Yeah. It’s been a while.
A few months ago I heard that the Grant Museum – the tiny, deeply fabulous zoological wunderkammer embedded deep in the throbbing heart of UCL’s Bloomsbury campus – was running a short story competition. The Grant is a delightful place, packed – and I do mean packed – with its curiosities. A three-legged quagga! Glass slugs! A walrus’ penis bone! A jar of moles! And that’s not even the beginning of an introduction to it. »
Pandora unboxed »
So the reading of i/o Error at last week’s Liars’ League went well: or to put it more precisely: the audience mostly laughed at the right bits; I had a whale of a time and there was even a bit of the promised love in the air, albeit that it faded faster than a rose from a Leicester Square flower-seller. »
i/o Error is going to be read at the next meeting of the Liars’ League, which has a Love & Marriage theme. (You might recall that The Man With The Musical Penis was read by Martin Lamb at the corresponding event last year, to great effect – that’s why I submitted again this year.) Details after the jump. »
A guide to one of London’s least-known but most curious boroughs. »
School’s out for summer; school’s out for ever. »
— New York.
You push the door shut. The door of your all-white, perfectly rectangular hotel room. Feel the surgical-grade steel handle turn smoothly in your hand.
Behind the door, the wall. Smooth. Immaculate. White.
You draw your arm back. Ball your hand into a fist. Punch the wall.
The plaster cracks, craters. A splintered bull’s eye. »
A cautionary tale with a sting in its tail.
Didier was in the garden, playing with his toys on the grass. Didier liked it in the garden: it was warm and sunny and he liked the brightly-coloured flowers.
Suddenly, Didier saw something moving in the flowers. He went to have a closer look.
It was a bee! He could tell because it had yellow and black stripes and was buzzing loudly.
Didier was a bit scared of the bee, because Mummy had told him they could sting. She saw him looking at the bee and held his hand. “Don’t worry,” she said. “It won’t sting you if you don’t upset it.”
Sure enough, the bee didn’t seem bothered by Didier. It certainly didn’t look as though it would hurt him.
“Hello, bee,” said Didier. The bee buzzed a little bit louder, and as Didier listened, he was sure he could hear words in amongst the buzzing.
“Hello, Didier,” said the bee. “How are you?” »
“Up a bit at your end,” said Cousin Billy. Ricky grunted, put his back into it – bend at the knees, stand up straight, he reminded himself belatedly – and hoisted the sofa up a couple of inches. He wasn’t sure that this was going to work – the sofa looked just a bit too wide to pass through the front door – but he wasn’t going to argue. After all, Billy might have been tiny, but he was wiry with it; and he was, after all, the handyman of the family. »
According to tradition, William Shakespeare was born 445 years ago on this day – and died on what would have been his 52nd birthday, in 1616. There’s no way to be sure about his birthday – he was baptised on April 26th, but that’s about all that can be confirmed. (Inevitably, some people have different ideas, just as they do about practically everything to do with Shakespeare.)
By way of tribute, here’s a cut-up of Sonnet 18 (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”) that I made at the V&A a couple of years ago, and my Quill Bill wallpaper.
All’s fair in love and war. »
Address given by Lucinda Graves to the Royal Society of Ethnogastronomes upon the publication of the first edition, 1928. »
He had always believed in the black dog.
He had heard, as a child, of its depredations. Of how it stole away those who were too old and infirm, or too young and naïve, to cry out before they were snatched up in its jaws. Of how it did not even need to do that: even its poisoned breath was enough to ensure that sleepers would never wake. Of how it crept through the dead of night, its velvet footsteps falling softer than snow, its breath smoking in the chill air, its form shrouded by darkness but for the red of its eyes and the white of its teeth. He had learned to be afraid, with a child’s unquestioning belief. »
There’s never a pair around when you need them.
Five stories of lives, cut short. »
The Liars’ League have put up a recording of my story, The Man With The Musical Penis, as read by the redoubtable Martin Lamb earlier this month. Ideal listening for the office; you can get it here.
I sought enlightenment, and in a way I found it.
Or did it find me? »
A story for anyone who’s ever thought they might be a furry. »
One of my more notorious stories, The Man With The Musical Penis, is going to be read by a Real Live Actor at the next meeting of the Liars’ League. (How can you resist a title like that? And yes, it does what it says on the tin.) It’s at 7pm on Tuesday 10 February at the Wheatsheaf pub near Goodge Street tube station in London. Do come along if you can!
