Gritting one's teeth

Sometimes, paradoxically, professionalism and honesty are mutually exclusive.

Beer

In the English Hemisphere

There is a fear

Of beer

Which is queer

Because English beer

Is good gear

The French may sneer

And the Americans leer

But when proper Ale

Is on sale

The others pale

Or simply fail

To impale

Your thirst

It's like the first

Pint of Flowers you drank in the Badger's Wood

Absolutely Awful

As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti

Ever tried to squeeze too much into a bag?

Well Toto did.

The Visit

Heavy, squeeking sliding door with brass hook secure
Two degrees colder
Tiny window punched into the thick stone wall
Mottled glass, potted fern and Ringwood Best obscure the world outside
Whicker basket, fully laden with rolls of recycled sheets
Craftmanship in the darkly stained wooden cupboard
Large enamel basin with anti bacterial handwash and nailbrush
Pink towel hanging over a pipe

Meeting at five and twenty past

Wossaname, that ‘you-know’ thing

Back when the number 50 used to run

Does it still run?

And Eileen had her legs, and good legs they were

Back when Crystal Palace was something

The doings.... the dinosaurs

I know, and Horse Guards Parade was a day out

The Cenotaph; that would make ‘em smile

And that Imperial War museum

I held their hands then

Before they got so big

Yes, and ‘hello matey’ meant something

And everywhere, yes everywhere, was always close

Always close to St. Leonards

Not the 'When I grow rich' one

That's another story

And that purple shirt, makes me laugh

He never bought me that purple shirt

Did I leave the gas on?

I always preferred tea

From the pot, poured properly

You know what I mean

With a newspaper

Not this stuff

On a stool

In the window of Pret a Manger

It just not right you know

I know

The Sphere

Once I was asked by a man, affectionately known as 'The Bear' whether I wanted to hold the most spherical object in the world. What could I say? Of course, I thought, who wouldn't?

I had to face him, as he was completely deaf. I said yes. This great hulk of a man reached into a transparent box and removed a sphere, a wonderful, shiny, glass sphere. He placed it in my hands.

I stood there, as motionless as I could. This was a truly spherical object, in fact it was the most spherical object in the world. Only, it wasn't a sphere. The Bear had an instrument that could measure the tiny element of asymmetry caused by the gravitational pull of the earth. So there I was, standing on a hillside in Wales with the most spherical object in the world, only it wasn't a sphere.

I learned an important lesson that day. You can be the most honest person in the world but that doesn't mean that you are entirely honest.

This, of course, is the truth.

I nearly held a perfect sphere.

The rhythm of a dream

If asked one summers evening

One more time I may well scream

In one short and fleeting moment

Catch the rhythm of a dream

Or reach out on winter’s nightfall

With the task clearly avowed

As the left hand extends skywards

Touch the essence of a cloud

Or a normal Sunday dinner

Of a standard sort of life

Try to understand the nuance

Of a sentence from my wife

Some things are never easy

And some will never be

Concentration and some practise

I’ve been told may hold the key

I would sooner bathe in acid

Pitch my pubes against the louse

Than unravel hidden meanings

In the sentence of my spouse