Saturday 15 December 2012

On the Planet Wowo

On the planet Wowo they have one word for coat hanger and bachelor, think two plus two equals five and haven't invented traffic lights or poetry yet. 

(They are of course much happier than us.)

Saturday 8 December 2012

Conscience

When I turn my light on someone has a wet dream. When I turn my computer on a couple files for divorce.

When I yawn someone makes love. When I brush my teeth someone commits suicide. When I flush the toilet a couple gets married. When I put in my contact lenses someone falls out of a window. When I laugh someone begins a great journey.
And when I write someone cries.

Saturday 1 December 2012

The Moon



If the moon was not there would we note its non-existence?





And what if there were a million moons blocking out the sky? Bumping into each other like balloons at a child's birthday party.








Saturday 24 November 2012

The Astronauts

We made love and sounded like two astronauts on a space walk breathing softly into our microphones looking up at the bobbing world.

Saturday 17 November 2012

Coincidence

'Do you remember you asked me once if I thought anyone has ever had an original idea? Well yesterday someone asked me the exact same question.'

Saturday 10 November 2012

Barista

My wife and I took our two children to a coffee shop. 
My wife went to get our coffees and when she came back I asked her which one was mine. She pointed at my son Zak and said 'I'm pretty sure he is.'


Friday 2 November 2012

Little God


When Little God created our Universe out of nothing, for no reason at all, at the back of his hyper-dimensional trailer park, without asking permission from an adult, his step dad was furious.

In front of Little God's cousins Little God's step dad asked Little God just who he thought he was.
Little God said nothing.

'You've set in motion the evolution of untold billions of conscious lifeforms for no reason at all. What were you thinking?'
Little God shrugged. 

'It's not funny and it's not clever' said Little God's step dad.

As punishment for creating our Universe Little God's step dad took all of Little God's toys away and ordered Little God to his infinitely sized room. 

'Just wait till your mom gets home!' Little God's step dad added as Little God headed to his room.

Saturday 27 October 2012

The Story

I've been living with this story. Night times are great but during the day it just sits around comparing itself to other stories I've had. It nags me to make it sing, to make it perfect. 
Anyway I've decided to finish with it.

Saturday 20 October 2012

The Appointment

I once phoned a psychic and invited her over to read my mind.
At the end of our slightly flirty conversation she asked for my address.
'But you're psychic' I reminded her and hung up.

Saturday 13 October 2012

Rain


One day all the hinges in my house came to life and flew away. 
The moment after they had gone all the doors in my house fell over one after the other like ponderous sentences. 

I wanted to write about this but it was raining.

Saturday 6 October 2012

10% of GNP

This is the real story of the Tower of Babel. 

The Government of Babel decided to build an enormous tower as a shameless PR stunt. Every year it reached further and further into the sky. They soon had to put lights on the tower so that planes didn't accidentally fly into it. They spent something like 10% of Babel's GNP on the project.

Local people sued the Government because the tower effected their TV reception. A judge ruled that good TV reception was a fundamental human right.

The Government gave all the local people lots of money and cable TVs and kept building the tower. On the advice of their generals they set up missile batteries around the tower to deter any terrorist attack.

Four years behind schedule they reached the heavens. 

The people of Babel were not scattered across the face of the Earth nor was their language confounded. In fact there was no sign of God at all in upper stratosphere so the politicians, architects and workmen decided to just keep on building...

Saturday 29 September 2012

The Dream


Last night asleep in bed I dreamt I was in bed asleep last night.

Saturday 22 September 2012

Happiness

Silent, environmentally frisky, multi-fandoogled new old ice cream vans move stilly on summer/winter day-nights selling free monochrome coloured happiness: 'One scoop or two?'

But it never lasts. 

Happiness melts.

Saturday 15 September 2012

The Fart

We were standing on the beach, a little drunk, our kisses careless.

I ran my hand down your back coming to rest on your buttocks.

We kissed again as the sun faded then you farted and the flowered fabric of your dress bellowed and I looked out to sea and glimpsed the tall ship of our love set sail on that fine wind for wondrous lands unknown.

Saturday 8 September 2012

Getting Lost

He told me religion for him was like an underground map; it didn't show everything just the important bits.

Then he told me how he and his wife had gone to the outskirts of Prague to visit a particular church and how they hadn't found the particular church they were looking for but had found another church instead. 

That was what religion for him was like.

Saturday 1 September 2012

The Power of Positive Thinking


A very wise man sent everyone on Earth a copy of his book 'The Power of Positive Thinking'.
He thought it contained the answers to all the problems of life.

Like I said he sent a copy to everyone on Earth then he sent everyone on Earth a second copy in case they hadn't gotten around to reading the first copy. So many copies of 'The Power of Positive Thinking' were thrown out waste dumps began to fill up. 

The very wise man sent extra copies of 'The Power of Positive Thinking' to couples in case they were planning on having children sometime soon who would need their own copy (when they grew up). Millions of 'The Power of Positive Thinking' cascaded into rivers and blocked them. 

Governments organised special 'The Power of Positive Thinking' collection services. Following the passing of a special law the US Federal authorities filled up the Grand Canyon with unwanted copies of 'The Power of Positive Thinking'. In the slums of South America, Africa and India people made their houses out of stacks of 'The Power of Positive Thinking'. In Europe copies of 'The Power of Positive Thinking' were burnt in massive bonfires adding significantly to global warming.

Then the very wise man sent everyone on Earth a special signed copy of 'The Power of Positive Thinking' with a brand new introduction and impressive reviews on the back.

Astronauts in space could see mountains of The Power of Positive Thinking (the astronauts could also see coral reefs). Islands of The Power of Positive Thinking were formed off the cost of North America. Sea levels rose nearly half a meter causing massive destruction.

Whole towns were washed away by floods of 'The Power of Positive Thinking'

When the paperback edition was sent to everyone on Earth cities were evacuated, martial law imposed and postmen were shot on sight.

Saturday 25 August 2012

The Truth


A Christian is asked which came first the chicken or the egg. 

He says the chicken because God had made the chicken.


Saturday 18 August 2012

Divine Inspiration

A preacher was telling a crowd that it was a sin to drink alcohol when someone shouted 'If drinking is a sin why did Jesus turn water into wine?'

'Ahh,' says the preacher after thinking for a moment 'it was watered down.'

Saturday 11 August 2012

The Good Cause

A florist van turns a corner violently and three wreaths fall from the rear door onto the pavement.

People on their way to work pause for a moment when they pass the wreaths.

Later locals bring flowers and add them to the wreaths.

On Sunday night a group put candles around the flowers and the wreaths.

A week later the local paper publishes an article about the candles, the flowers and the wreaths.

A month goes by and Politicians makes impassioned speeches about the candles, the flowers and the wreaths.

Exactly a year later the Government erects a great monument. 

Saturday 4 August 2012

The Cosmic Ray

On the 16th of February 2013 at 5.12 am EST something strange happened: everyone suddenly forgot how to walk. It was something to do with a cosmic ray that only effected higher mammalian neurology. 


It was pretty funny really, except that some old people starved to death before anyone could wriggle over to them. 


A little over twelve months later everyone had learned how to walk again and it was as if the whole thing had never happened.  



Saturday 28 July 2012

A True Love Story (Part 3)

The woman who had to concentrate to stay on the ground really did lose her concentration just outside the man who couldn't open doors' flat.

She fumbled for her Critique as she rose above the railings. She read the following passage:

'Can it be that this requirement of reason has been wrongly treated in being viewed as a transcendental principle of pure reason, and that we have been over-hasty in postulating such an unbounded completeness of the series of conditions such as unbounded completeness of the series of conditions in the objects themselves.'

The woman who had to concentrate to stay on the ground hovered for a moment considering this question then began to rise again.

She desperately flicked through the Critique again reaching the window where the man who couldn't open doors looked out at the world.

The man who couldn't open doors looked at the woman who had to concentrate to stay on the ground.

He fell in love.
And she dropped The Critique of Pure Reason.

The man who couldn't open doors opened his window. (Windows were no problem for the man who couldn't open doors.)
'Do you have a book I could read?' asked the woman who had to concentrate to stay on the ground.
'Sorry, I don't' said the man who couldn't open doors.
'Tell me something interesting quickly then' begged the woman who had to concentrate to stay on the ground as she floated passed the window.
'I can't open doors' said the man who couldn't open doors.

This made the woman sink low enough for the man who couldn't open doors to grab hold of the woman who had to concentrate to stay on the ground and pull her into his flat.

The man who couldn't open doors spent the afternoon talking the woman down from the ceiling by asking her square roots.

'What is the square root of 6?'
'What is the square root of 16?'

By some stroke of luck the man who couldn't open doors was wonderful at square roots.

After that the man who couldn't open doors and the woman who had to concentrate to stay on the ground saw each other often.

Whenever they went anywhere the man who couldn't open doors climbed onto the woman who had to concentrate to stay on the ground's back.

Whenever they needed to open a door the woman who had to concentrate to stay on the ground would open the door and whenever the man who couldn't open doors felt the woman who had to concentrate to stay on the ground begin to float off he would ask her what the square root of some number was. 

On the woman's birthday the man who couldn't open doors bought her Kant's Critique of Judgement and Phenomenology of Spirit by Hegel, he had been recommended it by the book seller when he told her he was looking for a book for a woman who had to concentrate. 
They were very happy together.

People thought they looked strange but didn't concern themselves with them a great deal having their own set of problems to deal with.

The man who couldn't open doors and the woman who had to concentrate to stay on the ground went to see a film. It didn't have much of a plot and the man who couldn't open doors had to whisper square roots to the woman who had to concentrate to stay on the ground.

The man who couldn't open doors and the woman who had to concentrate to stay on the ground really did walk through a park after the film and the man who couldn't open doors really did kiss the woman who had to concentrate to stay on the ground.

She fluttered a little off the ground.
Then he asked her what the square root of 7 was.
Then he kissed her again.
Then she fluttered some more.
Then he asked her what the square root of 4 was.

This went on and on and soon the man and the woman were naked and the man was asking questions about quadratic equations and the general law of relativity.

They were the most wonderful questions anyone had ever asked in the history of the world.

The man who couldn't open doors and the woman who had to concentrate to stay on the ground made love.

Then the woman who had to concentrate to stay on the ground drifted off into space and was lost amongst the stars.


This is a true love story. Something like this really happened.


Saturday 21 July 2012

A True Love Story (Part 2)

There really was a woman who had to concentrate to stay on the ground.


Her mother, while pregnant with her, had taken one too many headache pills and she, as a result, had to concentrate to stay on the ground.


The outside terrified the woman who had to concentrate to stay on the ground. To lose concentration while outside could mean death in the upper atmosphere, cold and alone.


Before going out the woman who had to concentrate to stay on the ground covered her shoes in glue.


She slept tied to her bed and never opened her window at night.


When the woman who had to concentrate to stay on the ground was a girl she had a special note from her mother saying that she didn't have to go outside during breaks.


She spent her breaks in classrooms reading and sometimes looking through the window.


The woman who had to concentrate to stay on the ground didn't have any friends. She couldn't afford them, she couldn't let them distract her.


She didn't allow herself to be happy.


She worked on a PhD on Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason which kept her feet firmly on the ground. The woman who had to concentrate to stay on the ground always carried a copy of the Critique with her. If the woman who had to concentrate to stay on the ground felt herself begin to float off she flicked through her Critique looking for an underlined passage like:


'The necessity of existence can never be known from concepts, but always only from connection with that which is perceived in accordance with Universal laws of experience.' 


or


'Before constructing any objective judgement we compare the concepts to find them identity (of many representations under one concept) with a view to universal judgements, difference with a view to particular judgements, agreement with a view to affirmative judgement, opposition with a view to negative judgements, etc' 

It was her lifebuoy.

Saturday 14 July 2012

A True Love Story (Part 1)

This is a true love story. Something like this really happened.


There really was a man who couldn't open doors.


He just couldn't do it. It was a curious gap in his retinue of skills. Something that had mysteriously passed him by. The man who couldn't open doors was utterly terrible at job interviews, his first impression being that of an idiot unable to grasp the rudiments of door opening.
'Sorry. It must have been stuck' he would say as someone came to his aid.


He was unemployed. He hadn't done well in school. There are lots of doors in schools. He was invited to parties but always ended up in hallways. He spent his youth in hallways and wandering the streets.


The man who couldn't open door didn't have much of anything, all his possessions had been stolen from his little flat because he had to leave his door ajar all the time, so he could get in and out to buy food and collect his income support. The local kids had found out long ago that the man who couldn't open doors left his front door open all the time.
 At first the man who couldn't open doors tried to make it look as if the door was closed but the local kids applied a rigorous scientific method and robbed him blind.


All the man who couldn't open doors had in his flat was a poster of Mao Tse-Tung. (The previous tenant had let it.)


The man who couldn't open doors got used to having no possessions at all.


The man who couldn't open doors sat in his empty room with the picture of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung and looked out the window.


The man who couldn't open doors like windows. He would spend all his time looking out of his little window that had a GreenPeace sticker in the corner. (The previous tenant had left it.)


Like all of us the man who couldn't open doors coped. He did what he could, looking out his little window at the world.

Saturday 7 July 2012

My K yboard

My k yboard is old. All the blood, hairs and rhino horn dust, lik  dirt und r fing rnails, have clog d it up. I can't typ the l tt r  .

Saturday 30 June 2012

The Evangelist

I once met an Evangelist who said he could convince me of God's existence in just three hours with only rational arguments and a pair of electrodes.

Saturday 23 June 2012

Rene Cousteau

Rene Cousteau worked as a bank clerk. Everyday after work he would go to Victoria train station and hand beautiful women bunches of flowers.


There were tiny invisible strings attached to the bunches of flowers Rene Cousteau handed out. Rene Cousteau knew where each of his beautiful women were and could feel their pretty hearts beat. Very soon the tiny invisible strings crisscrossed London. In time they came to cover the entire world.

Saturday 16 June 2012

The Mystics

They wandered for days in the desert talking about their haircuts and wondering what the time was.

Saturday 9 June 2012

The Lovers

They sat in the library ripping out pieces of paper from their note books at each other. 


The sharp short tears were raw and passionate, the slow quiet tears were tender and affectionate. 


Nobody else knew.

Saturday 2 June 2012

St. John Chapter 18

Two large removal vans rolled through wooded countryside. They approached a garden in which sat Jesus Christ and a number of his disciples.
Out of the van jumped Alcohol Tobacco and Firearm (ATF) agents armed with assault rifles and wearing body armour. 
They advanced on the garden but disciples hidden in a wood fired on their flanks and a heavy machine gun, manned by St. Paul, opened up.
St. Peter threw a hand grenade which killed two ATF men.
In the chaos and confusion the ATF teams withdrew and the FBI were called in.


The whole thing was filmed live.


In the brief fire fight four ATF agents were killed and sixteen were wounded.


Jesus took a round in the shoulder but insisted it was just a flesh wound.

Saturday 26 May 2012

Made in Italy

There is a convent school next to Parliament Hill Fields in London; it has high white walls and hundreds of kites are marooned in its trees. 


In the middle of the convent school there is a beautiful garden reserved for the nuns only. In the middle of the garden there is a shed. Inside the shed is a machine shipped over from Italy when the convert was built. 


The machine hums day and night and makes faith. When you walk past the convert school you can smell it. It smells a bit like almonds.

Saturday 19 May 2012

The Dictionary

He went around with a dictionary under his arm and whenever he wanted to say something he would find the words in his dictionary and point at them with his skinny little finger but nobody could be bothered to wait for him to find the words in his dictionary that he wanted to point at.

Saturday 12 May 2012

History

Neil Armstrong never left the moon.


He's lying in the Bay of Tranquility face down, dead of course.
His body doesn't rot much.


What happened was this: Neil Armstrong landed the Eagle as everyone was told but then on that historic moon walk things got too much for him. 


Sure he said one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind but he didn't stop there. Neil Armstrong just bounced off saying as he did so how that was another giant leap for mankind and another and another.


About half a kilometre from the landing site Neil Armstrong started to say some pretty weird things about America, his wife, the UN and God. He said there was a multinational company back on Earth that was slowly making everything smaller but no one had noticed. He told everyone to go and measure their cereal packets. After that he said things nobody understood.


Eventually he ran out of oxygen. His last words were not recorded.

Saturday 5 May 2012

The Bug

Once an insect climbed onto the book I was reading. It was the size of the letter i.
I watched it cross the page and then carried on reading. I forgot about the insect. Two pages later it reappeared. I wasn't enjoying the book. I watched the insect as again it crossed the page. 
I had the silly idea that perhaps it was trying to communicate with me. What if, I thought, every word it walks over is part of a message it is trying to send me?
I watched the insect's route carefully and read aloud each word that it passed over: "to, were, were, in, outside, come, indications, were, of, relative, remained, friar, intending, saw, that, off, have, arrived, I, some, the, behind, none"
Annoyed I squashed the insect with my thumb and went back to reading.

Saturday 28 April 2012

Reality

We will never see reality laid bare, even as she steps from the transcendental shower - for she is wrapped in the towel of appearance.

Saturday 21 April 2012

The Details

When asked whether there would be houses in heaven, if we would still need bathrooms and what exactly everyone would do for eternity, the priest admitted he didn't know the details.

Saturday 14 April 2012

The Telepath

There was once a man who could read other people's minds. On his twenty first birthday he blew his brains out.

Saturday 7 April 2012

On the planet Zim

On the planet Zim every time a crime is committed everyone is put in jail. The first person to convince everyone else he didn't commit the crime becomes the judge.

Saturday 31 March 2012

The Friend

'He could have castrated both of us' he said sitting at my bedside.

Saturday 24 March 2012

The Toothbrush

Howard Carter's toothbrush was very worn. It had big chunks missing and its bristles splayed out in all directions. The great Egyptologist had used it to clean the thousands of talismans that festooned the remains of King Tutankhamun.


Howard Carter had terrible breath.  

Saturday 17 March 2012

The Pretty Librarian

Once while at college I was getting a book out of the library; The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut, I handed it over to this pretty librarian who said something like 'Oh Kurt Vonnegut, he came here last year.'
I told her he was my idol, that if I could write a tenth as well as him I'd be happy.
That's what I said and it's true.
I asked her how many books I could take out.
Fifteen.
A few days later I am visiting this girl I met she wears White Musk and has this funny neck I haven't decided if I like or not. I'm trying to find this girl with the funny neck's room. I said I'd take her out to dinner but she's given me the wrong number or I took it down wrong. I wrote down room K212 but some guy Andrew had his name on the door to room K212. I have this terrible idea that Andrew might be the girl with the funny neck's boyfriend.
I knock anyway. Andrew isn't in.
I try the floor below. Nope, no one has heard of a girl called Emma, the girl with the funny neck I'm not sure I like or not.
Then I try upstairs.
Emma is in the doorway of room K312 she's putting on these big boots. Her friends are getting ready to go out. She says 'We're going to the pub, want to come?' I say 'Sure.'
Her neck is still funny.
It's really packed and I queue for hours at the bar. I'm bored queuing so I say for a joke to this girl who's in front of me; 'Perhaps in another life we were complete strangers.'
I'm always saying that.
And she says 'Perhaps in another life you could write one tenth as well as Kurt Vonnegut.'
It's the pretty librarian.
We talk about art and law. She did a degree in French, Japanese and business studies. She's a cradle Catholic. 
 At the end of the evening she gets on her bike and leaves me in a part of town I don't know.

Saturday 10 March 2012

The Girlfriend

I was seeing seeing this girl who was kind of odd; she had pen nibs instead of nipples.


During sex she'd write things in blue all over my duvet. The first night she wrote: The ironsmith fashions it and works it over the coals, he shapes it with hammers and forges it with his strong arm; he becomes hungry and his strength fails, he drinks no


Then the second night she wrote: water and is faint. The carpenter stretches a line, he marks it out with a pencil: he fashions it with places and marks it with a compass; he shapes it into the figure of a man and with the beauty of a man, to dwell in a house. He cuts down cedars, he chooses an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees


I couldn't tell if she did it on purpose or not. She said she wasn't aware of it. It cost me a fortune in dry-cleaning bills.


Anyway we stopped going out when she came over one day and found of the forest; he plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. Then it becomes fuel for a man; he takes part of it and warms himself, he kindles a fore and bakes bread also he makes a god and worships it. Half of it burns in the fire; over the other half he eats flesh, he roasts meat and is satisfied; also he warms himself and says written on my duvet. It was in red. Her sister had written it.

Saturday 3 March 2012

Were we married?

I met this girl I hadn't seen since school in a bar. We talked about things. She had more spots than before. Her boyfriend was a sculptor from South London. One thing we talked about was a play we'd both been in in year 9. We couldn't remember if, in the play, I had been her husband or not. We said things like 'were we married? I can't remember its been so long.'


I hope someone heard us talking like that.

Saturday 25 February 2012

On The Planet Keo

On the planet Keo live beings whose art would make you cry, everything they say is poetry and they do not have a word for God.

Saturday 18 February 2012

Inspiration

Sometimes I just sit here and an idea comes into my head and I write it down. Sometimes I just sit here.

Saturday 11 February 2012

Not Believing In God

Not believing in God is like not shaving:
'Oh you're growing a beard' people say.
'No, I'm just not shaving.'

Saturday 4 February 2012

The Elephant Without A Trunk

For him the idea of man not possessing a soul was as impossible as an elephant not possessing a trunk; but there is nothing impossible about an elephant not possessing a trunk.

Saturday 28 January 2012

The Thing That Killed God

What killed God? A tautology? A single moment of blistering clarity? Determinism? Nothing at all? The birth of something else? Or was it simply when the metaphysicians could no longer be bothered to inflate him with their spiteful breath?

Saturday 21 January 2012

Divine Inspiration

Gesturing wildly Jesus dropped a lump of ash from his cigarette into his belly button. Still arguing his point he ran into the sea of Galilee to put it out.

Saturday 14 January 2012

The Narcissist

'You can't be very narcissistic; you don't have any mirrors' she said.
'Perhaps,' I replied, 'I am such a narcissist I no longer require them.'

Saturday 7 January 2012

The Evangelist

The Evangelist drives deep into the jungle looking for an undiscovered tribe to bestow his 'truth' on and with it - as if by sheer coincidence - his language.

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