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Violetta Are You Better?
If Stevie Wonder had lived in Bulgaria, he’d have realised that there’s nothing hotter than July. Here’s one hundred words per day to describe the first sixteen days of a very sticky month.
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While My Guitar Teacher Gently Weeps
Words of apology to anyone who has ever tried to teach me to play a musical instrument.
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There’s a Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He’s Engels
Dyado Petr, Baba Stefka and Todor Zhivkov are/were real people, the earthquake and appointment of a new head of state really did happen, and the places I’ve mentioned really do exist, but much of the rest of this tale is a fig leaf of my imagination. However, it describes an event that could have taken place in my part of Bulgaria seventy years ago. Superstition is so strong and diverse here that it’s possible to make it up and get away with it. Maybe I did make it up and maybe I didn’t.
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The Fox and the Elm Tree
For Julia and Robert. And for Coral and Sarah.
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If I Were a Fish
June is busting out all over… from day sixteen to the end of the month, each described in 100 words.
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Say kashkaval!
Posted on Fri, 13 Feb 2026
Actually, kashkaval’s a bit rank. It’s like Edam that’s been left out of the fridge a couple of weeks. We only really use it for cooking or filing down the goats’ hooves. And they say 'say kashkaval' when they want you to smile for a photograph...
Read full commentPosted in Manchego
The Glorious Five Year Plan of the Bulgarian Dairy Industry
Posted on Fri, 13 Feb 2026
My favourite cheese is Kashkaval
From cows reared near Plovdiv
The milk comes out quite lumpy
So they put it through a sieve
Read full commentPosted in Manchego
Bossy people
Posted on Fri, 20 Feb 2026
My fitness regime amounts to this...
Any exercise is good provided you don't have to pay a subscription or wear lycra to do it.
Gardening is best. It's a great feeling when the muscles are aching at the end of a day but your lungs...
Read full commentPosted in His Running Top
Dennis Bergkamp
Posted on Sat, 21 Feb 2026
Thanks IPFN. I’ll send the link on to my son. He tried to sell his collection about twelve years ago and nobody was interested and since then nobody’s even taken him up on his offer to give them away. Not even the National Football Museum in...
Read full commentPosted in Eva of the Seven Wonders
Buddha
Posted on Sat, 21 Feb 2026
I get the impression that the factory that made the badge also made them for other shipbuilders around the country. They were based (and still are based, apparently) in Birmingham whereas the shipyard was in the distant North East.
Ship...
Read full commentPosted in Eva of the Seven Wonders
Wembley Teeth
Posted on Sat, 21 Feb 2026
I love meeting people who have witnessed historic events that nobody else around seems to have been at. That match at Wembley in 1953 must have been brilliant to see, so good on your Dad.
I used to work with a man who was at the 1966 World...
Read full commentPosted in Eva of the Seven Wonders
Powerful
Posted on Fri, 20 Feb 2026
I read some wonderfully powerful words in this, especially...
It’s a shit-stained, twenty-four hour imbroglio
The way you read it with the musical backing track made it all the more dramatic.
Good on you!
Read full commentPosted in Welcome to the New World (with musical accompaniment!)
Gene
Posted on Fri, 20 Feb 2026
Poor old Jezebel. But at least Gene loves Jezebel.
We all talk to spirits in the desert. Their voices fly in the wind. And it’s better than talking to Manchester United supporters.
I was going to wish you luck for this afternoon but...
Read full commentPosted in Prophesy: The Immortal Witch (11)
Running
Posted on Fri, 20 Feb 2026
It was my knees that made me give up running, together with a bit of laziness, but before the niggleing pains got me I went through all the mid-life personal bests and internal competitiveness stuff that you've described. And although it...
Read full commentPosted in His Running Top
Mint tea
Posted on Wed, 18 Feb 2026
Hello Jenny.
Thank you for reading this. You've pretty much grasped what I had in mind but the man's not dead. He's in a desolate space somewhere with his gravestone waiting for him in the background, though it doesn't really matter how...
Read full commentPosted in Arabesque
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