Pete The Magnificent’s Diner
Pete’s Diner was busy today, it had been worth the risk he’d taken starting up it three years ago. Business was good, but he did need to think of a way to make it more upmarket, to make it a bit more outstanding, so to speak.
Note for tourists and visitors to Scotland
If you are driving, there are four bridges across the river Forth, of which only three are actually signposted as “bridges”, and one of those you can’t use because the one that is falling down is not open to private vehicles…
#TenThings
…I come from the North of England, but I grew up in Australia. In the 1960’s my parents decided, for reasons that are unlikely to become clear ever again, to emigrate. I think that the vision of a New World and the promise of a Land of Opportunity was something that my father was unable to resist. That would have been fine if he’d been a businessman but he wasn’t. I’m sure there were great possibilities there but he simply got a string of boring jobs like the ones he’d had back in England. It was never ‘home’ for me and I came back to the UK when I was twenty. My parents came with me – which wasn’t what I’d wanted because I’d been hoping to get away from them.
Train Between Stations
People thought he was just a cleaner, but appearances can be deceptive, and not everything in this world is always quite the way it seems. He restored the station to pristine condition every day with a few good strokes of his brush… but sometimes he swept up more than just dust.
The Travel Wallet
The wind howled, and the rain lashed against my brow with such furore that I thought I might be blown over, right into the teeth of the dark waters that swelled only a few yards away. I pulled my old black coat around me a little tighter and, with considerable effort on my part, turned my face into the wind and made my way towards the lights of the tavern.
The Importance of Setting
Although the writing gurus are fond of repeating their mantra of ‘show don’t tell’ there is still a place for descriptive writing. Not everywhere of course, but in works that are heavy on the narrative and what is called the ‘omni’ point of view, it does still work, and stories involving settings are perfect for it. The flickering flames, the dark shapes against the trees, the sparks, the smoke, the blue skies and clouds, the beautiful sunsets, the sparkling starlit nights, the thunderstorms, and the snowflakes which spiral out of the sky and lend their name to the title of the book. Billions of snowflakes, one for every soul in the world, and no two the same… or so you might be led to believe.
Eternal Hope
Two figures sat on the sofa in front of a flickering screen. The smaller one looked down at the remote control in his hand, and moved his finger slowly away from one of the buttons he had been caressing.
Humour and Comedic Moments
People have spent a lifetime studying comedy and have never come to a conclusion about exactly what it is or, for that matter, how to write it, but we all know what it is when we hear it. That’s probably because there are so many different kinds of comedy and, to some extent, we all find different things funny.
Crystal Gazing
‘I’d like to return this crystal ball which I bought from this very shop only yesterday. It doesn’t work.’