The start of a rubbish fairytale

Once upon a time there were two brothers, who were both landscape gardeners. Mister McGarbey, the oldest brother, wasn’t bad at landscape gardening, but he wasn’t brilliant at it, either. “It’s an okay garden, I suppose,” his clients would say, before returning to quaff their Prosecco and judge the poor (for they were the sort of people who employed a landscape gardener). His brother Luke, on the other hand, was a brilliant gardener. Talented, yes, but also creative. He would build little streams with wooden bridges, cut animals into the shapes of hedges, and, for a pair of eccentric billionaires, he had even installed a koi carp fountain. (There were initial issues with maintaining the pressure in the piping, since koi carp aren’t cylindrical, but once he liquidised the carp and strained the bones out, the fountain element worked perfectly.) Luke was paid handsomely for his work and, since he didn’t believe in savings, he led a lifestyle that most would describe as ‘extravagant’. One morning, while the two brothers were out walking with Luke’s personal trainer, his concierge, his butler and his stylist (most butlers don’t have stylists, but as mentioned earlier, Luke was extravagant), Mister McGarbey (Harvey) found his thoughts drifting. Did his brother really deserve to have more than him? What did his brother have that he didn’t (apart from a large coterie of largely redundant staff)? The main difference between them, Harvey McGarbey reasoned, was not talent. Or success. It was self esteem. Mister McGarbey lacked self-esteem. And because a lack of self-esteem is a treatable pathology, and not a reasonable reaction to one’s life, Mister McGarbey decided to see a psychologist.

Metaphors are a lot like other things

You have never touched anything in your life. Not one thing. Not really. You see, when your hand goes to grasp a pencil, or a fork, or a sawn-off shotgun, you trap a layer of air molecules between the atoms of your skin and the atoms of the fork, or pencil, or pistol. There's nitrogen and oxygen and traces of argon between you and the world. You have never touched anything in your life. Not one thing. Not really.

But, and I want to stress, I mean this with complete sincerity, if you 'touch' my favourite mug again, I will end you.

The Apprentice: I'm Half Machine

The candidate stands, basking in the light of the cameras. She preens herself, drawing her fingers through her hair, drawing attention to the hair on her fingers. She pulls her lips into a smile, and says “I’m half machine”.

“Would you care to elaborate?” the cameraman asks. This is his fourth series of The Apprentice, and he knows that he needs to get footage of the delusional hopefuls swearing that they are going to push the boundaries of the envelope, know everything there is to know about businessmanshipment, and see themselves as the Genghis Khan of moist towelette distribution in the Ashford area.

“Sure” the candidate replies. “Press me here”. She points to a spot just below her ribs. The cameraman doesn’t move. She asks him a second time. “Just here”. She places his hand on her genuine polyester-blend jacket.

He presses.

She begins to cough.

It is not a delicate cough, but the frenzied, desperate cough of the terminally ill. It is the sort of cough that is usually accompanied by blood, and by chunks of lung dropping wetly to the floor. She bends in half, clutching her stomach. Her knees buckle and she leans forwards, dropping to her hands and knees. The guttural noise becomes lower, more intense. The cameraman swears he hears something click. Her face is turning red. The cameraman wonders if he should stop filming. She arches her back, her face is crimson. The cameraman turns to the director for advice, but he is watching the scene unfold through the cracks in his fingers. There are tears in her eyes.

She splutters.

Her mouth opens.

A can of coke, sealed, edges its way out from between her lips.

The coughing stops. The can falls to the ground, and in the silence its rolling is audible. The candidate stands, brushing the dust from her knees. She stoops to pick up the can, and offers it to the cameraman. She is still panting, but starts to speak:

“My father was a vending machine”.

Anna

He’d been living with Anna for two years now, and things couldn’t have been going better. They’d settled into an easy pattern; he would get up while she was still asleep, being careful not to disturb her, and slip off to work. He liked that quiet time in the morning. The sunrise truce, he liked to call it. When everything was still and golden, and he could watch her slender limbs cross, and her chest slowly rising and falling as the air entered and left her perfect lungs.

He knew, with conviction, that she would have perfect lungs, and a perfect liver, and a perfect appendix. He sometimes felt a bit guilty about thinking about her like that. He wondered whether that was what other people meant when they spoke about objectification.

He would have asked her if she minded him thinking about her like that, but she didn’t say much. That was what had drawn him to her. She was mysterious. Whenever he came home, she would be there, curled up on his sofa, or sitting in the kitchen. He had no idea what she did all day, and she never told him.

They had met at her mother’s house. She had been staying there, in her sisters’ room. He’d asked her why she had moved back in, but she didn’t tell him. She didn’t say much.

He was there to fix a burst pipe. He was a plumber, by trade, and enjoyed his work. As he fixed the pipe, Anna had followed him around the house. As he moved from room to room, checking the pressure of the radiators, she had stared shyly at him through the doorway. He wasn’t a vain man, but he knew that he wasn’t unattractive. Years of fixing burst pipes had given him broad shoulders, and he enjoyed the weight of her gaze on his back.

He knew it was wrong, but he told her mother that would need to return in a week. He’d need to order in a part. He wanted to see Anna again.

He would talk to Anna as he worked. She didn’t say much. But she stared at him shyly from the doorway, her huge brown eyes beginning to wander downwards from his back.

Two years later, and they were living together.

Was it wrong that she was six?
Did it matter that she was a daschund?

Advance payment

Dear Sarah,

I am writing with regards to an outstanding bill you have with me, to the tune of two hundred and forty pounds. You don’t know me yet, but in the very near future, I’ll be your psychic. I know you don’t believe in psychics, but you’ll have to trust me – after Dennis dies, you’ll want to contact him.

Now, the thing is, it would really help me if you could pay in advance; I’ve foreseen some money troubles this week. Mrs Smith, my Tuesday afternoon séance, won’t be able to pay after a workplace fire; her incense factory will go up in smoke, leaving her penniless and with a distrust of fire alarms. I know for a fact that Mister Johnson (Thursday morning tarot) isn’t going to bother chasing up his invoice, as he’s dead. Last week, he asked me how he was going to die. Believing, as I did, that honesty is the best policy, I told him; his life was going to end within the week, after falling from a great height. As soon as I finished talking he shouted that he ‘couldn’t bear the suspense of knowing’ and promptly threw himself out of the window. He didn’t die from the impact; he landed on my next client, Mister Stevens, who promptly throttled him. Johnson’s widow is taking me to court, so I could really do with the money.

‘Why don’t you just predict the lottery numbers?’ I figuratively hear you cry. Well, I’ve been placed on the national lottery blacklist. I didn’t even know that the national lottery had a blacklist, but it turns out that they do, and winning the jackpot four times in four weeks is enough to earn a place on it.

So if you could write me a cheque, I’d be most grateful. I’ve attached an invoice overleaf.

Many thanks,
Megan Foland

P.S. When you come for your first appointment, can you please bring a pint of milk? I will have forgotten to buy any, and I know you don’t like black coffee. Ta.

Five Gold Rings

INTERIOR. A SHABBY LIVING ROOM. A WOMAN, LAYLA, WATCHES THE TV SHOPPING CHANNEL.

TV: ... this burnished set of five rings, not available in any high street retailer...

THE DOOR SLAMS AS HER HUSBAND, NICK, ENTERS.

Nick: Turn that thing off.

Layla: ‘That thing’ has a name

Nick: Of course it does, like a smoothie has a personality and a games console has deep concern about your feelings. And, of course, I must use its name. How else could I tell the Hitachi Horizon Power Pro X from the Samsung Universe Megatron Seven? I might make the mistake of assuming that they were functionally indistinguishable!

TV: ... every home should have one...

Layla: It’s not that bad.

Nick: No, you’re right. You shouldn’t want to waddle as fast as your short, fat legs will take your butter-bloated body, until you reach the edge of what we’re told to call ‘civilisation’. You shouldn’t want to throw a match behind you, imagining the whole thing alight, vowing that you’d destroy the world for real if only petrol weren’t so damn expensive.

TV: ... only $49.99...

Layla: Oh, Nick –

Nick: Don’t you ‘Oh, Nick’ me.

TV: ... buy it for your loved ones this Christmas? Show them that you care...

Nick: Show them that you care about them thinking that you care about them thinking that you care. It can join the pile of scented candles and bookends, that shrine to the god of habitat™ that you’re building in the cupboard under the stairs. Let it fester with letters and efforts of old friends, the gaudy tat that you hate and makes you suspect that despite the decades that you killed together they hardly know you at all. (Or they know you well, and hate you).

TV: ...Buy now to get a free upgrade!...

Nick: Upgrade, update, upload. Constantly. These things elevate us above animals. We must be above them, after all it’s an insult to say that someone ‘doesn’t deserve to call themselves a human being’. Humanity’s an exclusive club, so refined with their deodorants and mortgages and democracy and semi-automatic weapons.

Layla: You’re just saying these things because you’re tired.

Nick: Everyone’s tired, they just won’t admit it. They’re tired of working nine-to-fives that bleed into eight-to-sixes, sink tendrils into the soft part of their brains and take root in their dreams. They’re tired of the commute, of forty minutes standing next to a stranger in a pool of their musical leakage before they arrive at the office and start it over again, but this time with an ergonomic chair. They’re tired of being told that they’re tired.

TV: ...24/7...

Layla: If you’re just going to be like this, I’m going for a walk.

TV: ... hurry, we’ve only got a few left ...

Nick: Be my guest. Feed the reindeer while you’re at it.

The Legend of King Arthur - By Class 4L, St Joseph's Primary

Last Saturday, I attended the modern dress version of the myths of Albion, performed by the Saint Joseph Primary School for Boys Players, and directed by a collective who refer to themselves only as ‘The Teachers’.

I had high hopes for this piece: the cast was young, and the venue experimental. In a bold move by the directors, the piece was performed in a fully-functioning school dining hall. A move made especially bold by the fact that there were no wings, and actors, while not onstage, were forced to sit in front of the audience, cross-legged, and change costumes out in the open. Not that this happened often; it was rare that there were any fewer than ten actors onstage at any point. While I think that equal opportunities initiatives are to be applauded, I do wonder whether the decision to take on monophobic actors in some way compromised the artistic integrity of the piece; the fact that players tended to clump together in groups of at least four meant that several were obscured for the entire duration of the play and this, coupled with the fact that most never spoke, left me with the impression that the cast was somewhat bloated for the modest demands of the script.

The set design was minimal - one suspects to match the lighting, a monotonous binary of ‘on’ and ‘off’.

This was an intensely physical piece of theatre; the company was in constant motion - tugging sleeves, straightening crowns, and rubbing their noses - which conveyed a powerful, visceral sense of nervous energy. One really felt immersed in the world they had created, steeped in anxiety over the fate of the future king, and of Albion itself. To the company’s credit, this movement was maintained consistently throughout the piece. Although quite why this nervousness persisted after the young King Arthur ascended to the throne is a mystery. While this attention to physicality should be lauded, it was not without its flaws: efforts to break the fourth wall by intermittent eye contact with, and waving at, members of the audience felt confusing, and one was left with the impression that the director was trying to be just that bit too clever.

This was a highly experimental piece; in an audacious move, the directors chose to abandon linear storytelling in place of a form of semi-improvisation, giving the cast a script to learn, but allowing the actors to deliver lines in the order that they feel appropriate on the night. Example:

Arthur “I’ve done it!”
Kay “He’ll never be able to do it”
Arthur “Can I have a go?”
Kay “It’s a sword!”

Another innovation came in the form of Pinter-esque silences, ended by a detached female voice engaging actors in call-and-response. The decision to have an all-male cast, but an apparently prescient female voice reading characters’ thoughts and voicing them before they can voice the lines themselves, is obviously a bold political statement. But what is it saying?


The musical numbers felt forced and under-rehearsed, with a good fifty percent of the cast mouthing at least some of the time. Instead of acting synergistically, enhancing the narrative drive, the flow felt somewhat interrupted as songs were placed at the peaks of action. See, as exemplar, the somewhat incongruous number “Castle of Camelot” (consisting of that phrase sung repeatedly to the tune of the first line of “Jesus Christ, Superstar”, for three and a half minutes). Soloists seemed uncomfortable, keen to finish their songs as soon as possible, often starting their pieces several bars prematurely and ignoring bridges in order to race to the end of their allotted lyrics.


To conclude, it was not quite the tour de force that I was expecting. I can see why they only booked the venue for a single performance.

Two Turtle Doves

It was 2016, the year that ATOS started disinterring corpses to check if they were fit for work. It was also the year that I pretended to work for TfL.

You might have heard of TfL – they run the network of tube trains in London, and intend to continue doing so for the foreseeable future (as that’s where the tunnels are). I started working for them by accident; I fell into the job. Literally fell into it. You see, I used to work as a window cleaner. One day, while I was working on a neat set of Georgian sash windows, my foot slipped and I came off my ladder. I was okay, as I only fell from the first floor, but the man I landed on seemed rather worse for wear. When he realised that he couldn’t get up, he was distraught – apparently it was his first day at work as a train driver, and if he missed the induction he’d be promptly dismissed.

I offered to go in his place. It was the least I could do and, since it was his first day on the job, no-one would recognise me as an imposter. He quickly pointed out that people would then recognise him as an imposter, when he did finally show his face. Some sort of co-ordination would be needed. We were roughly the same height, but he sported a mass of raven-black curls, while I had blonde hair, poker-straight, solitaire-boring, and two-person-game-of-spoons-short.

What we really needed was some kind of defining physical characteristic that would stop people from looking at my face. He seemed unenthusiastic when I suggested an exaggerated limp, while the idea of a shared toupée was dismissed on the basis that the training session started in a mere forty minutes, and there wasn’t a wig shop for miles. (Small, family-owned wig retails outlets were a thing of the past, now that there was a Toupaperchase in every out of town shopping centre.)

Time was ticking away, so I bent down to gather my things. As I did, a man walked past with a ferret on a lead. The two of us watched in stunned silence as he passed. There was the solution! I just needed to take a strange pet along to the induction. I’d probably be asked to leave it at the door, but all that people would remember about me was that I was ‘the man with the ferret’. It was too late to ask the man with the ferret for his ferret, besides, I didn’t really want to approach him – he was the sort of a man who owned a ferret. There had been some turtle doves on the first floor windowsill, and I was pretty sure that I could catch one from my ladder. I used my shoelaces to make tiny lassoes, and caught the birds by their feet.

In the end I decided to take two, for good measure.

A Partridge in a Pear Tree

“It’s for you. A partridge in a pear tree”.
“Where’s the partridge?”
“In the tree.”
“I don’t see it.”
“You can’t. It’s literally inside the tree.”
“In a secret compartment?”
“No, don’t be silly. I ground it up, watered it down to make a thin paste, then fed it to the pear tree over a course of, oh, about six months, I’d say.”
“Why?”
“For you.”

...

“I thought you’d be grateful.”
“Oh. It’s not that I’m not.”
“You don’t look grateful.”

...

“Are there any special care instructions?”
“What?”
“Well, I mean, if it’s used to meat, would it become anaemic if I just left it to sun and water?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it. I suppose it would.”

...

“Do you want me to take it back?”

...

“No, it’s okay. You obviously put a lot of thought into it”
“And time. It took weeks for the partridge carcass to decompose to the state that I could make the flesh into a slurry.”
“I can imagine partridges being quite hard to come by.”
“Yes. They’re endangered.”

...

“Thanks.”

Milk (monologue)

It was three days before he found the body, and four more before he phoned the police. Mrs Denham, the little old lady from flat number six, had died, apparently in her sleep. As her discoverer said, there was no real urgency – he was pretty sure that she’d remain dead, and in the event that she didn’t, there would be no need for the police.

He’d booked a city break for himself and his mistress, and he’d be damned if he was going to lose the deposit.

I never liked Mrs Denham. She smelt of old wax and tried to give me eye contact when we passed on the stairs and in the night she crept out into the communal hallway and turned the milk bottles so that the labels face inwards and you had to turn them back out again if you wanted to read them. When I told Steve about this, he asked why she would want to.

I replied that I didn’t know, but apparently some people are strange.

When the police arrived there was a lot of noise. The lump of blowflies and sinew and rotting flesh that was Mrs Denham was taken away on a stretcher, and a lady who looked like Mrs Denham’s shadow came around and started shrieking and water leaked from her eyes. I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. In this progressive day and age, if someone wants to be dead in the comfort of their own home then that’s their business.

The pigeons would say that it’s the nanny state gone mad.

The man at the chip shop has started wrapping his wares in copies of the Daily Mail. Since then, the pigeons have gotten angrier. “BRUSSELS BUREAUCRATS ARE GIVING YOUR MORTGAGE DIABETES” they shout. “HEALTH & SAFETY OFFICERS ARE PLANNING TO HAVE SEX WITH THE ROYAL FAMILY.” I don’t want to agree with them but I find my resolve melting, like an Action Man on a barbeque. They’re very persuasive. And they know so very much.

When the leaflet came through about the fumigation, it was the pigeons who told me it was alright to stay in the flat.

I have this recurring dream. I’m sitting on a stone pillar and all around is darkness. Then a blinding light and I start to feel hot and it burns and I gasp and I sweat. But it’s not sweat, it’s cheese. I’m sweating cheese, and as the lumps of brie and edam and feta fall from my arms and face these hands reach up to grab them. The fingers scrape and grab and prize the folds of my skin and they tear, and rip out chunks of flesh until I am nothing.

The pigeons say that I should stop eating cheese before I go to bed.

After an hour and a half of the dull whirr of the pump let me know that the fumigation had started, I began to feel inexact. I wanted to open the window, but the pigeons said that wasn’t fair, it would get their nice clean windowsill all fume-y and also THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT MUSLIM SINGLE TEENAGE MOTHERS WOULD WANT. When I couldn’t take it any longer I stumbled out into the street.

My legs felt unfamiliar.

I was blinking in the light and air was escaping from my chest in violent bursts. A man walked up and asked if I was okay. I vomited down his sleeve. His face revolted in surprise, eyebrows colliding, lips divorced. He winched his mouth into a an oily smile that bobbed on top of his words. “Do you want to go to A and E?” he asked.

I didn’t.

Reformation, reformation, reformation (lyrics)

Few are as noble, brave, and bold
As that crusader Michael Gove
Attempting to alert the nation
To the threat of grade inflation

Years and years of upping ease
Has created casualties
Of the racing to the bottom
That should never be forgotten

You should pity all of us
who left school with GCSEs
ain’t got no concept of syntax
and can barely count to three

We are grossly unprepared
In the realm of current affairs
Oh, I must be uneducated –
I thought David Laws was slated?

Hunt was tarred with Murdoch’s brush
Liam Fox made Cameron blush
What happened to the Big Society?
Where, with Warsi, went variety?

You should pity all of us
who left school with GCSEs
ain’t got no concept of syntax
and can barely count to three

(Spoken – different accents)
I once knew someone with GCSEs, and they thought that skimmed milk came from translucent cows.
My brother did GCSEs, and he thought that “four legs good two legs bad” was a side-note in the Karma Sutra.
Yeah, well I know a kid with GCSEs who thinks that Donald Trump’s hair is real.

(Gasp)

Will the critics stop effacing?
The system clearly needs replacing.

The Princess and the Pea

It was a dark, stormy night and the castle corridors were an inky black. The storminess could not have been helped, but the darkness was a side effect of the energy efficient light bulbs that had recently been installed. Well, as the Prime Minister said, the royals had to be seen to be doing their bit to combat climate change. When the king had heard about the new light bulbs he had been incandescent with rage. An unfortunate state, really, as his indignant luminescence masked the fact that the fuse board hadn’t been reset and the castle was, in fact, off the grid. The royals were oblivious to this fact, assuming that their television was showing endless repeats of a documentary about a group of mutes working down a coal mine. The King had not stayed angry for long and, as he remembered that these particular energy efficient light bulbs were installed throughout their sixty-four bedroom residence, registered as their second home, the light level had dropped. (Officially, his royal highness occupied a semi-detached in Basingstoke).

The doorbell rang.

The king headed for the door and walked head-first into a wall. The corridors were indeed an inky black, and there were a large number of walls in his sixty-four bedroom residence. He usually had a man who would open the door for him, but the butlers had stopped responding to his intercom since the light bulbs had changed. The King was beginning to miss his fleet of butlers, with their tight satin uniforms, shiny patent hats, and inane platitudes. One can develop a taste for sycophancy.

There at the door was a young woman.

She was tall, svelte, and blonde, sporting a grey leotard and a sizeable overbite. She reminded the King of a lamp-post. “Excuse me, sir” she said. But before she could finish her sentence, assuming it was incomplete and she hadn’t come seeking monarchical absolution, the King began to speak. “I’m sorry, miss, but one is not interested in any feather dusters or j-cloths. One has a man who buys them for him.” This was a lie; the King did not, in fact, employ a butler for the purpose of the procurement of household items. But he didn’t want to give her any money; he thought she’d just spend it on drugs. Smack. Crack. Bacharach. Whatever it was the kids took these days.

“Excuse me sir, but I am a princess”

This changed things, somewhat. For the King had a son and heir, the prince, who, thanks to a poor choice in fancy dress costumes, had experienced limited success in the relationship department. If she were a genuine blue-blood, it would be churlish not to let her in. He’d heard of mail-order brides, but never door-to-door calls. But how to tell if she were royal? Under normal circumstances, there would be a man who whispered into his ear the names of house guests. But since the light bulb changeover, he hadn’t shown up for work. Or if he had, in the darkness he hadn’t managed to locate his liege. For all the King knew, he might have been there, a hundred metres down the corridor, informing a decorative table lamp that the Minister for Work and Pensions was here to see him. The King might have gone to the royal computer and typed her name into Wikipedia, although, strangely, the computer didn’t seem to be working since the light bulbs had been switched. The King had rung the court electrician about this, but he didn’t offer any suggestions. He was, in fact, silent. The King had assumed that he was going through some personal difficulties.

Could she be royal? She did have an overbite...

The King called for the Queen, and explained the dilemma. “I know how to tell if she’s royal,” the Queen declared. “We shall invite her in for the night, and place a single pea under her mattress. If she can feel it, she’s royal.” At this, the Queen began to giggle to herself and stroke an imaginary cat. The King sighed to himself. Ask her if she were clinically insane. That’s the way to detect a royal for sure.

He invited her in, and enacted the Queen’s plan.

In the morning, over breakfast, the King asked his guest how she had slept. “Terribly,” the girl replied, “there was this lump beneath the mattress, and I woke up with bruises all along my back. My spine looks like a Rorschach test.” The Queen clapped her hands with glee, and considerable effort, since she was wearing a straight jacket. “I knew it!” she shouted “You really are a princess!” The King, pleased with the turn of events, summoned his son to the dining hall. “Princess,” he said, addressing the girl, “I would like to offer you the hand of my son in marriage.”

“You’ll offer me a damn site more” she snapped.

The King was metaphorically, but not literally, speechless. “What?” he exclaimed, proving the extent of his not literally being speechless. “Well,” the princess said. “As far as I can see, last night a princess came to your castle, and this morning you have offered her your son’s hand in marriage.” The King nodded hesitantly. “To me, and I’m sure to a court of the law, that may be construed as a state visit. The business of a princess.” Again, the King tipped his head in assent. “And this morning, thanks to your bed, I have woken up covered in bruises.

I’m going to claim compensation for an injury in the workplace."

The princess called Injury Lawyers 4U, and using their national network of genuine lawyers who specialise in personal injury cases, she got honest and professional advice. She took the King to court on a no-win no-fee basis, and won £100, 000. The princess lived happily ever after because, although money can’t buy you happiness, it can fashion a crude facsimile.

The Cowboy (Monologue)

It was 1835, the year when archaeologists admitted they were wrong. The Romans had actually been a race of skeletons that lived underground and ate off broken plates.

It was a Tuesday, and we’d spent the morning branding the cattle. We decided to go with the slogan ‘beef on legs’. The morning’s work had tired us out, so we decided to take the rest of the day off and head down to the local saloon. We were just about to go in when the Sheriff rode up. He got down from his horse. It was pale brown, and made great pillows. In fact, the more I think about it, I’m pretty sure the sheriff rode a duck. You know the saying; you can take a horse to water, but if it dives in and starts eating pondweed you’ve been conned by a dodgy horse salesman. Not one to admit his mistakes, the Sheriff duly tied his steed to the hitching post, next to our stallions. Not one to turn up a chance for a swim, his steed duly jumped in the drinking trough and paddled in circles, quacking contentedly.

When we called out our orders we were served by the Saloon-keeper’s daughter. She moved with grace and speed. She seemed to glide across the floor, like a swan on roller-skates. I would have liked very much to have made an honest woman out of her. For she was a compulsive liar, and it made it quite difficult to keep track of your bar tab.

We’d only just settled our accounts, denying that we had drunken three bathtubs of whisky and that she was the queen of Sheba, when the saloon door swung open, and a stranger sidled on over. He was wearing a ten gallon hat, tight pinstriped trousers, and a grimace. I supposed that the tight trousers explained his sidling and grimace. He opened his mouth as if to speak, and then spoke. People tend to do the two actions together.

“I was born in squalor, destitution, and Eastbourne, which explains the accent. You fellers seem like decent, honest folk. What’s say I’ll exchange you a story for a glass o’ firewater? A jug o’ hooch? A jar o’ moonshine?” We agreed to buy him some alcohol instead. He started recounting his story.

--

“I remember it as if it were yesterday, which is worrying as it happened this morning. I’d just ridden past Bover’s Rock, and I was heading towards Morningside. The Irn-Bru Kid had tipped me off that the mayor o’ Morningside was offering a large cash reward to anyone who could rid the town of its terrible infestation. You see, Morningside was experiencin’ a plague o’ mentalists. A travellin’ stage show had visited the town three months ago. A coupla stage magicians from the visitin’ rodeo musta ‘scaped, and started breeding in the woods. Within weeks, it weren’t safe for people to leave their houses. Every time they opened their doors and stepped into the streets, they’d be surrounded by a clamourin’ crowd urging them to ‘pick a card, pick a card, pick a card.’ This shoutin’ had been so loud it’d spooked the buffalo.

After speakin’ to the Mayor, it was agreed that I would disguise myself as one of ‘em, and walk amongst ‘em to find out why they weren’t leavin’ the town. So I donned a tight suit, shaved my beard into a moustache, and walked out into the midday heat. When they leapt upon me, a crowd of fifty or so, I abandoned Hope. It seemed unwise to take my six year old daughter with me.

They accepted me as one of their own immediately. The disguise had worked. I followed them back to the woods, joining in their refrains of ‘A round of applause for the gentleman’ and ‘nothing up my sleeves’. As we walked closer and closer towards the raked ranks of pines, I realised that I was stopping short of breath. It wasn’t a steep hill, but the tight trousers made the going tough. Then it hit me. The town was in a valley, and the reason the mentalists were causing havoc in the town was that they were trapped. Like spiders in a bathtub. It wasn’t their fault they were unwelcome (like spiders in a bathtub). But they needed gettin’ rid of. Like spiders in a bathtub.

At night, I snuck back to Morningside to tell the Mayor what I had discovered. The townspeople built a large ramp, out of desperation, sweat, and pine. The mentalists left, filing over it, until the cries of ‘think of a number between one and a hundred’ faded into silence.

--

He finished his drink, and bid us farewell. We watched through the saloon doors as he untied his steed from the hitching post and slapped its rump, causing it to gallop off majestically into the distance. As he watched it recede into the sunset, he couldn’t help wishing that he’d climbed onto it first.

The Restaurant (part three)

I didn’t have to wait long for an opportunity to present itself. My phone rang, and I answered it immediately (because that’s what you’re supposed to do when your phone rings). It was Michael. “Meet me in ten minutes”, the tone of his voice seemed to say. “Meet me in ten minutes” his actual voice said.

Michael and I worked together on an assembly line several decades ago, when the phones were like bricks, the bricks were like other, bigger bricks, and there were assembly lines at which one could work. It was during the teacher’s strike of 1994. Children’s essays would move in front of us on the conveyor belt, and I would pepper them randomly with ticks. Michael would then put a scrawl at the bottom of the page that, when viewed from the correct angle and with the right type of lighting, may have been interpreted as handwriting. We were good at our job. So good, in fact, that few people have heard of the teachers’ strike of 1994.

Michael’s life was ruled by fashion – he followed trends doggedly, to the extent that trends started taking out restraining orders. When I met him, and his tie-dye shirt, denim jacket, and nose-piercing, he’d just stepped on to the property ladder. Since then he’d landed on the property snake, and when we last spoke he’d lost his job (as was de rigueur in 2008) and was consolidating all existing debts into one easy loan (in skinny jeans, a crisp white shirt, and red patent brogues).

I wondered what he was doing for a living now. Statistically, I suppose he's probably involved in trying to get people to claw back PPI.

Villains' convention (sketch)

SUPERVILLAIN
And you're ready to send the invites to the printers?

ASSISTANT
Yes

SUPERVILLAIN
Good, then that's the preparation for this year's Villain's convention sorted.

ASSISTANT
Erm, sir.

SUPERVILLAIN
What is it?

ASSISTANT
Well, there was one thing I wanted to bring up...

SUPERVILLAIN
Yes?

ASSISTANT
It's about the venue.

SUPERVILLAIN
Yes? Well I've said it before and I'll say it again, we can't do underwater because that's where Lex hosted it last year. The flaming skull-shaped volcano was very decently priced, and it was one of the few places that would accept pets.

ASSISTANT
Pets?

SUPERVILLAIN
Yes, Dig Dastardly won't come if he can't take his guide dog.

ASSISTANT

Won't that be a problem if Cruella comes?

SUPERVILLAIN

Oh, no, Miss De Vill will never accept - it's an island, there's too much chance that her suede will get ruined.

ASSISTANT
Well, sir ... just take a look at the invite

(Here the assistant reads off the invite)

"The hotel can be accessed by helicopter, speedboat, galleon, or death star. Parking permits can be obtained from reception. Once parked, it's just a short three - hundred metre vertical climb up the cliff face to the main complex."

(short pause)

SUPERVILLAIN
And?

ASSISTANT
What about Long John Silver? Could a man with a wooden leg really make the climb?

SUPERVILLAIN
I'm sure he could try.

ASSISTANT
And what about Sauron? He's at least 50, 000 years old!

SUPERVILLAIN
It didn't stop him from terrorising Middle Earth.

ASSISTANT
Okay, well what about this?

(The assistant again reads from the invite)

ASSISTANT
"The hotel also features a golf course and swimming pool. These can be accessed using the rickety rope bridge spanning the lava-filled crater"

SUPERVILLAIN
Yes, and?

ASSISTANT
Do you really think that's a good idea with Emilio Largo and Blackbeard on the guestlist?

SUPERVILLAIN
What do you mean?

ASSISTANT
Well, they don't have any depth perception.

SUPERVILLAIN
It'll be fine, we'll pair them up with someone who can hold their hand.

ASSISTANT
What, like Darth Vader or Captain Hook?

SUPERVILLAIN
Oh.

(short silence)

ASSISTANT
Boss?

SUPERVILLAIN
Yes?

ASSISTANT
Are all villains disabled?

Ten lesser-known idioms

1. You can take a horse to water, but you can't take the water out of the horse.

2. Don't count your hatchets before they're buried. It takes all the fun out of owning a metal detector.

3. It's time to pull your socks up, get your skates on, shift this thing into gear, turn the volume up to eleven, and question what this mode of transport is, exactly.

4. Put a bee in a man's bonnet, and he'll be annoyed for a day. Teach someone else to put a bee in a man's bonnet, and he'll be annoyed for a lifetime.

5. You can't teach old rope new tricks.

6. Don't teach eggs to suck your grandmother.

7. A fly in the ointment is worth two in the bush.

8. I shall wear my sleeve upon my heart. It has a silver lining, and I would hate for it to get dirty.

9. Some are born into office jobs, some achieve office office jobs, while some have office jobs thrust upon them.

10. There's no such thing as a free lunch, but if you get there early enough I hear you can catch a worm.

Mister Existential Angst

Mister Existential Angst had a nagging sense that life was fraught with contradiction, and quite possibly meaningless. Hence the name.

He lived in a small house in Happyland with a yellow bird, a white cat, and a cloying sense of unease.

One day, Mister Existential Angst was making a cup of tea when he realised that he didn’t have any milk. Oh dear!

He resolved to go to the shops to get some more. Then he remembered that he didn’t have a wallet.

“Come to think of it,” said Mister Existential Angst “I can’t remember ever paying for anything. Take this house; I don’t think I have a mortgage. Oh, god, am I a squatter?!”. He began to run in tight, panicked circles.

He was still running when the doorbell rang. “It’s us, your good friends Mr Petty, Mr Mute, and Mr Clumsy Exposition,” Mr Clumsy Exposition cried.

“Oh god,” sobbed Mister Existential Angst, “all my friends are completely one dimensional.”

Mr Mute said nothing.

“We’ve come to see if you were okay,” said Mr Clumsy Exposition. “After all, you have had four mental breakdowns in the last six days.”

“Six days, four hours, and twenty seven minutes” corrected Mr Petty.

“Don’t you see?” shouted Mister Existential Angst. “You’re all endowed with a single defining characteristic. Don’t you think that’s unusual?” He continued. “There’s something strange going on here, put I can’t seem to put my finger on it. Wait a minute,” Mister Existential Angst glanced downwards, face contorted in shock “I don’t have fingers! I don’t even have arms! How was I making a cup of tea?”

Mr Mute said nothing.

Books that publishers rejected

Harry Potter and the Ofsted inspection (J. K. Rowling)
“Mr Dumbledore”, the inspector continued “I have no doubt that you provide these children with a riveting environment, one in which all sorts of marketable could ‘adventures’ occur, but don’t you think that you should adhere to some sort of curriculum?” Dumbledore shuffled awkwardly. “And what about fire exits?” the inspector continued. “Surely you should make some sort of contingency plan for premises that can be accessed only by a single train”.

The Dragon with the Girl Tattoo (Larsson)

Mr Ennui (Roger Hargreaves)
Mister Ennui had a nagging doubt that no aspects of his life had any real significance, hence the name. He lived in a small house in Happyland, which he shared with a budgerigar, two white cats, and a growing sense of unease. “All my friends are one dimensional,” thought Mister Ennui, as he checked his post, discarding postcards from Mr Happy, Mr Strong, and Mister Tall.

American Physio (Bret Easton Ellis)

Fifty Shades of Grey,
or ‘An almost comprehensive guide to the tarmacs, aggregates, asphalts, and concretes of Greater London and the Lower Lee Valley’

The Restaurant (part 1)

It was 2014, the year when the British government admitted that there was no such person as ‘David Cameron’ and that for the last nine years the leader of the Conservatives had been a balloon with a smiley face drawn on it taped to the top of a suit. The public knew that they ought to feel outraged, but had to admit that it still had more charisma than Ed Miliband.

It was a Tuesday, and I should have been at work. The office, however, was currently out-of-bounds, experiencing a flood of biblical proportions. It really was a bad flood, only about 16 centimetres by 12 twelve centimetres by 3 centimetres. Bibles aren’t that big. It was really more of a puddle but, technically, and in the eyes of the management, it was a flood, and so the building had to be evacuated. The health and safety officer was beaming. It was his moment to shine (below a hundred watts, ensuring that all employees were wearing grade five protective sunglasses).

And so it was that I was wandering round London’s streets, watching the pigeons milling about, the tourists watching the pigeons, and the CCTV cameras watching the tourists. The lamp posts were... well, the lamp posts weren’t doing very much. Forget I mentioned them.

The Actor Sanctuary

A
I don't suppose you know where I am?

B
The actor sanctuary, of course.

A
Actor sanctuary?

B
Yes. You've heard of donkey sanctuaries, haven't you?

A
Well, yes –

B
Well, this is similar. These actors are old, out of work. We looks after them, we does. Except most of our incoming stock has two legs, and we don't let you ride them for £2 a go.

A
Ride them?

B
No, it's nearer £40 for that sort of service. Shall I give you a tour? Yes, much like a donkey sanctuary we give them a stimulating environment in which to live out the rest of their lives. Over there we have the female newreader's paddock.

Both men look to the left, and a sound effect plays. It is the sound of many female voices saying things like "Now, the headlines", "coming up later in the show" and "now, let's turn to the weather".

B
And, over there, the RSC pen.

Both men look to the left, and a sound effect plays. It is the sound of many male voices reciting the (in)famous Hamlet line "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio" slightly out of sync.

B
For just £2 a month, you can provide them with skulls to perform it properly.

A
And what's that over there?

There is an uncomfortably long silence.

B
The Pinter enclosure.