Holy Knight

It was Boxing Day, yet the chairman, along with a skeleton staff, had come to the office to work on the press release that he would issue early next month. On the screen in front of him was displayed the company’s latest sales report. It made depressing, if unsurprising, reading. Things were not looking good at all, though at least a small profit was forecast, which was more than was likely to be the case for his rivals. As welcome as this was, it was not going to prevent the huge number of redundancies that would be forthcoming in the New Year; redundancies which came on top of several store closures and associated job losses that he and his board had been forced to impose 6 months earlier.

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Love in a warm climate

This post was first published on September 20, 2010

“Fancy a swift dop, later, I have some hot int?”

“Yea, lekker, man, what you got?”

“A plane load of Ozzie chicks flew in this arvie. They’re bound to head for the Frog and Toad for a bit of a piss up later.”

“Cool banana. Those birds are rough, but, hey, they are easy to pull.”

Christopher Robin and the station of fear

This post was first published on July 5,2010

Alice was waiting on the station platform.
“Flippin’ heck, CR, you look whiter than a nun’s knickers.”
“You are not going to believe it.
“Oh yea,” said Alice, “what happened?”
“After I left you at Buckingham Palace, oh and by the way, what is it with you and those guardsmen, you were grinning like a Cheshire cat when the sergeant offered to darn your socks for you.”

Popocatapetl in the sunlight gleams

This post was first published on June 14, 2010

When I was but thirteen or so

I went into a golden land,

Chimborazo, Cotopaxi

Took me by the hand.

“It will be out secret”, said the priest. “I want you to promise not to tell anybody, not even your mother. Nobody must know?”

Wrecked

It was not so much that they were kindred spirits, they were in fact quite different in temperament and outlook; Robert was more cerebral and preferred books and board games while John was gregarious and liked the outdoors. It was more a force of circumstance that had drawn them together and which provided the basis of their friendship. Theirs was a relatively isolated community and there were few other children with whom they could socialise. They could scarcely remember a time when they had not known each other and for much of their childhood, if they were not alone, they were in each other’s company. It was only when they went away to the same boarding school that they began to establish their own social independence, each with his preferred group of friends. During the holidays they would reconnect without any acrimony concerning their school alliances. They understood and respected each other’s differences.