SHORT SHORTS
The
World Within the WorldThe past has no future save the present.
A Social Embarrassment
For some years now I have been incapable of laughing out loud.
Smalltown Gossip
I take an interest in the folly of others to distract myself from my own.
Yorker
Clarkson sits slumped at the bar like a man who has lost his dog. But he hasn’t got one. People are his dog.
Pub Culture
You think you’re drinking in the atmosphere when it’s drinking you in.
Dr J’Espère
The hand that shook mine will one day close my eyes.
M. Gobelet
I used to be a waterboy. Now I’ve grown up. Instead, I’m the plastic cup in a coffee machine.
Scarecrone
Agatha, Bruno’s latest discard, is holding up his bar. If you can’t have your man, you can spoil his pitch.
Bruno’s Discard 2
Her smile that dazzled all is now a death’s head.
One side in. Out the other. That’s Bruno’s bed.
The Thursday Baguette
Nobody is as proud as Mr Bartnett when he carries his baguette home under his arm for breakfast. All the world thinks the boulangerie is closed on Thursdays, but he knows M. Martian, the baker, works overtime, and they have made a special arrangement. Mr Barnett’s pleasure is mine.
Truffles
When you see flies cluster on a spot of ground in winter, you don’t need a pig or a dog to dig them out.
Floral Seduction
J’ose
une rose.
Shopping
Exercise for couch potatoes.
The Walk
Two designer-bald youngish men with identical swaggers, blue jeans and black aviator jackets, each with a black Scottie on a lead, smoking in tandem, the fag hand raised to the sky…
Vigil
One of the feral kittens broke its neck trying to get through a fence. The head was stuck in the wire netting and the body at an acute angle hung in midair. It was covered with flies. A neighbour with gardening gloves detached the head from the fence while I held a bag open to catch the remains. I could feel the residual warmth through the plastic as I took it to the bin. Later in the day I saw the mother sitting on the exact spot where the accident happened. She stayed there until nightfall.
Justice
On a tree in the Place de Maintenon in Perpignan is carved, ‘La justice est une putain qui tout le monde baise à son façon’. ‘Justice is a whore whom everybody has their way with in their fashion.’ The perfumed pimps of politics stand by, preening.
Madame Lafosse
When Madame Anna-Maria Lafosse shot dead her husband and two grown up sons, then turned the gun on herself, the note she left behind had three words and no name. ‘Une vie miserable.’
Accident Prevention
If I’d been wearing my glasses, I wouldn’t have walked on them.
Blotto
Remy Blot was stopped for speeding by the gendarmes, drunk, smoking pot, without a driving licence or insurance, and talking on his mobile phone. The only thing he didn’t have was a body in the boot. Though he was on the right side of the road.
An Englishman’s Invitation
‘Don’t come tonight. We’re having friends.’
Slippery Fingers
When a politician says, ‘It’s time to turn the page’, it’s because he sees the writing is on the wall.
Le Salon International de l’Agriculture
French Presidential candidates no longer kiss babies. Patting cows is more politically correct.
G21
The world is ruled by men with necks and not a lot above them. And they all wear the same black body-fitting overcoat with a high-collar.
Exercising Power
Fat men take off their suits and put on trainers and jumpsuits to jog with bodyguards and cameramen.
Photo-opportunity
When ordinary people find themselves in the presence of top politicians, their fatuous smiles reflect the situation.
Popular Hero
I can’t say I admire him as much as he admires himself.
Financial Crisis
Economists are the new super-chefs. They cook the global books.
Hold up
Once banks were robbed. Now banks rob us.
Banker
He was said to be good with money, but money wasn’t always good with him.
Evil virtue
He’s too bad to be false.
Patriot
What is my nation?
Stagnation.
Malign Fate
You never break
the cup you hate.
Usage Normal
I can’t pirouette on my big toe anymore. So I’m on the back foot.
Têtu
Anyone with an idea is a potential dictator. Anyone with a fixed idea is.
The Verities
Telling the truth ‘in confidence’ is the worst way of avoiding a lie.
A lie told carelessly reveals the truth in the worst possible light.
The truth told carelessly reveals a lie in the best possible light.
The only way to lie without risk is to change the subject.
Watch it, when someone says to you, ‘The truth be told’.
Negative Knowledge
La France est un pays de philosophes. Quand je pose un question, tout le monde dit, je ne sais pas.
Christian Duty
Forgiveness is the lowest form of love.
Christian Let-off
If you are not an enemy I don’t have to love you.
Perfect Crime
If I killed someone I’d bury him in the nearest cemetery.