i dunno, who would buy a book if i sold it for a fiver? i reckon i could persuade my dad to get a copy.
spacemen shaken by their contact with other civilizations in space spend the rest of thier lives in special compounds, fed on yogurt and pureed fruit.
galvanise steel ratio. mordant commentator. strews witticisms about mordantly.
'Good Evening. My name is Richard Hollypole. I am a mordant commentator.'.
they thrived in the wake of the catastrophe when it was not unusual to see pack of 15 to 20 of these ghoulish creatures stalking the streets. a smell of decay, corpse secretions.
Center Parcs complex converted into enormous detention camp.
the city is dotted with ancient temples to discredited gods. superstition, and perhaps a trace of ancestor worship, forbids their removal. some still have small congregations giving
succour to the fallen god, walking the circuit of his ritual, awaiting the Restoration . towering office blocks spring up alongside
bit of the old, how’s yer father.
long-winded vatic pronouncements.
Secret society convenes, monthly, over hotel breakfast. Arrive promptly at 6 and leave as the tables are being cleared at 11. A modern building near a motorway. A convinience rather than any holiday destination. Somewhere north of London, the outer reaches of the commuter belt. Low buildings. Empty streets. Space. Fields skirting the suburbs. A slow timepulse, the fonts spelling out the names of buisnesses seem dated, the colour palette is 30 years old. A smell of mothballs and must. Old women chatting in the charity shops, sorting through the donations, picking through piles of cardigans, jigsaw puzzles, porcelain milk maids and lap dogs, back issues of The National Geographic, out-of-print paperbacks, action figures with limbs missing (‘war wounds’ they tell the children gravely)
Slowly and methodically the men work their way through the full range of breakfast options;
The single-serve packets of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, Ricicles, Cocoa Pops, Sultana Bran for the health conscious..
Small pots of brightly coloured fruit yogurt with shredded strawberry or banana, eaten out the plastic container or spooned over cornflakes.
White bread, toasted unevenly, served with pats of butter and marmalade.
Eggs (scrambled) Sausage. Baked beans. Bacon and endless cups of tannin-heavy tea.
Views over the carpark. Newspapers. Gentle sounds of quiet conversations, clink of teacup on saucer, spoon on cereal bowl. Muffled sound of motorway. A place where a man can be content, if only for a few hours.
Say things like "I'd love to see Tottenham go down"
Dry smack of taninns puckering the mouth.
It’s men-only, by default, no woman in their right mind would ever wish to join.
Old Les just sits there drinking his tea. . Distinguised by his indifference to football.
Rolling cigerettes to fill his metal case, (‘saves me the trouble later’) and muttering to himself in some private monosyllabic language, comprised of grunts, hurumphs and hawking noises. Used to work the fairgrounds someone said, travelling the country, municipal parks and village squares. Old nuggety thing, bluff, weathered, worked outdoors his whole life, and off the books the whole time. Cash-in-hand from his first job at 11 up till now, casual labourer at a neighbouring farm, digging holes for fence posts and mucking out stables, spreading the manure. Never married, lives with his sister, ‘Becca, also never married. No suggestion of any impropriety mind you. Two old lonely people who lean on one another for support.
Carl Reece, a rogue chiropractor who performs double suplexes and elbow drops on his luckless patients.
A Bedouin tribesman, nicknamed Dick, for dictionary, after his wide-ranging vocabularly and baroque manner of speech, who drinks expensive Scotch and can do the Times crossword before anyone’s finished the mornings first cup of tea. Tucks his pen into the folds of a blue turban with a theatrical gesture. A smile of quiet satisfaction. Waits for the expressions of admiring disbelief.
Fence, the fence and part-time long distance lorry driver, who always has a carboot full of goods at knockdown prices. Czech cigerettes, Portugese brandy, Chinese fireworks too powerful to be legally sold in this country, leather overcoats, Italian sunglasses, faulty food processors, digital watches, radio alarm clocks, a collection of rare political pamphlets, some dating as far back as the civil war, mixed in with old football programmes, London clubs a speciality.
Always in the ear of the others, you know how much these cost in the shops? I’m cutting me own throat here as it is Les, gimmie a break. A cast of characters we will now leave in peace, as peace, retreat from work and wives, is the very purpose of their groups existence.
imbroglio.
ye hills of elves. home furnishing. meat pies. other planets.
conspiracies take root in history, branch insidiously. January Sales! Huge Reductions! Canapes! Twiglets! Rose!