Drogheda, today He who could take Drogheda could take Hell. ~Sir Arthur Aston Who could have imagined that a broken down old port, tossed like a slag heap of crushed dreams onto the East coast of Ireland, a place stocked with sad drunks and slow witted merchants, a garrison town – its round tower a [...]
So my mom doesn’t like it that I’m single. “Oy vey, she says, I’m your mother, I worry. You’re out with those boys all the times, doing your improvised street theatre. It’s no life for a meylekh mamzer.” And she’s right you know. I’m almost thirty three years old, I’m unemployed, and I’ve never had [...]
In the 17th Century one of the most shameful episodes in history began. It was for money, the love of money and for nothing else. It was dressed in the language and reasoning of Empire, of natural selection, but the cause was money. Their hands and eyes grew red with the blood while their purses [...]
After she’d been cleared of all charges, Marjory visited Charles in the psychiatric hospital. His throat was heavily bandaged and he had not yet regained the ability to speak, but with the aid of a pen, paper and an orderly to unstrap one arm from his strait jacket, he was able to communicate, after a [...]
When did you become a lie? When did we stop being friends? When did you start killing? We’re looking round for someone to blame for not stopping you sooner, and to be honest there’s too much money being made to see an effective halt anytime soon. Was it the men in white coats, white faced [...]
9/11, by JRR Tolkien, are just another band from New York, with all the posing and brilliance this implies. A walking invitation of scorn: their music apparently is a grower – as in it sounds terrible on first listen, then as the inner hipster gradually begins to automatically screen out the negative bits, you know, [...]
I’m one row from the front, roiling in the day glo plastic drug mental of a Chemical Brothers set, when a pill warrior, eight feet tall on platform boots, his vari-coloured dreads a rain of snakes, his woman writhing property between his legs, turns and grasps my hand. ’This is it man, this is it!’. [...]
Imagine opening up a sarcophagus and finding within a body made of soft, pink play-doh. Prising open the ribcage you find a frail and burnished mechanical bird singing for all its worth. It can’t hold a tune and it’s shedding springs and nuts and bolts at a terrifying rate, shuddering and convulsing but still singing [...]
Charles thanked the old man in the grocery store and told him how much Marjory would enjoy the lovely chocolates. He’d seen her three times already that day, but hidden so as not to spoil the lovely surprise. Marjory would be twenty four years old, at precisely eight minutes passed seven and he had everything [...]
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous insect. ’Will you look at this shit?’ Cavana said, stubbing out a Marlborough Light. ’Humf ?’ Kelly was only half listening, absorbed in his own corrections. ’Listen to this,’ Cavana continued, and read out the whole [...]
