Like many people let down by the humans in their lives, Flippers loved animals. Gary Neville was number one, but Flippers had time for them all. Tonight he was particularly concerned with old Mrs. Baker’s Red Setter, Banjax. Hit by a car as a pup, Banjax had only three legs and age had now left […]
Gary Neville Saves Christmas – Part 2 Read More »
A Christmas story in two parts for your seasonal edification. The second part to follow over the next few days. I hope you enjoy. Gary Neville Saves Christmas Fibrous McNulty and Density O’Neill stopped the van on the brow of the hill that overlooked the village, the exhaust pumping thick white fumes into the frosty air.
Gary Neville Saves Christmas – Part 1 Read More »
Relationships. They’re important. They define and guide us. They provoke and becalm us. They diminish and inspire us. They enchant and destroy us. They can as easily be razing fire as empowering foundation. And so much store is set in those primary relationships in our lives: parents, siblings, confidantes, teachers and various others. And from
Someone call security… Read More »
Here’s a question – what are you about? Seriously, give it a moment’s thought. If you were to say “this is who I am”, what would you say? To what would you reduce yourself? And please, do not think of ‘reduce’ as being in any way negative but more in the culinary sense of boiling something
Cut me to the core! Read More »
In his brilliantly disturbing novella, The Testament of Mary (ostensibly about the mother of Christ but arguably about the inevitable unhappiness of mother-love), Colm Toibin articulates very well the dilemma of choosing between a righteous course of action and the more pressing demands of self-preservation: I watched in horror, but I did not move or
Up with this I shall not put! Read More »
…home is the place of belonging. Home can also be the opposite of that, highlighting the sense of not belonging, the sense of otherness. Home then, embodies a strange paradox in that it can be understood as both happy assimilation into place and tribe as well as being one’s concept of defiance, individuality and difference.
Away with the fairies Read More »
If, as I have done, you peruse the internet in search of quotes which relate to expectations you will find they can be categorised quite neatly into three areas: commerce, competition and autonomy/personal growth. The commerce ones invariably rotate around exceeding the expectations of customers. The competition ones involve defying everyone’s expectations in order to
Tales of the Unexpected Read More »
Hilary He felt the spade bite under his boot and promptly applied extra weight to get greater depth out of his effort. He withdrew and entered again at right angles. Thrust, push, bite, deepen, withdraw. And again at the other end. Flip the sod. Move along the line. Repeat the process. The metronome clicked in
No man is an island, Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, A part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. As well as if a promontory were. As well as if a manor of thine own Or of thine friend’s were. Each
Would it be fair to say that we all have good days and bad days? Surely the odds dictate that, to quote the song, into each life a little rain must fall. Nobody walks through life without getting at least a little wet. Nobody spends every single day basking in the glories of Creation (well,
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