranged to meet Miranda July. One of the reasons people like my father is because he listens… and when he listens he acts. If you mention a particular wine to him, he’ll go out and drink it; a […]
Flora and Pomona
Flora and Pomona The two mediators are late. Karen has lit the fire and run upstairs twice to try and find the email confirming the appointment. Perhaps she was meant to go to their office? She finds the office number and rings, leaving a message, apologising if she’s got the arrangements wrong. She goes to […]
Rosco of the Pineys
Rosco of the Pineys When me and my friends started at the paper mill the other guys who worked there said we’d get used to the stink, but I was the only one never did. I suppose I always saw the job as temporary, so why bother trying to come to terms with it? Other […]
Territories
Territories He was waiting for her, sitting on a bench in the garden of St Paul’s, and he seemed to be watching the cathedral roof where three dirty white doves squabbled noisily. Mary was dressed for the office, in her tweed skirt and winter coat. She hoped her appearance would make him forget, for […]
Escape to Victory
Escape to victory Whose fault was it? Well, it was Michael Caine’s: John Colby’s if you think about it. He had to have Hatch back on the football team, see. And the only way he could do it was to break the goalkeeper’s arm. He knew the Germans would check it, so it had to […]
High Rise
High Rise Jaime lived in the apartment opposite Anna, on the fifteenth floor of the last surviving high rise block in the town. The other neighbours had no time for Jaime, people don’t for drunks, as a rule. Marco lived on the ground floor, you passed his door going in or out of the block. […]
The Last House on the Marsh
The Last House on the Marsh Here there is no divide between land and sea, just a blur of blue where the mud flats rise. Then miles of water-logged green, heavy with the smell of salt and rot, running right up to the sea wall which ziz zags all across this land, holding back the […]