Monday 20 July 2009

Rabbit, Rabbit and Rabbits At The Town Show.

The Dagenham Town Show was a good experience, despite the gale force winds and the looming threat of rain. There were lots of stalls in the community and society tents, there was a fun fair and you could even get a ride on a helicopter (if you had the money).

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Thursday 16 July 2009

The Friday Short Story: Derelict

It's dusk. I never come out by day, only at dusk.

I'm hiding in a filthy, piss-yellow skip off Oxford Street, in Ramillies Place. I lift the top out and slink out. Flies blow out in my wake. I seem to be sleeping with every louse in town. I can feel the itch of their bites as they scab over.

There is dried blood on my chin.
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Thursday 2 July 2009

The Newsagent's Lament.

I bought a copy of The London Evening Standard today. Mainly it was for jobs, so it was annoying to then remember that the vacancies are in the Tuesday edition.

But this wasn't the unusual thing. That was the huge number of porn mags the newsagent was selling. The shop's two sets of magazine racks both had titles like 'Readers' Wives', 'Asian Babes', 'Teen Nymphos' and 'Razzle' (and many more, err, 'obscure' publications) from the top shelf right down to the middle row.

Then on the row below that there was a range of tattoo and motorcycle magazines with even more scantily clad or naked women on the front. It was only the lower shelves that reverted to the traditional newsagent range of puzzle magazines, celeb rags, computer mags and children's comics.

I doubt the owner was a particular porn fiend, any more than he was a fan of the Pernod on the spirit shelf behind him as he manned the counter. It was just that he seemed to have a huge market of porn consumers to appease and they no doubt spent more money on magazines than the other customers. Pecunia non olet, as they say, and the newsagent had long since given up on shame or embarrassment in favour of making a reasonable living.

The Queen is Undead

  Queen Ahmose-Nefertari, not looking a day over 3,500 I remember only too well the hysteria after Princess Diana died. The rank corruption ...