by Rachel Stevenson
I suppose one day Joanna will come to me and say: “We’re getting a place together,” and “we” will no longer mean she and me. And I’ll be living on my own with a cat. I wonder when a girl living on her own with a cat stops being fun and la la? When do you cease bringing boys home just to kick them out next day? Trying to get the man to stay on a Sunday to share the croissants because you’re sick of eating them all yourself? [read more…]
by Matt Haynes
I think we can all tell by the way he uses his walk that Neptune is… well, a bit of an old tart, frankly, especially after a dose of Saturday Night Sea Fever has led him to try busting a few salty moves at the local Palais de Danse. Not for him, though, Travolta’s white suit and pointy collars – instead, just some kind of disco cape, the sort of thing you might toss on hastily should the doorbell ring as you were nakedly honing your hustle at home. [read more…]
by Cassandra Solon-Parry
He had a bushy, greying moustache and was dressed in black, with a short jacket that resembled a cape, and a bowler hat. But the thing that had made Rachel, and everyone else, stop what they were doing was the extraordinary musical instrument he carried. It appeared to have been tacked together from pieces of violin and at least two trumpets, the horns of which were ranged one on top of the other above the bridge and strings of the violin. [read more…]
as heard by Matt Haynes
Number 100 to… Shadwell. The next stop is… Pocock Street – oh, look, I really can’t be doing with all this. If you didn’t know what route I was or where I was going, why would you have got on? I mean, I’m contractually obliged to spout all this guff, but frankly it just insults us both. [read more…]
Half man, half bull, he prowls the Barbican highwalk…[see more…]
by Adam E. Smith
The day doesn’t really start till 6, so I usually get up at 5 to have a look around before anyone else is about. That hour is my time, when the world belongs to me because no one else is up. Except Geoff. Geoff works at the dock. I know he’s called Geoff because it says so on the door of his shack. During the day, Geoff paces alongside the dock like a linesman, talking to the people on their swanky yachts. [read more…]
“I will always love you,” he bellows as he wheels his cleaning cart down Gresham Street, trousers too short, grey hair almost gone, iPod clearly turned up to the max.
by Jamie Mitchinson
I’m crossing the road near Liverpool Street. My senses feel oddly heightened, though I’m not sure why. And, even so, I nearly miss it. Or, to put it another way, it nearly hits me. So practised am I at spotting the shape of my habitual single decker that when the open-top number 11 comes, I blank it out. [read more…]