A forever work in progress

Julian always marvelled at the way the local displaced African diaspora needed very little excuse to break out the colour and bring some much needed cheer to the neighbourhood. Much in the same way some of his fellow countrymen only needed to hear about the potential promise of some sunshine to break out the shorts and expose their lily white legs to the elements. Or the West Indians who'd put on their Sunday best, every inch as sharp as razor blades upon receipt of an invitation some weeks off just to get reacquainted with their uniform of choice. London had been a melting pot of cultures for as long as he'd been alive and personally he revelled in all the unfamiliar sights, sounds and smells like he'd been gifted a magical Encyclopedia Britannica until the point they all seemed perfectly familiar and he couldn't remember a time without them all. Julian had often wondered as a child when he saw flags from countries such as Kenya exactly why you'd leave your home wh...

Alice and Jason Youngman-Howe were the couple in the group that no one ever invited to social gatherings and yet somehow always managed to show up like an unexplained stain that you simply couldn't get rid of no matter how hard you scrubbed. As to how exactly they found out each time about the gatherings to which they'd not been invited was anyone's guess. Certainly no one admitted to letting secret plans slip and whilst naturally there were always fingers pointed in accusation, everyone denied culpability, though in whispers they would all quietly speculate, compare notes and each had their own suspicions on who the guilty party might be. No one could come out and simply ask them how they knew because that would be tantamount to admitting they'd deliberately been left off the guest list in the first place. However they were aware, Mossad should probably be sat taking notes because it was clearly an impressive operation they mounted which seemingly never failed to deliv...

Simon Newsome had a self confessed allergy to books and newspapers. Despite this, in his own mind he still very much believed that he was by far the smartest person in any room that he entered even though all the evidence pointed to the contrary. It might surprise you to learn that Simon isn't American although he bore many characteristics of being one and no doubt had he been borne of the tribe of the so called land of the free he'd no doubt have found himself a position in Donald Trump's cabinet for he was that unique level of stupid. Simon was however very much every inch an Englishman, and fell under the polite category of an upper class twit though many might drop the w or replace the i for an a, or simply use a stronger term in its place altogether. Public school educated naturally, though educated in what was anyone's guess as we've already established. The type of man whose bottom half of his casual wardrobe largely came in colours of mustard or a faded red....

Six pints into their evening, although it may have been seven as both were fairly well oiled by now and couldn't remember, Mick and Dave were busy putting the world to rights whilst both trying to maintain their balance on their stools at the same time. What had begun as a sensible enough catch up was now descending fast into the depths of political incorrectness.  - Davey boy, have you noticed pretty women… - Once or twice. He replied before Mick had a chance for his alcohol sodden brain to construct the rest of his sentence.  - Nah, nah man. Let me finish. Where was I? - Sat there next to me last time I checked.  Davey laughed at his own bad joke and Mick tried to flat palm his arm in annoyance but missed and nearly took himself and the stool over and so decided that standing might be the better idea. Then finding when stood that his legs were as stable as a newborn foal's, he spotted an empty table, took a swipe at his glass with an open hand and miraculously caught ho...

David Walker was ex-directory, now 54 years of age and newly retired from his job as a civil servant in the real corridors of power that lay in the offices of Whitehall and not as one naturally assumed, in parliament. During his thirty plus years he'd done his tour of duty of various ministries; Health, education, transport and he'd latterly been with Ag and fish before responsibilities were, for want of a better term, farmed out to what had become Defra and they'd decided that it was time to put him out to pasture, something which he'd not fought and accepted with a humility not found in others who'd equally been given the chop. In London he was always referred towards as Walker, first names for some strange reason that escaped his attention seemed of little use to anyone in the nation's capital. In the Dog and Duck Inn in Walkington the locals called him Johnnie, like the Whisky. Not because that's what he drank, simply because they already had a David, Da...

Strong winds carried from the west were busy whipping long grass back and forth across great acres of open agriculture land, each blade dancing in turn in a shimmering green sea of nature's equivalent of jazz hands. If they could talk, hundreds of thousands of tiny voices would all be calling out in chorus ‘look at me, look at me!’ Lucas would have testified to its mesmeric beauty were it not for the fact it was fucking freezing and the cold was shaking hands with the mug of tea now sat in his bladder that he'd finished not twenty minutes before and was now being unfairly instructed to make a reappearance with the world. That in itself wasn't so much an issue, however, the woman walking her dog some thirty foot behind was, and so he quickened his stride and hoped like the majority of dogs it would disobey its owner enough to create a gap where he could vanish into the trees and relieve himself before he did it down one of his trouser legs. No one warned you at school how ha...

Tobias Bunbridge had the incredible good fortune of having been born into wealth. Sadly for young Tobias he'd also had the misfortune of having been born a portly baby, weighing in at an eye watering 15lbs and 8 ounces which has nearly been the ruin of his poor mother. He was cursed with a metabolism as slow as a Galapagos tortoise and seemingly only had to smell food to gain an extra lb in weight. His mother always insisted on dressing him like a member of the landed gentry from the time his chubby cumbersome little legs finally decided that they would perform the duties for what mother nature had designed them for and give his poor suffering mothers back a much needed rest. Sadly for Tobias this garb left him looking much like Toad of Toad Hall as a child and latterly, as an adult, to the Bond villain Stavros Blofelt playing through on the back 9 of the local golf course. Growing up he was notoriously slow on both his feet and equally between the ears and so his parents had decid...