6.07 / London Calling

Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, England and Ireland – together, we fucking rule. There are 60 million of us and we’re producing some of the finest literature, art and music in the world.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/London/Gatford.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″] My baby son got a rubber duck in his Christmas stocking. It lights up when you press the little metal sensors on its underside and the heat of the unventilated bathroom keeps it flashing all night.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/London/Cara.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″] Sometimes, at work, the fur was so soft beneath her fingers that Hannah felt she might be sick.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/London/Rukeyser.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″] I’m no expert, but to me, it looked human.  This sea has brought me all sorts of things, over the years.  Nothing like this. No one’s permitted down in this cove, a rocky beach framed by walls built to hold the storms back.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/London/Pullan.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″] There was many a time, when I wanted to say, that Hardrow Force looked like poured sugar or how the Ure bleeds when cut by a sunrise. But I didn’t. I kept shtum.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/London/Dawson.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″] It was worth getting out of bed today. The waistband of my skirt feels strange after weeks in pyjamas, but it’s good to see how life goes on. People get groceries, kids hang around bus stops.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/London/Slater.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″] Welcome to HappyVegetarian.com! You are viewing the most recent reviews for Kitty’s Kitchen, London Bridge (oldest to newest).

[wpaudio url=”/audio/London/haggith.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″] The hill is a blaze of rapefield yellow, formica kitchen table yellow, angry bawling teenage drumkit yellow though honey biscuit sweet with pale primroses at its feet a demure cuckoo across the glen and dandelions and tormentils below all yellow, yellow, yellow.

[wpaudio url=”/audio/London/McGinnis.mp3″ text=”listen to this story” dl=”0″] She took my empty water bottle and waggled hers. “Do you want to feed the trash ducks?” she asked. I didn’t know what she meant, but I followed. Of course, I followed.

Things you (probably) shouldn’t tell your boyfriend: That you once exchanged a backseat fuck for money. But it was only one of the Byrne brothers, from down the road in Glasnevin. That your mother lives in a mental institution – St Brendan’s over in Grangegorman.

It sounded like a canny deal. The guy was wearing trousers that looked like they’d been picked up at a clown’s going out of business sale. He was necking a bottle of beer with his pinkie out like his hand didn’t know he wasn’t at a tea party. I couldn’t lose.

and now for the science bit the factoids that one overhears on the lash: I am afraid to eat sandwiches I have made myself because they always have blood in them and the tips of my fingers if you can’t stop sneezing you’ve got sex on the brain stand still in the park on a

Dear Joan, November 1st Claudia called me this morning to let me know you died. When I asked her when and why and how did she get my number, she rushed me with tears and Gaelic. She hung up before I could get her to calm down and speak English. I’m sure you expected this.

An aged man in new tweed takes the floor. Brass band sets the stage with a slow serenade. Saxophone and trumpet weave tapestries across the room. His shuffle is careful but fluid, deliberate steps carry him across faded wood slats with a young woman in costume. Tonight she is a flapper. Another waits her turn.

The tide is coming in. The light is creeping through the heavy layer of clouds; it is dry, still, but for the sea mist that shrouds the beach in an ethereal purple shimmer. Amber is pulling her brother along impatiently by the hand.

Adrian Dumpleton, oh my God. Adrian Dumpleton, oh my God. I could grate cheese on his abs, if he were to develop some, and then use the cheese to make him the world’s most amorous sandwich. Adrian Dumpleton would devour the sandwich and then we would fly to Paris.

A sparrow swoops out of the thunder-heavy sky, crosses the window, and disappears into the nest built in the eaves. Every time the adult bird returns, the nest explodes with wild plaints from the clutch of chicks.

the action of descending rapidly from a height once the decision to land has been made If we could fly – if arms were aerofoils with cambered hands; if a brief jog built airflow, lift; if up-stroke, down -stroke, angle of attack were as natural and hard-won as walking – if all this, then most

Now then pal, that dun’t know nowt, thee, and tha best listen up an ken what I’m about to tell thee. Them down there they dun’t know nowt either and they gi’ us lot a bad name. Talking poncy? Ooh la-di-da, he says – the baddie in them films.

Bird/Cage My sister has flat eyes. I cannot see behind her irises, but they spin like thaumatropes. (One side flashes cages, the other side brown birds with soft wings.) Stretched out in the sun upon the kerb, heads bent down into apostrophes, we used to watch our legs for bruises, collected them like polka dots.

To Wakefield after Jenny Lindsay Wakefield, you dirty bitch. You patron saint of brickyards and rickets, leaky filling in the mouth of the North. There is no better word for you than slag. Sat out on the dead and yellow lawn of industry, braless and drunk, you’re hitching up your negligee to flash the trains.