Cherrypicked stories

"There's something about the place, Al, he told me one evening over a beer and a game of lop-sided snooker. He spoke very softly, almost reverentially. "It's the history or something. You can feel it in the air. It gets into you. Like fag smoke. Like, right in the blood. And it suits me. Being alone with it. I wouldn't want to live any other way now.

You won't hear these words, the voice in you head doesn't have a sound really, and if tissue box perforations have ever looked like teeth ready to devour the time you waste, but then again, if we are to believe in all that we see,

We drank in silence for a few moments. Then Sherlock rolled his shoulders and sniffed. He lifted his deerstalker, turned it around, put it back on again ' tugging at the peaks like an admiral. Something was coming. "I'll give you a story, Al, he said. He took a last, lung-stuffing drag on his fag and blew his smoke at the bar top, where it spread out in a layer like dry ice. "Did I tell you¦ I actually was a detective once.

(I was young then - living the irretrievable moment, though earthed enough to know it)

Sherlock had lent me a book, Worry Yourself Well , which said it was fine to think of yourself as a failure, anyway. It lowered your expectations of success ' so if you failed, you'd actually lived up to your expectations. Which meant you'd succeeded. Something like that. So I couldn't go wrong, really. I was prepared for failure. Whichever way you looked at it, I could only succeed.

We'll get up when we like. Eat when we like. Drink when we like. Play the stereo loud if we choose. Dance naked through our rooms.

The rain came suddenly As I (is it alright to say I?) Sat at the wormwood window Looking down At the umbrella backs of Black beetles Slipping past to the tip Tap tap of the heels Of the girls come back

"Mr Benefit? I'm calling from the Daily Mail. "Really? Well, you can go fuck a camel.

Night of the Corduroy Beast After refusing straight to cover my legs with the maroon offenders, a wrestling match ensued at the top of the stairs. To the death! or until I gave in, let myself be clad