Blip

I do yes I do apologise for the plummet. I plan to re-emerge writing only in capital letters on an uninvented format. I'm getting married and we're moving to Aberystwyth. All my jars are tasty.

I picture it like a quarter-screen block of text on the left and some limited options on the right. The block of text would be different every time you loaded the page but there'd be no chronology, title, date, etc.

Thin Jacket

When pretending to read my work emails I mark a few as unread as if what with one thing and another I haven't had chance to catch up - people mate, yeah gone right off em, was experimentally enthused for ten years but lately it's been - the screen doesn't stare back and I move the cursor when I hear team player footsteps approach and recede. I maximise the ancient database thing and input one of the three reference numbers I've memorised. B2YG39X is my favourite.

Tactical Largesse Disfigurement

You'll see it from the train, they said. But not if you're not looking, or looking out the wrong side, or looking at the crossword trying to think of the port in Norway you know you don't know but maybe if you stare at the gaps they'll fill themselves in and you can declare a pre-nine a.m. triumph, to the crossword authorities, who do exist, but haven't so far been located.
It was found, it was a training hub, we were trained in it in the art of customer service peacekeeping. We had acronyms installed in us. We answered a survey and discovered our conflict profiles. We stood round a masking tape triangle with passive, assertive, and aggressive as its three points, and its interior halved horizontally into emotional and rational, with the rational half being the one next to the assertive tip and the emotional half, is everyone getting this, next to the passive-aggressive bottom line. Now stand in it to indicate how you are at work. Now stand in it to indicate how you are at home. So we each stood in it twice and were nodded at. The urges to roll around howling in the emotional half, to indicate at work, and to chew up the A4 rational sign, spit it out and kick it through the window, for at home, were entirely resisted.

The Main Event

The Rockin' Sausages came to town. They didn't give us sufficient warning. They headlined the fete. It was on The Other Grass Triangle down the road, for one night only and cheesecake was available. New York cheesecake, from the English couple. With cherry vanilla sauce on top. And an unexpected sponge base.
Does a proper cheesecake always have a biscuit base?
What makes it a New York cheesecake?
Was the rectangular shape of the portion a subtle echo of Manhattan's grid layout?
I didn't ask but I want to know. It was two Euros and worth it and eaten while making the rounds of the eight stalls, set in a semi-circle around the performance area, in which a boy stood with a black cloth bag on his head while a hairy man in medieval dress repeatedly threw an apple at him. This was apparently a magic trick. The boy was supposed to catch it. Sixty people watched and waited. He didn't catch it. The hairy man dismissed him and started doing tricks with sticks instead.
Opposite the semi-circle of stalls was a stage with a banner at the back. "Les Rockin Saucisses!" I think it declared, quite boldly, and maybe there was a picture of a sausage in the middle and the writing went round it like in the Arm & Hammer logo. The stage was empty and the time was nearly ten so we assumed we'd missed them and went to the beach down the road to see if the clouds would leave the sun alone for once. No. In the darkness we went back up the road. The bit between our campsite and The Two Grass Triangles is streetlightless and lined with large trees, possibly oak, so it's dark at night, unless someone is camping on the triangles. They are actually designated camping / picnic spots, for people who like to remain very close to roads. This time it was not dark, there was a thumping and a hubbub and a weak yellow light. We went to our tents and re-filled our drinking bags and went up and there they were, the sausages, rockin, slightly disappointingly not dressed in giant sausage outfits, four of them, a singer / bass drum player, a double bassist, an acoustic guitarist and a percussionist, doing that one from Pulp Fiction, I think it's called Misirlou, Dick Dale and The Somethings, at top speed, and the guitarist had his guitar behind his head and the percussionist was doing the lead guitar part through a kazoo and it abruptly ended halfway through. A bit of applause leaked out from the crowd and we did our best to whoop. They probably won't be back.