Ben Zapherelli: Last Chance To See

Raphus cucullatus is no more. He has ceased to be. Bereft of life he rests in peace. In fact, one of his kind, better known to you and me as the dodo, isn’t resting. He’s nailed to his perch at South London’s Horniman Museum, a quaintly bizarre tourist attraction that serves as a superannuated version…
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Karen Krizanovich: Amateur Dram-atics

‘It’s whisky without an e,” he says. “Single malt. Never served with ice but with a drop of cool water, preferably from the Highlands.’ This is not some orthorexic neurotic alcoholic who has to have things just so. This is a normal person who happens to really like single malt whisky and who drinks enough…
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Robert Clayman: Stone Cold Crazy

The pain comes on very quickly. A twinge that grows into a searing stomach ache that then dulls and settles in, moving round to the side, a deep-seated knife, at once specifically located and yet nebulous and evasive. Within minutes, you’re either in a blind panic because you have no idea why this visitation should…
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Thomas Patterson: Build It And They Will Come

My grandfather was very good with his hands. He could build anything, from impressive dolls’ houses with tiny lifelike furniture, to full-sized rocking horses, sanded and varnished to a quality that would make professional woodworkers weep, and small children weep even more because they weren’t allowed anywhere near these beautiful toys, lest they got their…
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Douglas Blyde: Whine Wine Whine

Despite the insistence by my overpaid, non-journalist friends that they surely are ‘drinking holidays’, wine press trips can prove to be compact, intricate endurance tests. Yes, I can hear you all now as you go to your store rooms to locate the world’s smallest flight case, carefully extracting from it the world’s smallest violin to…
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Karen Krizanovich: I Lug You Long Time

Yesterday, I found a carrot in my Birkin bag. ‘It’s for the horse’, I said. Actually, it was a leftover from seeing Oscar Madison pull a submarine sandwich from his pocket in The Odd Couple. For weeks afterwards, I’d gone around carrying food on my person, thinking it cool and amusing. I was young and…
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