Charlie Bucket was the Final Girl
Charlie Bucket was the Final Girl It’s over fifty years since Violet Beauregarde encountered Willy Wonka. She still covers her purple skin with a veil, has...
Hagiography
Hagiography Entering the kitchen, I saw Karen pushing a long, thin needle into the flesh between left thumb and forefinger. She apologised, and put the...
Finger Candy ⚠️
Finger Candy If you want to know the sort of person Willy Wonka really was, then you need to know about Finger Candy. Its very preposterousness stops it from...
A Tabitha Holmes Story
A Tabitha Holmes Story An opening to an imaginary novel The Bank of England has two museums. One is open to the public and tells the British Economy’s story...
Team
Team Three stops from town, the quiet train filled with football fans. They crammed in, taking every seat, some standing in the aisle. Richard stared at his...
A Twist of Pepper
A Twist of Pepper Charlie reached into his bag and pulled out a peppermill, placing it on Kirsty's table with a flourish. "It's cursed," he told us. He'd...
Medical Drama
Medical Drama We're watching a TV show called Medical Drama. A man in a long white coat strides down a corridor, he's carrying a clipboard. His interns...
Better to Rust
Better to Rust Ever since McDonalds began charging for ketchup, Davey the Drummer has started bringing his own bottle. The rest of the band mock him, but...
Tommy Bear is a Good Neighbour
After stopping the email in November, I started posting again a couple of weeks back, this time on Buttondown. If you want to unsubscribe, please do so...
Vigil
Vigil It’s a myth that the Devil can’t enter churches – although he has a little trouble when they’re locked. It’s the witching hour, but the door to this...
Bibliospores
Bibliospores An old pile of books. The first spores to land here had no idea what we had discovered. We blindly reached tendrils through paper pulp, tasting...
Goldsworthy
Goldsworthy “I still say it’s bullshit,” said Blight, starting another roll-up as soon as the previous one was done. “You’ve said that all day,” said Harry....
Transfers
Transfers Dubai airport was cool and quiet, as if it was designed to absorb noise. It was also busy, despite being 2am local time. The shops were crowded,...
Cloudy Days
Cloudy Days On cloudy days, people were more inclined to visit Alison's seafront booth for tarot readings. She could spend hours without customers when it...
Rat out of Hell (+ event announcement)
Rat Out of Hell It was Dante who arranged Hell in circles, sorting the damned into categories like a library. The innermost circle of Dante's Hell was...
The Clockwork City
In the clockwork city, directions depend on the time of day. Streets that are dead-ends at dawn become ring-roads by dusk. The sad-looking man selling...
Pinocchio
He sits all day, trapped in his glass prison. Sometimes he taps against that glass, drawing the museum visitors closer, so they can hear what he says....
Alison the Greebo (plus - 2026 Advent Calendar News)
Marie-Lou was the coolest girl in the year. The best way to get her attention was by being sent to the headmaster for a uniform infraction. She was there...
Pull the Pig
On his first day teaching at the school, a doddery German master mistook Peter for a sixth former, telling him he was supposed to be at the theatre for an...
A Todmorden Poem
She gathers canal-side poetry scrapsA harvest that she can shareHiding poems between bookshop pagesOr in the drawers of antique furnitureShe once designed...