I saw this here toilet in this here field as I was walking the North Downs Way near Harrietsham in Kent. As I paused with amusement at the complete lack of utility of a wild loo with no modesty screen or plumbing, four lads on quad bikes pulled up. ‘Say’, one said, ‘aren’t you the person who writes 10,000 Delights?’ I must say that it was exciting to be recognised so, and it is to them I owe this cautionary tale. Thanks be to Stevie, Ralph, Benson, and Peter. You may be surprised to know that this isn’t a lavatory in the conventional sense. It is located at the far north western corner of an autonomous district called Rodorburg, which is adjacent to Harrietsham. Rodorburg has long since emancipated itself from both local and national government who eye it with suspicion, but have thus far not sought to suppress it, namely
Charlie is a snake charmer and their job is to bring on summer. I know you’re probably looking at the photo and thinking ‘where’s Charlie?’. That’s because you’re used to the idea of it being humans who charm snakes, not snakes who do the charming. Well, let me tell you all those stories are WRONG with a capital W R O N G; a product of humanity’s egocentrism which puts itself at the centre of everything. In real life, snakes charm all manner of things. As I say, Charlie charms summer, and their cousin, Sylvastina, charms the myriad oaks of Puttenham Common to grow in those perfectly rounded shapes. I was really hoping to be able to interview Sylvastina for this story, but it turns out that she’s still sleeping. Charlie is always the first one up as its them who makes it warm enough for the other snakes to get
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
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
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