Raymond

Raymond sighed. He’s been here quite a long time, you know, so he’s earned a little sigh every now and then. He’s looking at the stick and wondering what you expect him to do with it? His magic-making days are long since over; it’s only him keeping the structure together – can’t you see that? If he bent down to pick up the offering, what do you think would happen next? A bang-squash-crack, that’s what. And then what would you people do then? No amount of iron fencing will make up for that mess. It didn’t use to be just Raymond, you know. There used to be a lot more of them and, in those days, it wasn’t just Raymond doing all the hard work at Kit’s Coty House. In those days, uprightness was shared amongst a lot of the stones. Old Maisie to the left, well she’s long since checked

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Astronauts

As I am sure you can tell, these wee guys are astronauts. They have come here from AlphaZedZedNine. It’s a long way to here from there, so they have stopped on this moss for a rest. Actually, Alfred on the left told me it’s a re-fuel and a rest, as they find the lush moss particularly nourishing and moistening. The AlphaZedZedNiners (let’s just call them Niners for short, although, to be clear, they are not related to the One-Niners), found the Golden Record sent up to the stars by the Voyager in 1977. It was 1983 by the time they found it, although of course to them it was ;Le3j^Wpp8*>, as they obviously don’t use Christian forms of dating.  Anyway, the Niners saw the Golden Record and noted that its shape very much resembled part of their own. As such, they were drawn into an immediate global discussion about its possible meaning

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Prince Doily I

He’s lost his feather, but I am sure you can tell that this is Prince Doily I. Just in case you were wondering, he’s originally from Rajasthan, but I found him on a stretch of the North Downs Way near Borstal in Kent. He’s only recently escaped from a locked drawer where he’s been kept prisoner for a century. Prince Doily I said we can call him Pridi for short, because it sounds a bit like ‘pretty’, which he most surely is. Pridi smiles when you say stuff like that to him, because he’s well into manners and enjoys a good fluff of his ego every now and then. Floral language is one of his specialities: he learnt the intricacies of it during a secondment to an illustrious Iranian court six hundred years ago. Pridi said he was glad to have met me and particularly commended me for my maxim: ‘manners

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The Society of Bud Kissers

The Society of Bud Kissers was founded in 1482 and thus has a long and distinguished history of welcoming spring. Its members operate individually and as part of a group, depending upon temperament and location. Their principal job is to welcome spring by, as the name suggests, kissing the emergent buds of leaves and flowers. The greater the amount of kisses a plant receives, the more gloriously it will flourish that year. Maisie is the head of the River Great Ouse chapter, and has been bud kissing for most of her life. She was first welcomed as a bud kisser by her grandmother as part of her third birthday ceremonies. Always on the lookout for new members, her grandmother’s keen eye observed Maisie turn down a kiss from Thomas and instead lay a fat one on a daisy. It was therefore foreseen, from an early age, that Maisie would one day

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The birth of agriculture in Britain

Colin was a JJytgHQp (pronounced Thrussup) and has been living in and around Leith Hill since Neolithic times. He and a band of 40 brothers and sisters arrived in Britain in 4036 BCE with not much more than the multicoloured shells on their backs. They were quite a sight to behold, or so I’ve been told, emerging from the sea at various points around the Welsh and Cornish coasts. Like merpeople, but with less cultural baggage. At first, the inhabitants of Britain didn’t pay them no mind, as the island was sparsely populated and sharing was not a problem. There were a few ladies, of course, who wondered if the JJytgHQp’s shells could be repurposed into shelter, wind chimes, or clothing, but no one was rude enough to try to take the shells off the JJytgHQp’s back. Except, of course, Rapskalbana. Rapskalbana was the most daring lady of Britain, although she

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