Diversions

You know the stories – or you think you do. Coal has nearly gone, bittersweet, for it needs to go, God knows, but God knows too that men...

The lovely people at Sky Island Journal have included a piece of nonsense by me and an imagined poet resembling R S Thomas in their...

On account of a herring gull, I took train and ferry from Bath to County Wexford for an autumn night to read a short story at the...

'Now what’s all this about some echo, dear chap?’ said Sir Arthur, pouring me a glass of something cold, bone dry and grassy. On the...

I don’t mind a hand on my arm, as such. I’m not averse to touch, happy to feel a bare hand on bare skin, in the right place at the right...

... Anya did not get a call from her boy Piotr in Makiivka. Nor will she ever.

SNT Sputnik, Tomsk Oblast 6 January 2023 Моя дорогая Наташа, Столько неприятностей ... My dearest Natasha, So many troubles. Where to...

There was a time when I hoped to have a short story published in Russian. Why? In admiration of Chekhov. One of my scone stories would...

I hadn’t seen my good friend Sidney for a long while, what with one thing and another. But last evening there he was, on my doorstep...

Off to Story Saturday at Clifton Library tomorrow with the excellent Claire Reddaway and Elaine Miles. I'm reading a story about a long,...

I'm reading my poem 'Hippopotamus Cambrensis' at Caffi Soar in Merthyr Tydfil tomorrow, 23 April at 2pm. It’s a launch for Arachne...

In Welsh it is Môr Hafren, but old salts from England are very proprietorial and insist we call it the Bristol Channel. When we were...

Sir Arthur’s grandchildren have been entertaining him. He’s getting over the pulled muscle from trying to follow the online fitness guru...

I walked last Saturday morning along the path of the old Somerset and Dorset Railway. At one point I turned sharply to chat to a cheery...

O yes, ‘tis a great year for the trout. A friend driving through France observed that insects are thriving this year. Now, to what...

‘It won’t do, dear boy. You can’t write “a mountain of a project took off”. It won’t do.’ I had asked Arthur to look over an essay I am...

Frank sleeps here and there, sometimes in the night shelter. You’ll recognise him around town by the bright new laces in his boots, but...

No temperature, you will be glad to hear, and he is at chez Whatnot anyway, having laid in a store of decent claret, cheese and...

A friend died last week. We hadn't seen her for years, which might seem remiss on our part, but these things happen. She was still a...

'Fancy a game of darts, Dave?’ Sidney had phoned, sounding rather chipper. Darts? Had my old buddy missed a couple of government...