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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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Marlene Dietrich’s Gappy Teeth
June is busting out all over… the month’s first fifteen days, each described in 100 words.
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Up to Their Ears in Tears
Good people raise their voices in anger but nobody hears them. It seems that nobody wants to hear them. Meanwhile Palestine and her children bleed to death.
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Amniotic Pollution
Posted on Fri, 14 Aug 2026
Oh, righto Makis. Thank you for that. I'll go and put it right.
Don't tell anybody but I was lying when I said I heard those news items on the radio in 1957. The truth is that I Googled them a couple of nights ago.
Read full commentPosted in That'll Be the Day
Michael Fish
Posted on Fri, 14 Aug 2026
Thanks Airy. When I was born WTF hadn’t been invented, so I was probably just somewhere on the cusp between startled and terrified. In some respects I still am.
And here we’ve more or less given up watering. The ground is so hard and dry...
Read full commentPosted in That'll Be the Day
Wonder
Posted on Fri, 14 Aug 2026
I wonder too. I’m always on the edge of my seat on a Friday afternoon. It’s like waiting for the FA Cup draw.
Read full commentPosted in That'll Be the Day
You could hear the hoof beats pound...
Posted on Fri, 14 Aug 2026
I loved Madness in those days. I went to see them loads of times. Those gigs really were madness.
From memory I can recite every single word of Ernie the Fastest Milkman in the West. It's such a shame that they never have it on karaoke...
Read full commentPosted in That'll Be the Day
Been to Brean
Posted on Thu, 13 Aug 2026
If Jane had kept swimming she’d have ended up on the shingle beach at Barry Island. I lived there a while and often considered doing the same in the opposite direction to escape the perpetual fog horn. Any road, I hope she finds a happy life in...
Read full commentPosted in Letters to the Universe
Grans
Posted on Wed, 12 Aug 2026
They don't make hard wee grans no more, except possibly in Leeds and Bradford.
I'm glad Marcus's gran was a tarot reader. At first I thought she was up to cheeky stuff.
And I'm looking forward to reading more about her.
Read full commentPosted in Money for the Circus 12
Beasts of the field
Posted on Sat, 08 Aug 2026
Thank you Di.
We have loads of exotic insects in our garden that I don’t know the names of. I keep meaning to do the Google Lens thing to identify them but I never have my phone with me when I see them and also I can’t really be bothered....
Read full commentPosted in The Evolution of the Lettuce
I love white
Posted on Sat, 08 Aug 2026
All of those places your genes are from are quite exciting. I've been to the Isle of Wight once and found it a bit dull but I expect the crowd of shipwrecked Spanish jolly Jacks brightened the place up a bit. Are you able to get a tune out of a...
Read full commentPosted in The Evolution of the Lettuce
Bags and dears
Posted on Sat, 08 Aug 2026
Someone in Aisle 3 in Tesco in Calne once took my trolley containing a bit of fruit and veg that I hadn't yet paid for at that early stage of the expedition but also my entire collection of bags for life, some of which I'd acquired in...
Read full commentPosted in The Evolution of the Lettuce
War
Posted on Sat, 08 Aug 2026
But a lot of people like war. It makes them money.
It makes my heart and brain bleed.
Read full commentPosted in Lost
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