This is an extract of a preliminary draft of a paper I plan to submit to the Journal of the Institute of Anthropology. It is based on close studies of the human female, operating freely in her natural habitat. …

This story is about a chirpy, chippy London sparrow who was an irrepressible source of opinions and ideas. Whatever the subject he could always give a convincing impression of expertise. Some thought him a dangerous free-thinker, and it’s true as we will see that following through on one of his…

To emphasize how certain and obvious it is that “Yes” is the only possible answer to a question, it is common to reply “Is the Pope Catholic?”. It now seems that the formerly assumed answer to that jocular rhetorical question must be reviewed. In the latest step backwards towards common…

From time to time I’ve felt inclined to sign myself Anon., or go pseudonymous, choose a more impressive name than Ron. Bill Shakespeare said it: what’s in a name? Choose Rose or Sally or Kate; the child remains as beautiful, as fortunate her fate. I considered Phineas, Anatole, Horatio and Holly, Andromeda and Pericles, Aubrey, Tom and Molly. Each name became a role to play, starring, not giving a damn. How tempting never to have to admit to who I really am.

I. ON VALENTINE’S DAY I’d sigh, I’d cry, I’d damn near die if you should choose some other guy. I’d fly so high I’d touch the sky if next to me you’d choose to lie. No need to ask the reason why, it’s apple pie, salt beef on rye, it’s suit and tie, seeing eye to…

This rock-strewn river of life on which we dance, is heaven and hell and every state between. We’d run its course and reach its end by chance if we didn’t steer as it sweeps us all downstream. Our primal urges lead to procreation: the drive to strive to gain a fancied mate, the pleasure that comes with sexual consummation, then genesis of an imperfect duplicate. There comes in train the patter of tiny feet - our varied offspring — who in turn compete to form a new and favoured young elite, who pass their selfish genes on, then repeat. Two morals spring to mind from all of this: keep paddling; take care whom you choose to kiss.

I might forget for a while that she’s not there, but all can see the lines etched on my face where sands of time have blasted a tell-tale trace, the outlines of quotidian despair. Everyone says that sorrows are healed by time, but how much time does it take? Is it even true? The words are used to ease and comfort you, but swearing a partial truth is still a crime. The wound may close, the skin knit back together (though time is a slow and feeble aid at best, a salve that will sometimes leave a wound to fester) but the limb hacked off from there is gone forever. The feeling of loss will never go away, it’s the price for what I had, and I must pay.

Farewell dear colleague, it’s been good to know you; as a liquid lunch companion, the one to go to. But now I’ve heard a most disturbing rumour, that’s spreading fast and growing like a tumour. Say it’s not true, it must be just a joke; the story is you’re off to Basingstoke! This is no fitting end for such as thee, this plate glass island, set in a concrete sea, this septic aisle, this soulless shopping precinct, this shapeless blot on Hampshire, Alençon linked, this multi-level car-park ‘midst a maze, where herds of cattle grazed in happier days.

Sometimes he thinks that given this or that, some extra height, a mentor’s guidance; if he’d not been shocked by death scares as a child, through illness, mid-night fears, the blitz; he might have been a little braver, followed his star, and carved RF was here on the tree of life. He also thinks it’s taken every ounce of grit and guile, simply to pass as normal. This seemed important once, and that is why it’s left to some less cautious outcome of this game of chance to run their race, and do what he might have done in a parallel universe.