Reviving the art of storytelling. Watch this space.

The bartender, Pete, is a friendly, talkative sort. He’s about sixty-five and he’s been around. Back in the Sixties, Pete spent some time in the Nam, doing unspecified service for an unspecified government agency.
He didn’t like the work, and when war broke out Pete decided he wanted something more congenial, so he took a job [...]

Right.
Many of our people are already in place at the Ricoh stadium, and I’m receiving communications from Coventry by the minute.  There are 5,000 Saracens.  There are 20,000 of us.
Here in Limerick, a group of highly-trained special forces drinkers have taken control of strategic pubs with large screens and the logistics effort has swung into [...]

I know you’ll forgive all the secrecy, but now I can tell you the full story — or at least, as much of it as would be safe for you to know.
We had to enter the cloisters to be certain, and it wasn’t easy to get past the portal-keeper, but we had the code, thanks [...]

He seems like an avuncular old buffer but his heart is made from solid bands of laminated polycarbonate.
Let’s call him “Z”.
Bock, he murmured, over a glass of rather good Madeira, I realise you had that incident in the Balkans not too long ago, but …

I could see something was coming.
You see, old chap [...]

I got up at about eleven, had a quick vomit, swallowed eight of the RED pills and fourteen of the BLUE pills, drank the BLACK liquid as directed and the tremors pretty much stopped. Every day’s a good day when you feel that bouncy.
With my energy renewed, I climbed into the attic and snagged [...]

Hakk!! Hawwwkkkhh!!! Hak!! Khhakkhh!! Fuck! My fuckin head!! Hak! Kahokk!! Hok-thooee!! Ukkhh. Urk. Nnnggmnngghh. Mmnnnnhh. N.
I stir in the bed but I do not move, for I have experienced this before, many years ago in the Aran Islands. Sane men don’t move until this ritual has passed, for it is the waking-up rite of the [...]

Anyway. Where were we? Oh right, sorry, we finished with Wrinkly Joe saying it wasn’t even three o’clock yet.
Well, that was the run-in to the only really cheesy moment of the Midlands Music Festival. The only truly questionable moment when you begin to doubt your commitment to liberal western values but [...]

I eased into position behind the battlements of the old castle. A mile away, the target strutted across a stage, wheeling and swaggering as only such a swine is capable of.
Damn you, I muttered, you’ll soon be no more than a memory. And after you, there’s Christy Moore and Glenn Campbell.
Slowly, carefully, [...]

I don’t want to talk about the Twelfth of July, except to wish Knudsen a happy birthday. I’ve already done my bit for loyalism.
Instead, tonight I want to celebrate the passing of our dear friend, Jock, who died this day three years ago. He was a Scottish Presbyterian, and dying on the [...]