stranger hugging
Wendy: hug? Blonde in car: (smiles and blushes) Wendy: leant into the driver-side car window and wrapped my left arm around her ‘thankyou so much’ I had just finnished driving 100 miles along Blue...
View Articlecute accent #3: OOoooeeeeEEEEE
In a large communal kitchen a stranger notices that I am putting milk in the outstanding large mug of tea that I have just made: Stranger: I like milk in my tea, it takes away the bitterness, I’ve...
View Articlecute accent #5: on-demand performances
check-out boy (COB) #1: do you want paper or plastic? ( ‘bag’ is implied) Wendy: I’ve bought my own (handing over an old tough bag) COB #2: thankyou for bringing your own COB #1: can you...
View ArticleReading Man not quite the stranger
The Stranger in Reading is a 2005 Two Rivers Press edition of an original 1810 book. It contains 7 letters written, supposedly anonymously, by Reading long-time resident John Man. The book...
View Articlealan’s tips
Words of wisdom from my outrageously expensive and handsome young product-dispensing hairdresser: If someone has been shouting at you for playing football near their house and generally been grumpy...
View Articleon not doing nothing not being doing something
Ever since the stranger in Reading pointed out that the locals are prone to using double negatives to indicate a single negative, rather than a positive, I’ve been noticing this phenomenon....
View Articlefamiliar strangers
Since moving to Reading I’ve found lots of familiar strangers, I see them on the bus everyday during my commute, in the local cooperative store when I’m picking up milk for my tea, behind the...
View ArticleStranger is stranger
I don’t think it was about sex. There wasn’t any sex. It started when I noticed her in my local pub. She’d turn-up next to me at the bar when I went to buy a round. We’d exchange greetings and...
View Articleouch
what did you do to your arm? broke it How did you do that? fell off a bike and landed on the curb Does it hurt? Yes I think she was trying to make conversation. I totally failed to help out. Her...
View ArticleThe outsider. Albert Camus
I found Albert Camus’s ‘The outsider” profoundly disturbing. In just under 115 pages it moves the reader from a funeral through a killing to legal conviction and sentencing with straightforward and...
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