In the quiet of the basement, Garvin readied his machine. It was round and flat, shelled in hard plastic, with a thin wide gap like the mouth of a clam. High up on the wall, half open skylights let drizzle through to wet the basement floor. On the old steel work-bench his calculations sat, twinkling… Read more

Butterfingers perched despondently in his highchair. His slick, waist length hair cresting the seatback, a brunette film. His dirty face was streaked with tears. Once more the voice came, dulled by the heavy oaken door. ’Choody? Choody it’s me’. Butterfingers shivered, and not for the first time, or the last, wished he still had a… Read more

Cooth, uncooth, cooth, uncooth. Hello, whats this? It’s been a while since I’ve witnessed such brazen fuckwittery at the ministry of chum! ’Jenkins’, I yell, levering the machine to a screechy halt. Out he trots from some unionised cubby, round maw loose and crabbed with gammy din. ’Jenkins, you pillock’, I bellow, checking him short.… Read more

Squeeky. Squeaky clean? Squeaky Fromm? What does that even mean? Squeeky, in foot high letters on the ridged steel shutter of a doorway. The building’s blue, and long, with a clockface missing handles in between two tidy windows. It reminds me of the buildings in the Yellow Submarine. A couple wander down the street, quiet… Read more

Oh! And OH! Never had I felt such an uncontrolled rush of indulgence! I gazed over the sea of bald patches, comb-overs and creeping hairlines and my heart thumped a hidden warmth! It was as if each one had been varnished with a coat of Ronseal High Gloss lacquer. I could imagine licking each one… Read more