Swan Couples Counselling

Therapist: So you’ve been having some problems.
Norma says you don’t talk to her.
Cyril: That’s because I’m a mute swan.
Norma: Mute, my arse. You’ve got plenty to say in mating season.
Cyril: Just as well, Dear, if you care to keep breeding like a rabbit.
Norma: Oh, you’ve noticed we’ve got cygnets, have you?
Didn’t think there were just [...]

James Morrison Agony Aunt Letter

Dear Auntie Soph,
Something bad happened in my life last week and I don’t know where to turn.
I was driving along listening to the radio and this song came on.
It was easy to listen to, catchy: I liked it.
I didn’t hear who it was by but it reeked of dairy products so I tried to put [...]

Snail

The first snail sat still. He felt slow and comical.
‘Why do you struggle, friend?’ inquired the second.
‘We are earth-bound,’ he replied. ‘Vulnerable.
I want to transcend. I want to be resilient.’

‘You are not a slug,’ observed the second.
‘You have a shell.
Use it to protect yourself.’
‘I do,’ insisted the first. ‘I know how to hide. [...]

Swimming Pools

The nightmare of walking down the high street naked is realized in the pursuit of swimming, only it takes place in a chlorinated sweatbox and you are wearing a sausage skin sheath of threadbare polyester.
Swimming pools should be sexy places: their sultry fluidity and proximity to the sauna room promise to make you feel like [...]

Pork Week, Seattle, March 2009

Once upon a time, around the turn of the 21st Century, there was an American boy from the South, who found himself living in the Pacific Northwest.
A good thing.
Because there was an American girl from the East, who found herself living there too and they needed to meet and fall in love.
The boy spun yarns [...]