Lines of the Week

This is the  home of lines of the week. Let me know your favourite in the comments section. See them in context by clicking here



26/06/2016
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1 For a split second he lost himself in the contrails that criss-crossed the sky.
2 It was the kind of place that could drive the strongest to suicide and weaker souls to 
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murder.
3 With luck the building will be reduced to a pile a rubble with a few helicopter blades sticking out like birthday candles.
4 “I’m in.” Steve replied.
5 Would Sian still be so enamoured with her older man if the last kiss he gave her before she fell asleep was a gummy slobber?
6 A ‘remain’ sticker lay trampled and forlorn on the pavement at the mercy of jack boots.
7 There were no words. 


There are no words.

Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Maggie's Milkman, only £1.99 from Amazon and Smashwords. More details available here.


19/06/2016
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1 He may not have picked up a bat but he had picked up many bottles, whisky, brandy, rum, 
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or vodka.
2 the voice of Graham Coventry that had sent itself up on loop in his head like a catchy chorus of a shitty song.
3 As she walked away Graham noticed she had a star tattoo behind her ear. The stupid cow was like a walking baby mobile.
4 I like the way that people think that as soon as a road is closed, work must start.  
5 The look of indignation on his fifty-year old  face rivalled the stroppiest of stroppy teenagers.
6 And so there we were. Four boys killing time until we became men.
7 We were young, hopeless and largely invisible.
and one from an archive story. 
'Our voice may be a drop in the ocean, but enough drops will help to turn the tide.'

Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Extraordinary Rendition, only £1.99 from Amazon and Smashwords. More details available here.

12/06/2016
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1 sometimes mental well-being and happiness were not two sides of the same coin
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2 Dead as a dodo, but returned to its former glory by some forgotten taxidermist.
3 Crouching down naked in the middle of a pedestrianised area was not something Carrie really wanted to do.
4 Men, mostly men, started shouting. Not offering help, just offering unhelpful advice.
5But beggars can’t be choosers, although Toby didn’t like to think of himself as a beggar. He was a street performer, a trickster, a magician if you like.
6 To be honest Sara was at that stage in the relationship where she didn’t mind if he killed himself, the insurance was slightly more attractive than his middle-aged spread. She just hoped that he wouldn’t kill her too.
7 His tears seemed genuine to the sympathetic policemen.
8 Seagulls are nasty bastards. … They’ve got strong wings, dead eyes and beaks that would be classed as illegal lethal weapons in 143 different countries worldwide.
9 For now, I just wanted to wash the smell of the sea off my face.
Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Maggie's Milkman, only £1.99 from Amazon and Smashwords. More details available here.

05/06/2016
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1 Well, the penny that had just dropped in my head was certainly lethal.
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2 the most beautiful girl in the world was in amongst them in a state of undress, and the nerdiest man in the world was in a state of panic
3 And that wow had a capital double u
4 But there was nothing. I scratched my balls, and rubbed my hair. Where the hell was she going?
5 You begin to feel like Luke Skywalker in that scene in Star Wars when then garbage compactor is whirring; not only are the walls closing in on you, but the dianoga is trying to drag you down and suffocate you in the rubbish swirling in your brain.
t6 he woman with the pram was led away by two police officers while the woman without the pram was led away by two paramedics.
7 The stench of violence mixing in with the familiarity of home.
8 A smile that doesn't reassure, a smile that is not contagious. But she smiles anyway.
Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Extraordinary Rendition, only £1.99 from Amazon and Smashwords. More details available here.

29/05/2016
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1 What if I’ve got something funny to say on a Tuesday or need motivating on a Thursday?
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2 I sat in my usual seat and swung backwards like I used to do in school; old habits die hard.
3 I remember in the spring of 1985 all I wanted to do was play football; girls were made of slugs and snails and puppy dog tails. But, by the end of that summer, I couldn’t fight the feeling any more, the heat was on, I’d felt the power of love.
4 the dark cloud that had plonked itself down over Cardiff about an hour ago and didn’t look to be moving any time soon
5 He zigzagged through the dusty shop. He side-stepped a pillar, then knocked hats off a grandiose display and sent a frumpy, middle aged customer flying backwards.
6 The street was bathed in a bluish hue; that summer night light that never gets black-dark. Mia breathed out, a cloud of smoke circling above her.

7 The night below her was the only witness to the crime and it seemed to be wilfully looking away.
Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Maggie's Milkman, only £1.99 from Amazon and Smashwords. More details available here.

22/05/2016
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1 Why had he gone to the toilet, why hadn’t he just peed in the pool like everyone else did?
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2 Derek had a problem. Quite a big problem. In fact, a fucking huge problem. One of Derek’s bombs was missing.
3 His watch said quarter past five. His throat said, I’m thirsty and his wife was expecting to get down to Devon first thing in the morning.
4 She sipped at her tonic water and wished she’d put a gin in it. That could be rectified.
5 kissed both of her cheeks; no air kisses, these were wet, wild slaps of lip on cheek.
6 Steve’s horse seemed slightly higher than usual.
7 bottle blonde, bundle of bubbles that was Marsha Jones
8 He closed his eyes and floated off to a place somewhere near heaven.
Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Extraordinary Rendition, only £1.99 from Amazon and Smashwords. More details available here.

14/05/2016
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1 He was the typical idiot who thinks he’s at the vanguard, but is actually late to the party.
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2 Do you know who was in the top 10 Vinyl albums of 2015? Adele, Ed Sheeran, Amy Winehouse and Coldplay. BBC Radio 2.
3 Bless it, the value range snack had never looked appetising at the best of times.
4 in the end it couldn't defy the laws of physics and it succumbed to the inevitable, being ripped asunder by the squabbling birds
5 He’d wanted a bath, but he hadn’t imagined it quite like this.
6 It was the cold, dead eyes of the beautiful woman opposite.  
7 just because he was in his forties he wasn’t going to let the kids have all the fashion fun
8 She went on tiptoes and gave him a little peck on the cheeks. That was no polite handshake-type kiss.
9 Dark hair, dark skin, sultry eyes and high cheek bones; she was sex in overalls.
10 It was Candy Floss Foster. The Don of the docks, the kingpin of the pleasure park, the godfather of Barry and the father of Karen. This was a man who rumour had, it fed human liver to seagulls.  
Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Maggie's Milkman, only £1.99 from Amazon and Smashwords. More details available here.

08/05/2016
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1 It was a typical Cardiff, April day, the rain fell steadily from a bright blue sky.
2 He sucked in the smoke like he was drinking a McDonalds’ milkshake.
3 What Cliff Richard would call a walking, talking, living Droid.
4 He knew the answer. Of course he knew the answer. But could he say it? He hadn’t said that bitch’s name for over thirty years, could he say it now?
5 you’re like a one person soap opera

6 You're like a horny badger.
See them in context by clicking here

Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Extraordinary Rendition, only £1.99 from Amazon and Smashwords. More details available here.

01/05/2016
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1 the streets were deserted but it was red light day, you know that one day in the year when
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 every traffic light says stop just for you.
2 I was in the Toblerone wilderness
3 I was soon snoozing gently as the train raced through the Portuguese sunset.
4 her brain thought about the blade she’d play with in the dead of that night.
5 The tyrannical building dominated the skyline like a gothic castle casting a shadow over all of those who lived in the terraced houses below.
6 People froze, stopped to look at the laughing sky.
7 To the west there was still gothic darkness, but to the east the black was turning blue as the sun contemplated rising.
8 She may have been short, she may have been svelte but she loomed over him like a giant.
9 Her green-grey eyes and shock of ginger hair tried their hardest to provide colour on this industrial grey day.

10 She put her hand on my face and smiled deep into my eyes.
Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Maggie's Milkman, only £1.99 from Amazon and Smashwords. More details available here.

24/04/2016
Lines of last week is sponsored by Extraordinary Rendition, the second novel from Gareth Davies.
1 I only travel in the quiet coach so I can passive-aggressively tut at my fellow passengers.
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2 if it was a reflection then it was a reflection from the future.
3 He claimed he was a wide boy, a spiv, a con artist, a jack the lad, a drinker, a smoker a gambler, but he was the best granddad in the world and he always talked about his buried treasure in the fertile soil of his allotment.
4 Someone somewhere would only notice it was missing when it was needed, and when it was needed it would really be missed.

5 No longer spinning to a merry tune, they sit apart from each other, noting the others have seen better days.

Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Extraordinary Rendition, only £1.99 from Amazon and Smashwords. More details available here.



03/04/2016
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1 Karel's head felt like he had a thousand hangovers crammed in there at once.
2 Jesus by the time we finish with you even Amnesty International will be calling for you to 
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hang.
3 Behind them sweaty bodies too hot for passion lay lifeless on beds.
4 Flesh fried on the heated tables, offal sizzled on the manhole cover, the smell of death spreading to all four corners and beyond.
5 Twenty green hairy caterpillars, arching and stretching in unison like a synchronised swimming team.
6 dropping the mugs and waving her arms in the air like she really did care.

7 He was beginning to think that being alive wasn’t such an advantage after all.

Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Maggie's Milkman, only £1.99 from Amazon and Smashwords. More details available here.

10/04/2016
Lines of last week is sponsored by Extraordinary Rendition, the second novel from Gareth Davies.
1 in the UK a blood test is kept for a special occasion, like an autopsy.
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2 I even love turbulence which gives the whole flight a fairground thrill feel,
3 he rats and foxes that might have been attracted by the rubbish were put off by the cold.
4 He ran across the icy street and hurdled the small chain link fence, barely keeping his balance. He slip-slid his way across the Tarmac,
5 Fiona was naked from the waist up, Phil naked from the waist down, not the best position to be in when your mother’s best friend recognises the car and comes over.
6 Phil couldn’t see if Mrs Matthews’s breasts were also blushing but she certainly was embarrassed.
7 I think I show more dedication to my insomnia than I have to anything else in life, Women, Writing, Work, have all come and gone but my insomnia is a constant companion.
8 But you have to be careful with aliens not to project our own facial expressions on to them.
9 the same strange shape; short, slim but curved like an S.

10 He could smell her perfume, it reminded him of a long lost girlfriend. The flowery smell at odds with the stale cell.
Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Extraordinary Rendition, only £1.99 from Amazon and Smashwords. More details available here.

03/04/2016
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1 I wonder if I’m the only person in the world who gets homesick while snuggling down in his
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 own bed reading his own books and drinking from his favourite mug. Maybe!
2 Now, I very rarely get heckled when I’m urinating
3 I was going to have commit the Czech cardinal sin and open a window
4 You would think that passive aggression would be better than the British alternative of aggressive aggression,
5 Of course Segway clubbing was outlawed in 2014 after the Greenpeace protests, but it is still legal to kill Segways providing you have a license.
6 Not the smile of a pensioner thinking of his daughter, but the smile of a psychopath devising ways to make the person who took his daughter away, suffer.
7 He’d been defeated by the ineptitude of the Welsh railway system.
8 He stopped mid munch. His Big Mac hanging in the air, a symbol of western capitalism dirtying his hands.

9 me and the president of China stared at each over his burger.
Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Maggie's Milkman, only £1.99 from Amazon and Smashwords. More details available here.

27/03/2016
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1 as denial, laziness, ignorance and greed.
override the toils of our fathers
2 but the street, just like his hands, was empty
3 Her dress looked perfect… on me
4 if someone had told me when I was seven that I could have a tablet computer that did just about anything I wanted it to, I would have ditched that Raleigh Chopper or the football faster that you could say yabba dabba doo.

5 “I told you it was bullshit.” Billy moaned. “Call yourself a copper?

Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Extraordinary Rendition, only £1.99 from Amazon and Smashwords. More details available here.

20/03/2016
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1 Hertfordshire’s very own Goose Omerta.
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2 Roger’s professional smile was only just clinging to his face.
3 She looks like she’d just been voted off X-Factor.
4 I wouldn’t be so sure missy. Mums don’t let go that easily, even from beyond the grave.
5 I follow you in the shadows of my mind.
6 I whispering sweet nothings and let it carry on the wind.
7 Star Tiddly Winks doesn’t have the same ring to it.
8 The Rebels are blindly funding his improvements to the Death Star.
9 I expected it to be yapping excitedly at the end of its leash, but no it just sat passively, no emotion; coldly awaiting the return of the prodigal son.

10 Crunch, crack, click, clack.
Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Maggie's Milkman, only £1.99 from Amazon and Smashwords. More details available here.


13/03/2016
Lines of last week is sponsored by Extraordinary Rendition, the second novel from Gareth Davies.

Something a little different with my lines of the week this week. I've tried to mould them into a poem. Not sure it quite works but worth a try :-)
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A lines of the week poem

Fortifications of yore
are all somehow cathartic.
Pale, translucent, still.
echo the laughter then
silence it.
She stirs, lazily.
Back to life,
ancient bones crick-crack
empty and alone, abandoned.
Rain on daffodils.
the stardust

didn’t last for ever.

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06/03/2016
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1 “Mr Hazard,” she said in a whisper so loud it was nearly a shout.
2 “Gertie’s already dead. There’s nothing we can do.”
3 Some other lucky bastard had probably won her heart.
4 tonight they were waking the neighbours and their neighbours’ neighbours.
5 I doubt that people in New York, or Olomouc, or Dublin or Budapest even realised it’s Wales’s national day.
6 Don’t wait for other people to make it a success and then jump on the bandwagon. Get the bloody thing moving yourself.
7 Grand Central Terminal acted like a magnet to my insomnia; drawing me out of bed and down into its bowels
8 linguistic snapshots of the unfolding drama of the everyday.
9 “Huw Evans,” he said again, trying to make it taste right.

10 He went into the bathroom to wash them. What was this, two taps? One hot, one cold? How did that work?

Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Maggie's Milkman, only £1.99 from Amazon and Smashwords. More details available here.


28/02/2016
Lines of last week is sponsored by Extraordinary Rendition, the second novel from Gareth Davies.
1 He recognised that the laughter was less regular and the conversation less boisterous and
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 the room was about to spin. It was time to say his goodbyes and take his leave.
2 Her smile would light up the darkest of days and was certainly burning a hole in Ianto’s heart.
3 and only occasionally did the neighbours bleed through the wall.
4 He’d come to have a bath so he would have one even if it meant lying in it with his legs up the wall.
5 not a surface went unsullied.
6 Three sweaty bodies lay on the bed exhausted. Both girls were purring contentedly like kittens that had tired themselves out.
7 I secretly liked it when she used my full name.
8 At least give me the chance to turn you down.
9 Fatboy was carrying a cricket bat; that made a change, Aziz approved, he hated that baseball was becoming so ubiquitous.

10 no one had ever threatened him for cheese before.

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21/02/2016
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1 He didn’t look the type to spend much money and if he was honest, that was how Aziz 
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judged folk these days.
2 She sniffed back a waterfall of snot and blinked the tears from her eyes.
3 Obviously the tight Lycra was holding in some pent up frustrations.
4 I hated them with a passion I normally reserved for Tories.
5 wringing my hands like Lady Macbeth, Out, I needed to get out of this damned spot.

6 The place looked like it had been washed on too high a temperature, colours had run and people shrunk.
Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Maggie's Milkman, only £1.99 from Amazon and Smashwords. More details available here.


14/02/2016
Lines of last week is sponsored by Extraordinary Rendition, the second novel from Gareth Davies.
1 Tumble down rain; all day and all night rain like waterfalls from clouds like black sheep
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 ,and it looked like it would never stop.
2 After such a restless night Marged was pleased when natural light shone through her curtains and she could leave the nightmares behind.
3 I’m sitting here trying to think of a story and all I can hear is the clatter of rain against my window and the howling wind that sounds like an asthmatic giant is gasping for breath.
4 I try to imagine sunnier climes where the birds don’t cower from the gales, shopping bags and wheelie bins don’t fly past my window, and puddles are not Loch Ness deep.
5 I mean I’ve never actually heard it in the flesh before, but how many episodes of CSI have I watched?
6 I’d come in here to try to get the gunk off my hands. Now thanks to her this was the second sticky situation I’d found myself in in a few minutes.
7 Andy could spot potential from a mile off. No Barry girls was his number one rule.
8 His mouth was like a volcano shooting bloody lava across the girls who joined Andy in screaming the ride to a standstill.
9 “Oh my god the poor girl?” Johnny covered his forehead with the palm of his hand.

10 I mean you can’t take milk out of coffee can you.
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07/02/2016
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1 What if all these deaths are just the government’s way of averting our attention from their shitty policies. There’s all this bad news around, but it’s being papered over by the death of a rockstar or a TV personality.
2 “Bitch,” he shouted. “What’s the fucking point of the fucking royal family if they won’t procreate to keep the masses happy.
3 When I got home the bra was still there; hanging on the gate; greeting me like a beloved puppy.
4 Had she done a Jesus?
5 “On my walk here I passed about six people sleeping rough; people are dying every day of cancer, of peanut allergies , of motor neurons. But no, people would rather give money to a cat memorial.”
6 The sky might have hinted at summer months to come but the temperature still firmly said winter.

7 He was all over the place; like a bloody drunken seagull.
Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Maggie's Milkman, only £1.99 from Amazon and Smashwords. More details available here.

31/01/2016
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1 Her tears had been hot and salty, but now they were pure gin.
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2 “I’m Rod.”
“God,” Donwen misheard. “I think I prayed to you today.”
3 Reka preferred pitch black; it made her blind to the shadows.
4 She thought of home, of opening the front door and the one she loved coming bounding towards her, barking and wagging its little tail.
5 He used the bucket to prise the safe out of the wall like a mother might tenderly remove a splinter in her child’s thumb.
6 It was the not knowing that annoyed him; a lifetime of never knowing what could have been.
7 I killed a man today.
8 But I was not in Germany, or Malaysia or Singapore
I was getting wet in Cardiff; so as soon as it was safe to cross, I walked, regardless of the colour of the lights.
9 It was official, Mark was invisible.

10 no one noticed the slight grey shadow on the pavement.
Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Extraordinary Rendition, only £1.99 from Amazon and Smashwords. More details available here.

24/01/2016
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1 I imagined her stripping off her skirt and tights and looking around for her tracksuit 
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bottoms.
2 “Stabbed? I knew I shouldn’t have made shepherd’s pie.”
3 He knew he should feel guilty, but part of him, the 1970’s man that lurked somewhere beneath the metrosexual surface, rather enjoyed it.
4 The knife felt good in his hand and her back looked so inviting.
5 Steve assumed the pose and Johnny looked for an escape.
6 Our marriage was like that Shepherd’s pie he was making; it looks lovely one the outside, all that golden brown fluffy potato but what’s lurking beneath and what long-term damage does it do.
7 Big Frankie Shepherd sat up at the bar like he owned the place. Which to be fair, he did.

8 Once I’d regained contact with the floor, I scuttled into the safety of the kitchen and back to my pots and pans.
Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Maggie's Milkman, only £1.99 from Amazon and Smashwords. More details available here.

17/01/2016
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1 Instead he stared out into the darkness, wondering what the future held and hardly 
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recognising his own bearded face that stared back at him.
2 she had a French accent which added to her appeal and a roman nose which didn’t.
3 How many people were there in Cardiff? Three hundred and fifty thousand? Something like that. And how many had Carol had an extra marital fling with? One. So how come that one had just walked into the cafe that she was sitting in with her children, husband, and his parents?
4 The rain lashed against the window like the world was crying her tears.
5 She closed her eyes but she couldn’t find the off switch in her brain. 
6 He raised his hand ready to knock some sense into her. For one time in her life she wanted the bastard to hit her. Show the world what he did behind closed doors. But even now he let her down.
7 I'd half-heartedly gone out with Josie from my reading group; knowing that she was just a placebo.
8 I’d been embarrassed after the proposal and so avoided her for a week or so, which became a month
9 The river dashed through Cardiff like it was in a hurry to get out to the sea.  You couldn’t blame it. Cardiff was at its wintery worst.

10 It was a miserable, misty, manky day that froze your bones no matter what size coat you were wearing.
Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Extraordinary Rendition, only £1.99 from Amazon and Smashwords. More details available here.

10/01/2016
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1 What I hadn't figured on was the ferocity of the Welsh rain, which gave me the impression 
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God had finally grown sick of the earth and was looking for a new Noah.
2 memories of loves lost and chances missed washed over me like the rain had moments before. The exercise had stoked my melancholy, but despite being sopping wet, my creative juices were still dry. 
3 He’d thought of her as the last piece in his jigsaw, but now she was gone it was like the whole puzzle had been broken up. Now he had to put it back together knowing that even when it was complete there would always be one bit missing.
4 Ah Maria, I thought of her shoulder, her hair, the way the mirror didn't reflect her face. I smiled to myself at the thought of her going down...
5 What’s the point of being President if I can’t have these wankers arrested?
6 I’m waking people up from their margarine induced comas.
7 Moments before that she’d shuddered to an almighty orgasm that probably woke half the hotel and rendered the subsequent sneaking virtually pointless.
And one from the bonus story
That sounded ominous to Clifton, but it was the best offer he’d had all week.
and one from a rewrite
The rain seemed to have washed away her masculinity and painted her with a feminine tint.
and one from an archive story

I watched a small smile appear on her lips, and then vanish as quickly as it had appeared; as if a happy thought had flitted into her head like a butterfly and then danced away again.
Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Maggie's Milkman, only £1.99 from Amazon and Smashwords. More details available here.


03/01/2016
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1 and garish Christmas jumpers that played jingle bells if you were unlucky.
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2 He’d rather be at home with his book, YouTube and possibly YouPorn later, if he felt the need.
3 They stood nose to nose. They looked like a mirror image of each other, neither man blinked. 
4 How was I supposed to know that that was a seminal moment? It didn’t feel like a seminal moment; it felt like an eight-year-old spending his pocket money.
5 No one asks you what was the first sweet you ever bought or your first comic, do they?
6 “You better stop thinking things, young man.” Henshall-Jones hissed. "Thinking is dangerous in this business."

7 Fardy-Russell heard the wall clock ticking what were potentially the last seconds of his life.
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27/12/2015
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1 His bulky shoulders almost swallowed his head as he shrugged.
2 but old Golden Sandals says it and it's flavour of the month.
3 It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas…And it's only October 21st 
4 I’ve got a red nose, not leprosy.
5 and you can’t wrap presents with glue.
And a few Archive rewrite ones


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20/12/2015
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1 Trev had got himself into a bit of a pickle, well not just a bit of one, he was sinking into a 
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vat of Branston and it was dragging him down.
2 He wondered how many people looked at the plane tracker on their phone hoping the plane would disappear, hoping the pilot was suicidal or the plane had developed a fault. Hoping terrorists had a surface to air missile just outside Munich ready to shoot down passenger planes.
3 She was desperate to check the message she'd just got, but he barely put a comma into his sentences, barely used a full stop or a semi-colon. 
4 he was an expert on everything, but interesting on nothing.
5 his cheeks were red like Santa’s, but this guy was not bearing gifts
6 I heard the clip-clop of my knight in shining high-heels.
7 it might have been oral, but it wasn't particularly hygienic.
8 One loud male groan signalled that there had only been one winner. 

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13/12/2015
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1 instead of hunks and honeys there were middle-aged men with chips on their shoulders 
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and failed X-Factor auditionists. 
2 Luke edged away deciding cowardice was the greater part of valour.
3 Steve shook his head, “smile visibly,” he smiled visibly.  
4 The middle of nowhere - Cliff’s least favourite place.
5 this was going into bat against Queen and country.
6 The driver was attacking parts of the building randomly like a waitress scooping balls of ice cream into an elaborate sundae.
7 it was haloed in mist and dust, providing perfect cover for whoever the manic operator was. 

8 Those who were dining alone had their fingers glued to screens to show that they did have some friends somewhere in the world. Those who were eating with colleagues, had faces glued to devices and promised ‘I'll be with you in a minute’, when deep down they knew they'd make that minute last for as long as they could. Those who sat with their partners looked at the assembled ranks of facebookers, tweeters and emailers with envy.
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06/12/2015
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Lines of the week is sponsored by Best of Lines of the Week Year 1. To celebrate 1 whole year of Lines of the Week we've collected together the best line of each week from the last year, it's been described as 'the ultimate Gareth' and 'Gareth in a bottle'. Check it out.


1 Oh, and they were selling vintage cake too, vintage cake! it just looked like cake to me.
2 There’s got to be a better way to make money than selling a dead man’s clothes
3 When I was on my own, I could get it out anytime; so much so that I took it for granted
4 her fragile porcelain features and dainty mannerisms made me want to smash her to smithereens
5 I looked at the evil spirit, cursing both my friend and the convention that said I had to drink it. 
6 The settee resembled a volcanic eruption with Ozzie at the crater spewing a lava of possessions across the room.
7 She’d been sent a message by the Countdown gods, she had to do it. She did it.
8 Cardiff creaked under the strain of the storm; the banks of the Taff struggled to contain the affluent river while anything that wasn't nailed down, and many things that were, were chased down the roads by the cheeky wind.
9 Her umbrella was tattered and torn like Natalie Imbruglia's heart, and had been laid to rest in a litterbin, that doubled as an umbrella graveyard.

10 The trees danced in the wind waving their branches in the air like they just didn’t care.

Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Maggie's Milkman and Extraordinary Rendition, for more information on these 2 brilliant novels click here and here

29/11/2015
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1 he’d mastered Minecraft using YouTube instructional videos, and he’d watched a lot more
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 porn than he had Minecraft.
2 He threw his clothes on and ran out of the room, out of the house and into the blissful, fresh air. But he didn’t stop there; he ran down the pavement and across the road, he felt free, he felt a poem coming on.
3 An owl hooted somewhere in the distance and then in a beat another returned the call. 
4 It’s just a dog walker, Cliff told himself, it’s just a dog walker, but there was no dog to be seen.
5 She was like a zoo animal, trapped in an unnatural habitat, dreaming of a freedom she vaguely remembered, incensed at the madness of captivity but resigned to her fate.
6 dressed like a teacher or something, not like a cool teacher but like a teacher whose mum dresses him.
7 He sat up and looked around like a startled meerkat, his Tom and Jerry heart was pounding away.
8 I’ve lived in this flat for three weeks without murdering anyone and no one has ever rung the doorbell, I murder one person and ding-dong.

9 I went back into the kitchen and wondered what to do with the body, I couldn’t just wrap this spider in a tissue and flush it down the john, could I? 
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21/11/2015
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1 We’ll never know when she woke up; was it as soon as she hit the fresh air? Or 
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somewhere between the 7th floor and the ground? Or when her head hit the cold hard concrete, curing her insomnia for good?
2 I hated these retirement events. The chief exec telling lies about a man he barely knew and didn’t give a toss about and then the retiree thanking us all like he’d actually enjoyed the last 5 years and hadn’t been counting off the days like a lovelorn prisoner.
3 The sofa wasn’t really big enough for me, but if I curled myself up like a hedgehog and wrapped my duvet around me, it was actually quite cosy, or so I told myself.
4 We remained in that gunfighters’ stand-off as seconds ticked off the clock, Who would be first to blink, the quickest on the draw?
5 “Thanks mate, I’ll have that” A young man walked past my table and took the full pint off it like a seagull swooping for a chip. 
6 I didn’t want to push him into a corner that he could only fight his way out of.
7 The rain lashed the pavement like some crazed madam punishing her disobedient slave.
8 Plastic bags, soggy leaves and small children whipped up by the wind and then thrown back and forth like a senseless fairground ride.
9 I have absolutely no interest in them at all, slapstick comedy, glorified dancing and animal cruelty are quite low down on my list of interests where they are kept company by petrol, engines and institutionalised sexism.

10 He should be reminded he was talking to kids, not imbeciles. 
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14/11/2015
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1 A rat the size of a small dog was looking straight at me from no more than 3 feet away.  I 
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shivered in my doorway;
2 Vicky made her way through  autumn leaves swirling and dancing on the gusts and pulled her collar up to protect herself from the cold.
3 cupcakes, cheesecakes, fruitcakes, sponge cakes, choc chip cookies, almond cookies, sorbets, ice creams, chocolate mousse. It was a veritable foodgasm.
4 Miley's previous attempts at matching making had been in the bowels of hell rather than the heavenly kingdom.
5 Josie had a humpy dumpty look about her but a Julia Roberts attitude;
6 and when that happened the collected fans had simultaneous whogasms.
7 If the Doctor himself had been there, then I am sure he would have stood his ground.

8 Blod led the way of course, sure-footed like a mountain goat, while the rest of us were slip-sliding around like newly born calves
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7/11/2015
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1 the constant chatter of a thirsty crowd;
2 He left some money on the table and went through the door sucking in the cool night air 
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like a drowning man might gasp for breath.
3 Caroline was pleased she hadn’t worked with him when molestation was seen as part of the job.
4 not ready for a volcanic eruption on a Monday morning.
5 I wondered if glass has an overwhelming desire to scratch itself when the rain leaves a trail.
6 We’d been told a single movement would mean certain death, and we didn’t want to find out if they were bluffing.
7 Surrounded in a fug of smoke, her red hair and green eyes shone through like a landing strip in the fog.
8 the ice remained intact.
9 He dressed like a teacher and frowned like one too.

10 but I knew their game and I was good at it.
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31/10/2015
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1 The beach looked like a Lowry painting; with matchstick men, women and dogs placed 
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randomly on the canvas of sand.
2 It tried to hide in the background, embarrassed by its ramshackle state…
3 When an elderly neighbour dies in a cold, lonely flat, and the body lays undiscovered for weeks, we know we could have done more, but we were too busy watching Game of Thrones.
4 ‘Sorry,’ the customer replied through gritted teeth, he didn’t like talking with a knife-edge so close to his face; it wasn’t called a cut-throat razor for nothing.
5 Vic sounded a little too desperate, a little too Lady Macbeth.
6 One day his bag would come out first, but not today.
7 I couldn’t exactly jump off in landlocked Wenvoe, could I?
8 “Photo the Poland there’s a Manchester on my bust with a guy. Not 96 to Berry.”

9 “Can I touch it,” she didn’t wait for an answer. “So firm,” she said, drawing her hand away quickly, like a kid touching a burning candle.
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23/10/2015
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1 But the boy wasn't taking no for an answer, his dealer had the drugs ready and his body 
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was ready for the drugs.
2 There is something almost pleasant about shovelling dirt on to a dead body, reminding me of burying my father on Barry Island beach. But I guess Mr. Wilson wouldn’t be complaining about sand in his unmentionables.
3 ‘Mr Wilson, I haven’t seen you for a while,’ I said, trying not to believe in ghosts.
4 There was something in that clunk, something definitive. It wasn’t a slam or a bash just a calculated clunk.
5 7 minutes, she was good.
12 minutes, a new record.
3 hours, this was special.
6 Shame really, I’d rather hoped trading in Bert for a younger model would satisfy my needs, but Eric was dead and I wasn’t satisfied.
7 Old Edna’s only 65 and full of the joys of spring.
8 the scene in front of him was exactly what he expected, Alexi had a cigarette in his mouth with ash clinging to the tip. Scissors in the right hand, comb in the left, Alexi was clipping, talking and smoking, with Radio 1 playing in the background. Some things were reassuringly timeless.
9 he wanted to say something, but no words travelled from brain to mouth.
Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Maggie's Milkman, only £1.99 from Amazon and Smashwords. More details available here.

17/10/2015
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1 The gestures are unmistakably the international sign language for let me in or  I'll blow
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 your bloody brains out.
2 I said wondering if there can be such a thing as Stockholm syndrome at first sight.
3 If it had a face, no doubt would it have been frowning at her, or staring at her accusingly.
4 ‘Why haven’t you taken me home, reunited me with my friends,’ it would say if it had a mouth.
5 It was a mouth to die for, but Simon wasn’t ready to die yet.
6 The books, the knick-knacks, the memories that lived in this flat would all have to stay here.
7 I done you a favour, you’re fat enough already.
8 I shagged Chardonnay too.
9 He wasn’t a cat burglar for nothing; he knew when to stalk and when to strike.

10 The bloody idiot carried all his worldly goods around with him like some sort of hipster snail. 
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10/10/2015
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1 But I am no Levite, I could not a let a poor defenceless debit card fall into the hands of 
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thieves and bandits.
2 mirroring the words and actions of a million friends and relatives interviewed on TV after a tragic loss.
3 I could see his brain working, processing, computing, not wanting to believe but having to.
4 But just as I was popping the last salty fry into my mouth a shadow fell over my dinner tray.
5 After all if a bank could reunite a random man with his random scarf  surely they were well-equipped to return a payment card to its rightful owner.
6 The bottle blonde woman looked at me with a mild look of indifference, it was nice to know she was on my side because I’d hate for her to be against me. ‘I found this.’
7 There was no home, there was no shower and he could forget all about the idea of a warm cup of tea.
8 Questions teetered on everyone’s lips but no one spoke.
9 They’d go past her old house any minute now on the way to the cottage -  where the unGranny like Lev would be waiting.

10 ‘Take him,’ Marie said. She didn’t like long, tearful goodbyes.
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03/10/2015
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1 He bounced once, twice, three times before sinking in to the cloud like mattress…It was 
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like having his very own bouncy castle.
2 He held his head trying to keep his brain from exploding, he could not remember being so excited in his life.
3 the sand was a golden brown, a finer temptress, calling people down to run, walk or play on the beach
4 I am a writer not a murderer,
5 the combination of just the right amount of wine and the knowledge that they were going to explore each other’s bodies gave them a childish spring in their step and a giggle in their hearts.
6 the shouts of the drunks and the wails of the sirens serenaded them, while the streetlights’ orange hue romantically illuminated their shared bag of chips.
7 All those times I’d longed for Lady Penelope to take off her bra and now I wished she’d put it back on again,
8 ‘Oh I fixed her computer good.’ He said with a wink.
9 It’s snatched from my mind; fragments remain, random jigsaw pieces, enough to know there is a picture but not to see clearly what the picture is.
10 How can I be homesick when this is the only home I’ve ever known?

11 I settle down to dream my dreams of a  home I’ve never seen.
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26/09/2015
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Lines of last week is sponsored by Maggie's Milkman, the first novel from Gareth Davies. 
1 She was like an Italian, maiden aunt chaperon who was not going to let this young pretender get his hands on her fair maiden.
2 the plane swerved violently like the pilot was trying to avoid a sacred cow in the middle of the flight path.
3 The man had lust in his eyes, and lust in his hand
4 They looked around frantically, panic in their eyes, and then ran, scattered, getting out of the cave like the cowards they were.
5 she’d cried enough tears to extinguish a dragon’s breath,
6 ‘Whore,’ they all shouted in unison, ‘kill her.’
7 with a deep freeze look on his face,
8 In his mind’s eye he was a rebellious teen, an angry young man, a rebel without a cause, but in reality he was a scruffy, polite kid, with a long fringe and two coats.
9 instead of being full of verve, he was full of nerves and swerves,
10 ‘I’d make love to you like I was blind,’ Merv said.

11 He watched her perfectly formed legs walk away, the clip clop of her high heels like the nails being hammered into a coffin of their love.
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19/09/2015
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1 I’d been happily sitting in my flat feeling sorry for myself.
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2 I’d tried to grin and bear it and when that hadn’t worked I’d tried to gin and bear it and then I'd snapped.
3 My flat was the only one on the top floor, perched in the roof like a shivering pigeon.
meaning the layers of dust built up along with the layers of post.
4 but just as my mind got lost in sleep’s labyrinth
5 a face that he’d take time to place if they ever saw each other walk down the aisle in Tesco. 
6 The women in the office sat in anticipation like the finalists of the X Factor waiting to be declared the winner.
7 it was a bit unsettling to know there are complete strangers in your cellar while you are trying to watch the Great British Bake Off.
8 My street looked like a 9 year old’s smile; a huge gap had appeared between the houses exactly where my old flat had been.
9 Despite it being early morning, body odour still jostled with coffee to be the main air polluter,

10 all had a marshmallow quality to them

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12/09/2015
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1 maybe it was just pompous paranoia
2 The wind rushed through the dark street like it was running for a train; hurrying along, no 
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time to stop to say hello.
3 I'd wondered if it was the same rain that fell on me when I'd kissed Polly goodbye, had it followed me here like a faithful dog?
4 Whether they didn't out of a sense of duty, glory or greed it didn't matter to us or them, the end was always the same.
5 Holly watched umbrellas with legs pass by the office, all oblivious to her troubles.
6 Like a 16 year old going in to a pharmacy to buy condoms, she’d gone into his office two, three, four times…before leaving with a metaphorical packet of chewing gum.
7 her beauty competed with her indignation for attention.
8 She was the sun and the rain, clear blue sky and heavy black clouds,
9 He dressed like a teacher and frowned like one too.
10 His voice was terse, tense, like hail rattling against a window.
11 Today class I want you to draw a hiccup,
12 today the clock was on coke, whizzing towards the bell.
13 It was the most melancholic shade of dark blue I could ever remember seeing.
And one from an Archive story

As ever darkness edged its way from the east but tonight darkness came from the west as well as the storm clouds drifted in, giving the impression of curtains being drawn for the night so the world could pop on its slippers and snuggle down in a cosy armchair.
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05/09/2015
1 Her little red dress clung to her body like it was scared of heights, her high heels were a 
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threat to low flying planes, and her cheekbones could be used to cut glass.
2 Look what I’ve got for you,’ Aiste looked down to see him holding himself like a flag bearer.
3 I slowly got dressed like one might for a funeral, my own funeral.
4 But now the shackles were back on, it was penance for our summer crimes and the punishment was 2 more years’ hard labour.
5 The river looked treacle black and the buildings that towered over it were shadows of their former selves.
6 It was like seeing a fish in the water from the harbour walls, one becomes clear, then two, three, four before suddenly the whole shoal is visible.
7 A whole evening of beer had nearly passed and not one hare-brained rant.
8 I arrived at 10 exactly with a bottle of wine under my arm and a drip of rain at the end of my nose.
9 I wasn’t complaining, it was a lovely evening but I had been looking forward to a bit of Orange is the New Black and a cup of tea.
10 and headed over to Sally’s with a ‘I’m just about to get it’ spring in my step.

11 ‘What the fuck?’ Sally said standing up like she’d been electrocuted.
and one form an archive story - 
The key to his survival was staying alert, staying awake, not worrying about the past but keeping his mind in the present. 

29/08/2015
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1 I was brought up in the Scooby Doo school of thought; you just needed some pesky kids to
uncover the truth. It looked like I was taking the role of the pesky kids.
2 Once she had completed her task she turned and went back through the door, closing it carefully behind her as if not to wake herself up.
3 His ugly, contorted mouth was moving but all I could hear in my head was a cacophony of fear.
4 So why was my right armpit soaking wet and my tongue feeling like a old, smelly sock?
5 She could hear the laughter but they weren't cracking jokes.
6 She could feel a guilty verdict forming on her face.
7 When you find your best friend in bed with your girl it hurts, it’s a double betrayal that stabs at your heart and mind. No matter what a tough guy you are, you can’t help but feeling the shame and the pain, the humiliation and the degradation. You can’t help smarting and brooding and plotting revenge.
8 Sandy had curves that could send a cubist insane;
9 I was a bit older, a bit wider but probably no wiser.

10 I wondered if she thought of me like I did her, not often but now and again at those times when I just needed a little bit of encouragement to finish the job.
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22/08/2015
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1 she couldn’t make up her mind if she was angry with him for the noise or just jealous that 
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whoever his partner was, was getting such a good seeing to.
2 ‘I’ve got a package for you,’ he said. Her eyes flicked to his crotch and back to his face.
‘A parcel,’
3 A year ago there would have been no problem, a year ago Gregor’s fields would have been a right little United Nations, there would have been more foreigners than a Premier League football squad and more language spoken than the Tower of Babel.
4 Gregor had his Great British Apples rotting in his Great British fields while his Great British workforce were drinking their Great British beer in their Great British pubs so they could come to work tomorrow with their Great British hangovers.
5 How could she look so perfect when Rodney had sweat running down his face and his preciously ironed shirt looked like it had just been pulled out of a case that had spent half a year in lost and found?
6 he wondered what strange odours were emanating from his body for her nostrils’ delight.
7 And how exciting it was to witness that age old tradition of shouting at foreigners in the hope that raising your voice will aid comprehension.
8 It must be such a thrill for our overseas visitors to be treated to one last example of the customs that have made British great.
9 I tried to smile although the butterflies in my stomach were dancing a merry dance and making me feel decidedly sick.
10 In films the prisoner would bang on the door and rattle the handle before slumping on the table in despair, but this wasn’t a film so I resisted the urge.
and a bonus one from an archive story 
‘How are Romanians and Bulgarians even meant to know how to pour a good pint of British beer, this Staropramen needs looking after you know?’
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15/08/2015
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1 the weather had taken its toll on the tourist as he came into the café. He looked like he’d 
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just crossed the Sahara in search of water. He looked around the oasis of a café wondering if it was just a mirage,
2 but nothing outside the tram could hold my attention when the very meaning of beauty was standing just about a metre away from me.
3 the mosquitos trumpeted their presence, circling like vultures over his prone body waiting for the moment to start the feast.
4 they had guilty stamped across their demeanours.
5 Mitch’s eyes looked around the room and saw the intruder staring silently at him.
6 they told us we weren't prisoners, yet told us not to escape.
7 we'd left behind our lives, but who knew we'd left our humanity behind as well. 
8 Had the late night campanologist gone away?

9 it was tatty and grubby but I never would have forgiven myself if I'd left him there.
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08/08/2015
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1 I’d always imagined she had beautiful, sultry, seductive, come to bed eyes, the eyes of a 
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cat,
2 (her eyes) didn’t as much say come to bed as, leave me alone I have a headache.
3 he had been back and fore to the police station trying to deal with the lazy, fat, chain smoking sergeant who was about as useful as windscreen wipers on a submarine.
4 She had looked like an aging Sky newsreader; stylish yet conservative.
5 He had the arrogant strut of a man who had lived in the same street all of his life;
would the cantankerous old fool listen to her?
6 This oppressive, repressive regime had sucked the life out of life.
7 Sometimes storm clouds built on the horizon, violence broke out but soon order was restored, resistance is futile was the defiant message.
8 people would, like insects, crawl back home, exhausted by their exertions, searching for shelter from the tyranny of the sun.
9 ‘I think I am developing Facebook Tourette’s,’
10 ‘Nah that would be too easy,’ Steve said with a smile, ‘what would I have to complain about?’
11 And one from an Archive Story

12 They lent on each other precariously like two aces forming part of a house of cards.


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01/08/2015
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1 Well if it was such a vocation, why did he spend his time wishing he was on vacation.
2 She sucked in, caressing the cigarette with her lips in a way that sent a shiver down his spine.
3 It was a perfect name for her raspy voice.
4 He looked like he was a cheeseburger away from a heart attack.
5 'Kachna' he shouted at the top of his voice and when the man ignored him he yelled it again.
6 Hristov ran a brothel, he knew sleaze when he saw it.
7 She wanted to grab her head and squeeze the pain out of it.
8 how could something so delicious, so lovely, cause such pain? She waved it like a magic wand inspecting it from all angles looking for clues.
9 she thrust the lolly into her mouth as if momentarily forgetting the pain it was causing her, the chocolate was warmer, the sorbet was melting, the taste spread across her tongue
10 I didn’t like his eyes, they seemed to penetrate my brain.
11 Wilson had sent us on a wild goose chase but the geese had led us back to him.
And from the coffee blog
12 it was the Lord’s of facial hair cricket
13 But there is a shining coffee star amongst this middle class morass; Brew Bar.
Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Extraordinary Rendition, only £1.99 from Amazon and Smashwords. More details available here.

25/07/2015
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Lines of last week is sponsored by Maggie's Milkman, the first novel from Gareth Davies. 
Only £1.99 from
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1 She asked questions like a tortoise eats lettuce, slow, steady, methodical, her mouth seemingly munching the words thoroughly as she spoke.
2 you wouldn’t notice her in an empty room.
Petrichor filled our nostrils and a double rainbow stretched out across the sky.
4 replaced by tentative tints of green and blue, red and orange; the colours slightly out of focus, somehow blurred by the rain, softened by the drops of water still clinging to blades of grass and delicate petals
5 But this was a brave new world, she was a brave new girl and I was a brave new 14-year-old boy.
6 we lunged for each other and let our tongues do battle like Errol Flynn in his prime. It didn’t feel wrong anymore.
7 Sometimes they would catch on gusts of wind making them dance and defy gravity before continuing on their serene path to earth.
8 She was still glued to the spectacle like her classmates would no doubt be glued to Game of Thrones; enthralled by the drama, gripped by the tension but slightly uneasy about what might happen next.
9 Surely they could better satisfy his ego, if not his desires?
10 He welcomed me with a smile as fake as his Rolex and a handshake as lame as the excuses he was about to give. 
11 Most people were scared of death threats; to him it was a badge of honour. 
12 James collected women like 10-year-old boys collect Panini World Cup stickers.
And as a special request one line from an archive story

13 I was worried that the amount of wine I'd drunk would make me a bit clumsy or render me useless, but my fingers seemed to be doing the trick and the evidence suggested I’d be ready for action when called upon.
Did you enjoy these lines of the week? If you did, then please consider buying Maggie's Milkman, only £1.99 from Amazon and Smashwords. More details available here.

18/07/2015
1 Maybe I will be here for the rest of my life, begging food and drinks from the mountain goats, growing a massive beard and being known as the scared man of the tower.
2 maybe she’d added two and two to make 179 for 3.
3 He walked through the beer garden with a small smile on his face and as he got closer, she noticed small splashes of urine on his pale shorts.
4 I could feel my blood coming to a gentle simmer, a rolling boil.
5 My eyes were rolling so much they must have looked like a fruit machine,
6 He looked at the 50 shades of green on the hills in front of him and smiled, maybe he was wrong, maybe all trees didn’t look the same.
7 It was like gremlins had emerged from the trees and changed the layout of the woods he was trekking through.
8 During their four and a half months in Zagreb people from all corners of Europe shared food, stories, beds and bodily fluids while the Brits remained in splendid isolation sticking to their traditions of getting pissed by midnight and going home together but alone.
9 Jake and Emma seemed to be moving closer and closer together like a large ocean liner edging into port.

10 The light burst into the room like a bull in a china shop, Maria’s head cried for it to stop but how can you stop daybreak?

11/07/2015
1 The terracotta skirt billowed gently in the wind, the fruit and veg man bellowed his offers to the passers by, a middle-aged man stumbled on the uneven paving stones and a policeman crumpled into a heap on the floor
2 the skirt drawing up the blood like blotting paper.
3 He always made a meal of getting in to his office to give the women (and some men) a little extra, a chance to squeeze the last drop of diet coke out of their imaginations.
4 treated him like he was a wasp; dangerous and annoying but ultimately pointless and ready to be squashed 
5 Kayleigh booked a holiday, Lucy had been there, seen it, got the t-shirt. Kayleigh thought that if she’d announced she’d had a shit that morning, Lucy would say she’d had two.
6 Two weeks later Kayleigh was smiling from ear to ear, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this happy on a Monday.
7 A wide swinging punch connected with Danny's nose, a crack echoed around the bar, like thunder in the eye of the storm.
8 His novels lay untouched by publishers in a heap on his desktop while his 140 character missives were becoming his Magnus Opus.
9 literary revenge and emotional cathartics costing nothing in 'bang up’ time. ( (c) MD)
And from the coffee blog

10 But having said that the wait for the coffee here seemed a trifle long, my hair had grown to my knees by the time it had arrived meaning I fitted in with the other clientele.

04/07/2015
1 Everyone spoke to themselves, the madness was in denying it.
2 He looked at the word again; it sat there like a child, looking all sweet and innocent but he knew it hid a terrible secret.
3 He smiled a half smile like he’d just broken wind in school assembly and was trying not to give himself away.
4 he pushed the popcorn machine along the prom with the enthusiasm of a teenager dragging himself to school on the morning of a maths test.

5 Their job was to make sure they out smiled, out flirted, out short skirted each other to ensure the passing tourists chose their restaurant and not the others’. 

27/06/2015
1 then cross the road to work and have his ‘relax’ on work time.
2 ‘I haven’t washed my hands.’
3 When Terri’s eyes sparkled the world lit up.  She smiled back at him, there was a cheeky glint in her eye and that often meant she was planning something special in the bedroom department for later on…he knew it was a message from Monica. When Monica’s eyes sparkled, they too would light up the world.
4 last night he’d woken up at exactly 3.01, 4.01 and 5.01, it was like he was playing darts.
5 lightning flashed in the sky above him, and Clarke was struck with the realisation that she’d said rail replacement bus service not season ticket replacement.
6 allow his feet to reflect his uncertainty.
7 the ginger man tipped the sugar container up, but nothing came out. There was brown sugar in the pourer but the granules clung to each other and refused to budge. Like workers on industrial action they stood steadfastly united, defiant in the face of the coffee-drinking oppressor.
and from the coffee blog.
8 maybe it is the high ceilings, that save it from feeling like Aunty Edna’s 2 up 2 down terraced house in Tonyrefail Cllck here for more
And don't forget to vote in my poll - see the side bar 

20/06/2015
1 I 'was a coffee virgin when I first went  to Šálek. And, like with any first time, I felt a bit awkward, a bit unsure. I lacked the moves, the style, the taste buds.' ©LLM
2 But despite the preponderance of apple products, and moustaches, I would not call this place strictly hipster. 
3 you feel like you are invading someone’s privacy, that you are nervously sitting in their parlour, like some teenagers at their great maiden aunt’s funeral.
4 switching between their text books and their Facebooks on their Macbooks.
5 Sometimes the beards are so dense you need a machete to hack through the thicket on your way to the toilet.
6 They almost give the impression that you are there for them rather than the other way around; that you are servicing their addiction, their need to grind, filter and press. 
7 But like a very camp man who hasn't yet come out, it tries to pretend it’s not hipster. It's still in the hipster closet, giving hints, but not quite ready to declare its hipstuality to the world.
8 but if you suffer from pogonophobia, tatouazophobia or malusdomesticphobia and you fancy a filter coffee, check it out.
9 it is more a sit down and feel slightly uncomfortable and kind of wish you’d ordered take away type of place.

10 Don't worry about the quality of coffee here we have the top of the range hipster barista.

13/06/2015
1 Like an arcade cascade game the pennies fell in a clatter.
2 Clive lay even more prostrate, smoke coming from his hair, but at least his ankle, hip and neck weren't hurting anymore. 
3 I suppose whatever love you feel you can never replicated the true bond between mother and child.
4 Her smile was the Ebola of smiles; highly contagious and highly dangerous.
5 Plenty of people did though, hauling their sorry, skinny arses around Europe, living on a shoestring, sleeping on overnight trains, showering only occasionally and getting so confused by the places they see they can’t remember if the Orloj was in Vienna or in Prague.
6 A man mountain came through the door, as tall as he was wide and as sweaty as he was smelly. His bushy beard was specked with last night’s dinner and his shoulders had a fine coating of dandruff.
7 Bleary eyed hotel guests emerge from the cover of their rooms to grab food before scuttling away into their lair again.
8 That thought stayed in my head, fermented and became a plan.
9 I’d have had difficulty explaining them without the pants in my mouth but with a blocked orifice, explanation was impossible.
10 No what was top of the hit parade, the new number one, the thing caused the most perturbation was the fact that the look in Billy’s eyes had just got a tad crazier and the bullet fired from Billy’s gun had whistled so close to my head that I had heard the whizz as it fizzed by my ear.

11 On my god she’d gone all reservoir dogs on me. I should have been scared but my first thought was, she’s got the words wrong.

06/06/2015
1 I could feel sweat dribble down my inside leg and yes that was as unpleasant as it sounds.
2 We looked at each other, our mouths as wide open as our eyes.
3 just on the decent side of flirtatious
4 The repetitive squawking of the dawn chorus was scratching lines across my brain.
5 Tears fall down your face and splash on to the table as the disappointment kicks in, the tears making the mediocre cookie even soggier,
30/05/2015
1. He believed in looking after the pennies and looking after the pounds too.
2. But I’d forgotten about the motorbikes, a scooter shot passed me, almost taking my toe off, while the cacophony of horns drowned my thoughts, which was good because my thoughts were all panics.
3. I loved you then in a way I've loved no other since, I worshipped you really, I put you on a pedestal when really I should have taken Billy Bragg’s advice and put you on the pill.
4. So imagine my surprise on the morning of our English A-Level when you told me you were pregnant. At first I genuinely thought it was a miracle; that an angel had visited you in the night, but the reality began to dawn on me.
5. That woman needs a volume switch, Morgan thought as he tried to enjoy his coffee.
6. This was like watching Doctor Who as an eight year old, Morgan wanted to climb behind the sofa.
7. why does everything of any importance have to be prefixed with those 6 pointless words.

8. it is spreading so now other people are saying it, now we have a whole office of people telling us they are telling the truth.

23/05/2015
1 Mind you, calling a Tinder user shallow is a bit like calling a politician a self-interested bigot.
2 Nobody fell in love, nobody, had their first kiss and no one won the lottery. It was a day of nothingness and no one would notice if it was gone. In fact if by some piece of magic you could erase the day, then no one would notice, no one would care, no one would write to the Times to ask to get Tuesday 19th May back.
3 And who needed to go out when Ant and Dec could entertain you in hologram form in your own living room.
4 listening to Mr Evans drone on and on about… well I didn’t know what he droned on about, I zoned out, while he droned on. 
5 I needed teaching not torture,
6 What gives bloody baristas the right to decide on my personally like some kind of teenager playing on Tinder?’

7 so I stood up for my right to think by sitting down.

16/05/2015
1 Some of the woman had gone native with the henna tattoos and headscarves while the men showed signs of too much sun and beer.
2 I seemed to be disappearing before my very eyes.
3 I imagine it is like a man dressing up in women’s clothes for the first time. You don’t go straight out into the street in your new attire. First of all, I imagine, you do it in the privacy of your bedroom, your house, maybe your back garden before you graduate to waddling down the street with your best supermodel gait.
4 I waited patiently. I wondered if they might ask me for my autograph; surely they hadn’t read Maggie’s Milkman.
5 Men with snakes around their necks were coaxing coins from holiday-makers in return for the dubious privilege of having the snake draped around their sunburnt shoulders for photo-opportunities.
6 but this man was so adamant that I should part company with a few coins that he was yelling stand and deliver and painting a white stripe on his nose.
7 The traffic was crazy, the only rules seemed to be that there were no rules and even then the drivers seemed to break them.
8 We’d obviously knocked Nabil Kiram off his bike because his aim was straight and true,
9 She made me want to paint her although I’d never painted anything more than a garden fence.

10 ‘Here’s looking at you kid.’ I said as she sat on the stool next to me. I was still looking at her reflection in the mirror rather than her soft, brown tempting skin.

09/05/2015
1 It was a way out, an escape, but at what price, her dignity? Her pride? But wasn’t that already in tatters? What did she have to lose?
2 in what other job do you do half your work and then leave, only coming back when your egos have been massaged enough?  Can you imagine a paramedic going to an accident, picking up an injured man, getting him half way to hospital and then stopping and waiting for just enough applause before driving the rest of the way? It just wouldn’t happen, so why does it happen at concerts. Just do your bloody jobs you lazy bastards.
3 Holmes wondered if the beard was a sarcasm shield.
4 This was the perfect crime. When you look and dress like everyone else, it is very easy to hide in broad daylight.
5 his handshake was warm but limp, like holding a recently dead cat

6 Ten customers, ten beards, ten MacBook airs, they were more uniform than him and he was the police.

02/05/2015
1 They were all flicks and kicks, jerks and skips, their moves were organised chaos, their bodies working together as if joined by the rhythm, as if they were born to dance together.
2 To fill the space I started talking to myself, but to be honest I was lousy company, I was drunk half the time and when I was sober I was just too damned depressing.
3 ‘And another thing,’ Marlene said, her husband Frank rubbed his brow and wondered how many other things there had been in their 40 years of marriage.
4 she really had discovered herself, discovered that she had a wicked side dying to get out.

5 all straight lines and points, that made me think that there must be some angles playing with my heart.

25/04/2015



1 The old beasts may have been old and retired but they still oozed power and strength.
2 He was expecting an explosion, a mini Krakatoa,
3 He wouldn’t mind if her actions spoke louder than her words but her actions were largely on mute.
4 The day was dying, much like his relationship with Kelly.
5 Roddy was watching the likelihood of him making his flight slip away like air from a punctured tyre; slow, inevitable but somehow giving him a little hope.
6 Roddy slalomed in and out like a rugby winger sidestepping his way to the try line
7 She seemed to have a radar for annoying little habits, she picked them up early and then couldn’t get them off her mind.
8 ‘Bunkum,’ his mother said, ‘there was nothing wrong with that girl that a good square meal wouldn’t solve.’
9 But I’d never had a girlfriend, I didn’t even know what going out with someone meant. Where was out? And what did 13 year olds do when they got there?

10. It was like my nan had licked her hanky and wiped the smile off my face.

18/04/2015
1. ‘Soon there will be no factories left, the places where real people, the workers, lived and worked are being airbrushed from our lives.
2. Imagine if those walls could talk, imagine the stories they could tell; stories of hard graft, of exploitation, of love and death, of hard times, industrial unrest and of a sense of community. But those walls are being silenced by the wrecking ball, gagged by the bull dozer.’
3. Glum faces stared into the middle distance where grey skies hung over the gloomy town.
4. Then the big, bruising bus came around the corner like an episode of Top Gear with added testosterone. Big, brash and bold, the battle bus barged its way down the narrow high street.
5. The pattern on the threadbare carpet looked like someone had thrown up a packet of spangles, multi-coloured squares everywhere.
6. A flock of birds weaved intricate patterns in the sky, going nowhere but doing it in style. Kelly was wondering what it would be like to be a bird, flying high in the sky, drifting on the breeze, looking down at the crazy human race weaving their intricate patterns down on earth. 

8. But the problem with the straight and narrow is that it is straight and narrow. She needed twists and turns, she needed the thrill of the switchback.

11/04/2015


1. ...being barked at by a ski instructor with the bedside manners of a grumpy nightshift doctor.
2. This truly was home, they say home is where the heart is, well I’d left mine here in pieces 25 years ago.
3. But curiosity is a dangerous thing - just ask cats.
4. I took a swig of Bols from my hipflask, dutch dutch courage.
5. the trees which were still as naked as a Conservative Member of Parliament in a brothel.
6. I called her Vienna, because I pretended she meant nothing to me, but that hadn’t stopped me from writing a song about her and warbling it at the top of my voice in strangled, desperate tones
7. she was, in the words of another song, my best friend’s girlfriend. Only unlike that song I didn’t even have the consolation that she used to be mine
8. ...clearly revealing her small braless breasts sitting there like little apples ready to be picked. I tried not to look at them but longed to be the one who tested their firmness.

9. I felt warm, I felt cosy, I felt a sharp excruciating pain in my whole body.

04/04/2015
1. He loved Gina dearly, but if he could change one thing about her, it would be her inability to buy a new dress without having a near nervous breakdown.
2. He smiled at the thought of her in her underwear in the changing rooms, holding up the two dresses, biting her bottom lip. Nah come to think of it, he wouldn’t change her for the world.
3. his eyes full of suspicion, his head full of hate, his heart full of love.
4. She’d been his fantasy, became his reality but now that reality was turning into a bad dream.
5. Could rose tinted spectacles kick in after less than 24 hours?
6. He could almost smell her scent on the message, almost touch her skin. But did he want to have a relationship with someone who was Dr Jekyll and Mrs Hyde?
7. I watched her flit around, smiling like there was happy music playing in her head.
their jeans were so skinny you had to presume they'd started getting dressed some hours before.
8. he got to hug the curves.
9. Their hands clasped across the table in an embrace that their bodies would no doubt replicate later that evening.
10. He sipped at his wine like it was a precious elixir that would bring back his youth, it wouldn’t.

11. cheap petrol station flowers fuelling the engine of love.

28/03/2015
1. On quiet summer nights I could hear the sounds of the fair drift on the light breeze in through my bedroom window.
2. Tom and I were like well-behaved kids in a toyshop, we wanted to try everything but we knew we could look but not touch.
3. Maria was poured into a pair of jeans that were full to over flowing.
4. She smelt of candyfloss and cheap body spray
5. and kneading the poor things like a hot crossed buns.
6. My neck looked like I’d had a lucky escape from the Boston strangler.
7. his wrinkles were etched with the exhaust fumes of life.
8. Only she knew that the smile was as fake as Radiohead's watering can.
9. Their conversation was like riding the dodgems; they skirted around, avoiding the issue but both desperate to crash into it head on, despite the warning not to.
10. ‘Woe betide you if you miss school’ the head had said, well woe was going to have to betide us.

11. ‘Do you know why they call me the big man?’ He asked, and turned around displaying the answer right there in front of our eyes.

21/03/2015
1. I remembered the backslaps and commiserations with the Irish contingent who were sporting in defeat, and then belting out songs in our croaked voices, lubricated with yet more Guinness.
2. So there I was, my six-foot frame squeezed into a seat that my two year old was finding uncomfortable…
3. Everyone was still again, someone was breathing heavily like a walrus with sinusitis.
4. My tender heart was beating like a machine gun in my chest. This wasn’t the road to heaven that I would have chosen.
5. I walked the streets aimlessly, filling time, killing time.
6. But as I grew closer I realised the figure was not thuggish but much more feminine, a gentler soul with a beautiful smile and a face I could stare at all day.
7. not willing to wake up to realities. In fact not willing to wake up at all.
8. From day one he was so far out of his depth it was like one of those dreams where the swimming pool turns into the ocean and you realise you are at the mercy of the currents.
9. Like a Bond villain welcoming 007 into his lair, he’d been expecting this day to arrive.
10. He was only just staying afloat now but with extra ballast he would surely be dragged under.



14/03/2015
1. I shivered; it wasn’t like someone had walked over my grave but that a herd of elephants had stampeded across it.
2. I was hypnotised by the scurrying movement of the cluster of arachnids.
3. what if everyone else did it?
4. if we all spit on the street, then we’d be walking in rivers of …’
5. She’d eaten almost an entire face; beef cheeks, ox tongue, pork ear and none of it had floated her boat.
6. these frogs legs were that stretched out on the plate waiting to be grilled they looked like miniature, muscular human legs, like swimmers diving into a pool.
7. Our small talk was tiny and in short supply.
8. She looked like she’d just stepped off the catwalk and straight into dog poo. What good are looks if there was no chemistry.
9. It wasn’t the first time he’d been told he had the communication skills of an East German border guard,  

10. A greying, balding, over-weight forty something in a room full of young women, it was soon evident they were talking about him. He had flashbacks to youth club discos.
7/03/2015 
1. I didn’t only die on stage, they cremated me.
2. This trip was meant to make me, not disassemble me and send me home piece by piece.
3. She puffed herself up like a horny pigeon trying to psyche me out.
4. her old lady shuffle was efficient and effective.
5. She had the body of a kitten but the roar of Susan Boyle.
6. Blue leapt away and hid under the desk looking for cables to comfort herself with.
7. She was the kind of woman who was so out of my league that my only hope that we might be drawn together in the cup competition.
8. We were calamine lotion for each other's chicken pox.
9. the ring catching the light, attracting wise men and shepherds.
10. I looked at the ring and wondered what size Debbie from Marketing’s fingers were.


28/02/2015
1. it took 4 minutes for him to reply, which was about 3 minutes longer than he took to get them into this mess.
2 my dad is going to rip your gonads off you and feed them to you in onion gravy.
3 ‘There’s no tooth fairy, there’s no Santa Claus and we’re not all in this together. Basically we’re screwed, and no gormless grin or wave of a magic wand will help us get out of it.’
4 Could I handle the thought that so many men had been intimate with her, even if they had been alone at the time?
5 it would open a can of worms that I’d only just managed to get back into the tin.
6 she’d been like the waxing moon, growing on me every time I saw her.
7 an exhausting night of lovemaking that had the neighbours banging on the walls and the people from the Karma Sutra wondering if they needed a new chapter.
8 We had sex like only strangers can, it was wild, passionate, carefree but something missing, as we both made love to our previous partners while making love to each other.

9 Every one was frazzled, at their wits end. It was as if it was a public audition for scowl factor.

21/02/2015
1. Why just because you happen to disagree with the hype, are you dismissed as being a cranky old grump? Why not call us independent thinkers or people with different viewpoints?
2. I was imagining the housewives at home wondering who this sexy new announcer was.
3. we both needed the comfort of nicotine.
4. He said hello and I could feel Ellie’s knees go weak.
5. But I didn’t care, after all it was my Pointless and I’ll cry if I want to. 
6. He was having a life while I was still playing housewife only without the husband.

7. stabbing me in my heart and trampling on my green shoots of recovery.

14/02/2015
1. The rain seeps through the skin and distils into pure melancholy that only the Welsh can truly understand.
2. She gave me a look that maybe wasn’t intended to kill but was certainly violent enough to cause grievous bodily harm. 
3. I had the feeling that one of her buttons might launch a nuclear attack.
4. I peered out of the window looking for my demons in the shadows. If they were there, then they were well hidden.
5. The new moon was tentatively poking through the clouds like a learner driver at a busy T-junction.
6. No one ever rang my door bell at godly hours let alone at this ungodly one
7. If looks could make love, then I was being undressed in the candlelight by this stranger.
8. I felt like pulling my brain out of my head one synapse at a time.
9. My fingers still smelled of the vinegar from my fish and chips lunch while the salt on my lips was from the wind blowing in off the sea.
10. But puppy love never lasts especially when one of the puppies grows up to be a bitch. 

11. She was 6 months pregnant. Well at least she won’t be telling me that’s mine, I smiled to myself.

07/02/2015
1. ‘Staff, I’m sorry.’ Sally said.
2. it’s that seed of doubt that the government water and nourish until it grows into a sunflower of fear and mistrust.
3. And let’s face it as long as, football, fantasy, soaps and sex fill our TV screens, then only the few care about freedom of expression.
4. I sniffed for the umpteenth time, knowing I needed to blow, but too cold to stop and put the bags down to free up my hands.
5. I decided to play the Levite and keep walking.
6. We were the lesser of many evils for each other.

7. Julie was bored. She wondered if anyone else who had signed the Official Secrets Act had such a boring job.

31/01/2015
1. while I’m picking up his slack, he’s having a nice three days sharing videos of cats being scared by iguanas, doing quizzes to find out what part of Henry the 8th body he was and posting memes telling me there are fairies at the bottom of my garden.’
2. She woke up with the word porn in her mind.
3. I wasn’t only looking for the correct answer, I was looking for the politically correct answer.
4. He was good, his ability to go back into character at a drop of a fez was impressive.
5 it was better to lose a friend than apologise for not phoning.

6 they got on like a house on fire but the only thing burning was the question that Jean was dying to ask.
Jean didn’t know what to think, she liked to think of herself as a woman of the world but deep down she was a bit of a prude....JP was a dick, he liked to be all man of the world but he was just a childish fantasist.

24/01/2015

1. ‘You think I’d be foolish enough to have sex without protection?’
2. You say a lie often enough and it becomes a truth, even if it’s clearly not true.
3. ‘Fer’ something stopped Mitch from ending the word with a scoffing Koff.
4. To be Frank (sorry this is the title but I thought it was rather clever:-))
5. ‘I sometimes wonder what the world’s coming to,’ Steve said taking a swig of his beer.
‘You always wonder what the world ‘s coming to.’ Johnny replied

6. Fat ones, thin ones, smelly ones, clean ones, the good, the bad and the ugly; they could have all looked like Brad Pitt and it would still have been terrible. Even if George Clooney had handed over his Euros she would still have worn her death mask - smiling face but death in her eyes.
7. but Maria never got any Euros in her pockets. In fact, come to think of it she hadn't even got any clothes with pockets.


17/01/2015
1. impossibly long legs that could give a man vertigo.
2. She’d gone through boys in sixth form like teenage boys go through tissues.
3. My mouth moved like a goldfish in a tank but nothing came out.
4. Hannah was not my usual cup of tea, she was not even my occasional cup of coffee,
5. Hannah looked at me like I'd accused her of voting for UKIP, a look of utter contempt on her face.
6. but when I was in the love doldrums, the Blues sailed majestically to success.
7. two pongs making a right.
8. Colour ran from his cheeks like a cheap pair of jeans in a hot wash.
9. he'd been making more noise than a faulty espresso machine and the walls were so thin in this flat that Gemma must have heard.
10. I was feeling like a gooseberry at my own date. I’d been gazumped, shoehorned out; he’d muscled in uninvited and taken over.



10/01/2015
1. She looked at me with the look of someone who had just sniffed a beautiful flower and got a face full of spider’s web for her troubles.
2. her look didn't only kill, it began digging a shallow grave in Epping Forest.
3.  As soon as he’d said the words he tried to unsay them, tried to press delete, tried to add a lol or a smiley face.
4. I was being killed softly by his words; so bloody British so bloody polite they bordered on being rude. 
5. You didn’t need a magnifying glass to spot the cracks in their relationship, they were clearly visible like the colours of the rainbow across a crystal blue sky.
6. reports of the sexual gymnastics to her friends. Mr Perfect was getting 9s across the board.

03/01/2015
1. looking at the woman who had the keys to my heart hoping that she was going to use them
2. she was crying a silent river from her glacial blues eyes
but it didn't stop the tears from creating tracks Smokey Robinson could sing about.
3. I knew we were living on borrow time and the repayments were crippling us. 
4. It wasn’t my heart that was broken, but my ego.
5. the 24th was their big Christmas Day meal and so all the trimmings were being trimmed


6. it wasn’t the perfect Christmas but somehow it felt like a right Christmas.


27/12/2014 

1. Everyone remembers the legendary Llangollen stomach bug in 2011 and ever since then any homemade crap goes straight in the bin.
2. You’d think the shops would be closed for two weeks solid the way they were packing their trollies with food that would soon be packing their garbage cans.
3. (They) barely looked strong enough to raise their radios to their mouths let alone apprehend a shoplifter
4. ...wondering how Steve could find more than one level to wrapping paper, but experience told him not to doubt the master.
5. giving me the noisiest silent treatment I’ve ever had.

6. the clouds in this couchette were made of vodka and the thunder was my roommate’s snoring.


19/12/2014
1. Even the sight of the little baby next to her failed to melt her face and her face looked like it was made out of meltable material.
2. I had found the root cause of New York’s insomnia. It was no wonder the city never slept when sirens blared from emergency vehicles all hours of the day and night.
3. Most of all Grumpy Café with coffee that took the edge of the chill and thawed my bones just enough.
4. To cut a long story short, our mutual attraction soon became more attractive than the march.
5. they were probably not used to seeing me in my post sex state; let’s face it, it didn’t happen often.
6. This new phone had more bugs than the CIA.
7. The porter led the way up to the penthouse suite. Or should I say, the penthouse, SWEET.
8. The knock on the door was not a polite 5 star guest rat-a-tat-tat but an angry you don’t belong here hammer.


12/12/2014
1. David looked at the Bette Davis eyes opposite him. Bette Davis eyes, Betty Boop brain.
2. We both flirted terribly with her, so terribly, it never worked.
3. his mother …was idly playing with the cross on her necklace and smiling like Jesus himself had just walked into the room.
4. What would you rather, dead Christmas or a dead child?’
5. We used to bring up children to win wars and conquer the world but now we seem to be preparing them to get sympathy votes on the X Factor. It’s a bloody disgrace.
6. ‘What’s this, a low speed chase?’
7. ‘a Facebook meme does not override the laws of the land.’


5/12/2014
'I was no further forward than I was this time yesterday and let’s face it, I wasn’t very far forward back then'
'but as a rainbow spread across the sky in front of me a happy smile spread across my face'
'Maybe when they’d got a bit more worldly –wise they’d realise that the definition of being a man was not harassing women with shows of strength and cheap lines.'
'‘Home’ was a strange town, full of strange faces, full of ghosts of a past life he barely remembered or recognised.'
'If the devil was so wicked and celebrated evil, why was he so cruel to those who did his work on earth?'
'He had a far away look in his eyes, he dreamt of being somewhere else, with someone else'

92 comments:

  1. My mouth moved like a goldfish in a tank but nothing came out.- that's the leitmotif of this week definitely

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  2. . I was in half a mind to cut my losses and leave the two lovebirds to it. Maybe I could still catch the second half of the match.
    This piece is not on your list of the favourite lines of the week but it somehow made me laugh when I read it. I don't really know why:-)

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  3. It had started out as a bit of fun but she’d been like the waxing moon, growing on me every time I saw her.
    this is my nomination. it's a beautiful comparison but deeply sad as well as it suggest the unavoidable end of love (or whatever we call this kind of obsession). The moon is bound to start waning one day until it disappears.

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  4. A sentene about waxing moon?

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  5. i liked this line: She looked like she’d just stepped off the catwalk and straight into dog poo.

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  6. and this one: The weirdest thing about these frogs legs were that stretched out on the plate waiting to be grilled they looked like miniature, muscular human legs, like swimmers diving into a pool.

    you should have attached the photo, I think I have seen it somewhere

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  7. I also liked the sentence about the rainbow in the heart. It turns out there is a song about it: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xRcqBATG7FQ

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  8. Kelly was wondering what it would be like to be a bird, flying high in the sky, drifting on the breeze, looking down at the crazy human race weaving their intricate patterns down on earth

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  9. I think I most liked these:
    He was handsome, funny, intelligent and he made love like an aeroplane.

    In front of them were 10, 15, 20, 30 rusting, orangey steam locomotives. The old beasts may have been old and retired but they still oozed power and strength.

    The day was dying, much like his relationship with Kelly.

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  10. They were all flicks and kicks, jerks and skips, their moves were organised chaos, their bodies working together as if joined by the rhythm, as if they were born to dance together.

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  11. To fill the space I started talking to myself, but to be honest I was lousy company, I was drunk half the time and when I was sober I was just too damned depressing.

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  12. but she really had discovered herself, discovered that she had a wicked side dying to get out.

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  13. What does it mean 'All straight lines and points'?

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    Replies
    1. It means that her face wasn't round with curves but was sharp, pointy, straight lines and angles hence the an angle playing with my heart :-)

      Delete
    2. Thanks for replying... This line looked good but i didn't quite understand it. Now i think i can imagine this face

      Delete
  14. That woman needs a volume switch :-)

    This one made me smile... and I think some people need an on/off switch :-)

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  15. and this one made me genuinely laugh:-)

    At first I genuinely thought it was a miracle; that an angel had visited you in the night, but the reality began to dawn on me.

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  16. I didn't use this one as it is over too many lines but I've used the other suggestions :-)

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  17. 🌷🌸🌹🌺🌻🏈🏈

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  18. Oh sorry :-) i put some little icons here but seems blogger doesn't like them:-)

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  19. Her smile was the Ebola of smiles; highly contagious and highly dangerous. If you caught her smile you’d fall in love just a little bit, prolonged exposure to it and there was a risk you’d never recover.

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  20. This week started with pain ab endec with pain:
    Clive lay even more prostrate, smoke coming from his hair, but at least his ankle, hip and neck weren't hurting anymore.

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  21. Plenty of people did though, hauling their sorry, skinny arses around Europe, living on a shoestring, sleeping on overnight trains, showering only occasionally and getting so confused by the places they see they can’t remember if the Orloj was in Vienna or in Prague.

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  22. none of us want to be there, we hope no one will notice us and we try to get out unscathed as quickly as possible

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  23. On my god she’d gone all reservoir dogs on me. I should have been scared but my first thought was, she’s got the words wrong.

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  24. if that was to be my last breath it would be a nice way to go.

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  25. Maybe I will be here for the rest of my life, begging food and drinks from the mountain goats, growing a massive beard and being known as the scared man of the tower.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Better to get it out in the open than letting it build up and eat away at her.

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  27. My eyes were rolling so much they must have looked like a fruit machine

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  28. He looked at the 50 shades of green on the hills in front of him and smiled, maybe he was wrong, maybe all trees didn’t look the same.

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  29. While the other Europeans had cross-fertilized both metaphorically and physically, the Brits had kept their little clique. During their four and a half months in Zagreb people from all corners of Europe shared food, stories, beds and bodily fluids while the Brits remained in splendid isolation

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  30. Jake and Emma seemed to be moving closer and closer together like a large ocean liner edging into port.

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  31. She asked questions like a tortoise eats lettuce, slow, steady, methodical, her mouth seemingly munching the words thoroughly as she spoke.

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  32. we lunged for each other and let our tongues do battle like Errol Flynn in his prime. It didn’t feel wrong anymore.
    :-)

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  33. But this was a brave new world, she was a brave new girl and I was a brave new 14-year-old boy.
    :-)

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  34. Then she thrust the lolly into her mouth as if momentarily forgetting the pain it was causing her, the chocolate was warmer, the sorbet was melting, the taste spread across her tongue, it was the best thing she'd ever put in her mouth and her head was fine, no ache, no pain. 

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  35. .....realised I still didn’t know what Bette Davis looked like. I’d always imagined she had beautiful, sultry, seductive, come to bed eyes, the eyes of a cat....

    I couldn’t have been more disappointed if my lottery numbers had come up and I found out I’d forgotten to buy the ticket.

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  36. He had checked the two hospitals every day since his arrival, he had been back and fore to the police station trying to deal with the lazy, fat, chain smoking sergeant who was about as useful as windscreen wipers on a submarine.

    He didn’t know what he would say to his sister yet, but he would cross that bridge when he came to it

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  37. He had the arrogant strut of a man who had lived in the same street all of his life; this was his manor, his patch, his territory.

    What was the world coming to that a man’s hairy chest upset kids? Those damn kids needed to man up, grow a backbone, stop being such girls

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  38. Sometimes storm clouds built on the horizon, violence broke out but soon order was restored, resistance is futile was the defiant message.

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  39. When time was up the people would, like insects, crawl back home, exhausted by their exertions, searching for shelter from the tyranny of the sun.

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  40. ‘I think I am developing Facebook Tourette’s,’ :-)

    So am I :-)

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  41. ‘You could always defriend people, or leave Facebook you know?’ Johnny said.
    ‘Nah that would be too easy,’ Steve said with a smile, ‘what would I have to complain about?’

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  42. There is a mistake in the date in today's entry. Today is the eighth of August

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  43. A year ago there would have been no problem, a year ago Gregor’s fields would have been a right little United Nations, there would have been more foreigners than a Premier League football squad and more language spoken than the Tower of Babel.

    He got British builders in to build the new outhouse, (yes, they cost a lot, but it was worth it, you could trust a British builder, never mind that there was a leak in the roof, it was a great British leak.)

    While they were whinging the fruit was rotting Gregor had his Great British Apples rotting in his Great British fields while his Great British workforce were drinking their Great British beer in their Great British pubs so they could come to work tomorrow with their Great British hangovers. To make matters worse Gregor was paying over the Great British Minimum wage for the privilege.

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  44. He had half a mind to go home, but he’d come this far, he may as well go through with it, get it over and done with, mark it off as an experience and remember to only date people in autumn and winter in future.
    there was a slight breeze that allowed Rodney to breathe in okra woman’s perfect smell, he wondered what strange odours were emanating from his body for her nostrils’ delight.
    What would it be, the vague we should do it again sometime, or see you around, or let’s be friends? (the last one is an awful one to hear)

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  45. It must be such a thrill for our overseas visitors to be treated to one last example of the customs that have made British great or should I say grate.
    You should also be commended on the decision to have actors playing the roles of British travellers, you really couldn’t tell they were actors but their stoicism and stiff upper lip in the face of the pandemonium showed our guests just how well us Brits deal with a crisis.
    And how exciting it was to witness that age old tradition of shouting at foreigners in the hope that raising your voice will aid comprehension and how nice that this was embellished with a shrug of the shoulders and a muttering of it’s not my problem under the breath, a really nice touch.

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  46. I tried to smile although the butterflies in my stomach were dancing a merry dance and making me feel decidedly sick.
    The clock on the wall rattled as the minute hand sprang to mark another minute gone.
    In films the prisoner would bang on the door and rattle the handle before slumping on the table in despair, but this wasn’t a film so I resisted the urge.

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  47. She couldn’t make up her mind if she was angry with him for the noise or just jealous that whoever his partner was, was getting such a good seeing to.

    She did as she’d done last week and the week before and used the sounds to rock herself to happiness, it was good but it wasn’t the same.

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  48. I wondered if she thought of me like I did her, not often but now and again at those times when I just needed a little bit of encouragement to finish the job.

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  49. Sandy had curves that could send a cubist insane

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  50. We all gasped at the simple, sun kissed beauty of it.

    …her hair so blonde it was touched by sunshine and her breasts were the dictionary definition of perky.

    She was the sun and the rain, clear blue sky and heavy black clouds, a smile would surely bring sunshine but her scowl cast shadows and had us ducking for cover.

    Then she was gone, with a huff and a puff and a blow of her dainty cheeks, she stood up and left the tram - taking the weather with her.

    Then she was gone, with a huff and a puff and a blow of her dainty cheeks, she stood up and left the tram - taking the weather with her.

    The rain fell like javelins outside the window, summer was gone, and autumn was rapidly turning into winter.

    Holly watched umbrellas with legs pass by the office, all oblivious to her troubles.

    No, that was unfair, it was a wonderful town, one that was close to my heart; it had been good to me over the years but right now I felt I was living on borrowed time.

    It had been raining when I first got here, not heavy, but light drizzle that blurred the headlights and generally softened the focus. I'd wondered if it was the same rain that fell on me when I'd kissed Polly goodbye, had it followed me here like a faithful dog?

    The wind rushed through the dark street like it was running for a train; hurrying along, no time to stop to say hello.

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  51. He watched her perfectly formed legs walk away, the clip clop of her high heels like the nails being hammered into a coffin of their love.

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  52. The gestures are unmistakably the international sign language for let me in or I'll blow your bloody brains out.

    The bloody idiot carried all his worldly goods around with him like some sort of hipster snail.

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  53. It was a mouth to die for, but Simon wasn’t ready to die yet.

    When he moved in she’d taken a bowl of sugar down as way of introducing herself. He’d accepted it despite the fact he was sweet enough without added sugar.

    I shagged Chardonnay too:-)

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  54. There is something almost pleasant about shovelling dirt on to a dead body, reminding me of burying my father on Barry Island beach. But I guess Mr Wilson wouldn’t be complaining about sand in his unmentionables.

    7 minutes, she was good.
    12 minutes, a new record.
    3 hours, this was special.

    There was something in that clunk, something definitive.

    Old Edna’s only 65 and full of the joys of spring :-)

    he wanted to say something, but no words travelled from brain to mouth.

    Scissors in the right hand, comb in the left, Alexi was clipping, talking and smoking, with Radio 1 playing in the background. Some things were reassuringly timeless.

    The older man looked at the letter opener in his hand. Gosh, it was going to take some cleaning.

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  55. But now she was taking a very close interest in me and I wasn’t complaining.

    Can I touch it,” she didn’t wait for an answer. “So firm,” she said, drawing her hand away quickly, like a kid touching a burning candle. “The ladies must love you,” she added.

    “Photo the Poland there’s a Manchester on my bust with a guy. Not 96 to Berry.” :-)

    One day his bag would come out first, but not today.

    Vic sounded a little too desperate, a little too Lady Macbeth.

    ‘Sorry,’ the customer replied through gritted teeth, he didn’t like talking with a knife-edge so close to his face; it wasn’t called a cut-throat razor for nothing.

    But the beach provided stiff competition; potential gamblers preferring to soak up the last of the sun before the winter rains sent them scurrying for the shelter of the slot machines.

    The beach looked like a Lowry painting; with matchstick men, women and dogs placed randomly on the canvas of sand. Matchstick seagulls were set against the blue sky;

    The fairground wilted like a flower in the snow; colours faded, sounds muted, a shadow of its former self.

    The coffee machine hissed and frothed, making hot chocolates and lattes that would hit the spot of the cold and weary.
















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  56. Blod led the way of course, sure-footed like a mountain goat, while the rest of us were slip-sliding around like newly born calves.

    Plenty of Whovians had gathered around and were having their photos taken going in and coming out of the TARDIS, quoting lines from the show verbatim, and then collapsing in uncontrollable joy.

    I wasn't convinced, Miley's previous attempts at matching making had been in the bowels of hell rather than the heavenly kingdom.

    Josie had a humpy dumpty look about her but a Julia Roberts attitude

    Vicky made her way through autumn leaves swirling and dancing on the gusts and pulled her collar up to protect herself from the cold.

    She was in Celery Lane, years ago it was known as Pudding Lane but they’d changed it just after the ban, claiming you couldn’t remind people of the devil.

    In front of her was everything she imagined and more, cupcakes, cheesecakes, fruitcakes, sponge cakes, choc chip cookies, almond cookies, sorbets, ice creams, chocolate mousse. It was a veritable foodgasm.

    (that has been my favourite story this week although you have not replied to my question: were there any lollipops? )

    A stray firework brought brief pinks and golds to the grey skies above before fizzling out.

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  57. The first is that I have absolutely no interest in them at all, slapstick comedy, glorified dancing and animal cruelty are quite low down on my list of interests where they are kept company by petrol, engines and institutionalised sexism.

    I knew it was an act, but his affected manner and patronising voice were really rubbing me up the wrong way. He should be reminded he was talking to kids, not imbeciles.

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  58. The rain lashed the pavement like some crazed madam punishing her disobedient slave.

    Clouds loomed within touching distance, squeezing the space between heaven and earth.

    Plastic bags, soggy leaves and small children whipped up by the wind and then thrown back and forth like a senseless fairground ride.

    Said that I’d missed it, wished away each hour of hiraeth dreaming of Welsh rain. Funny how the mind plays tricks; conjuring scenes of romantic walks on misty cliffs, wet Welsh drizzle from Dylan’s mind. Not the scary, apocalyptic storms when it feels like the house will fly and you’ll wake in Oz, desperate to click your heels and get back to Canton.

    Oh, this whole text is very beautiful so it is very dufficult to choose one or two lines. All of them are combined into a perfect unity




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  59. I stepped off the bus into the deluge, it only a matter of metres before I got to the pub, but that was enough for me to present myself at the bar looking like I'd just been baptised.


    “I’ve been expecting you,” I said, the dangerous smile was now my own.

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  60. We remained in that gunfighters’ stand-off as seconds ticked off the clock, Who would be first to blink, the quickest on the draw?

    He seemed to be getting taller, looming over me, tilting towards me, like a human form of the tower in Pisa.

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  61. We’ll never know when she woke up; was it as soon as she hit the fresh air? Or somewhere between the 7th floor and the ground? Or when her head hit the cold hard concrete, curing her insomnia for good?

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  62. Lines of last week is sponsored by Extraordinary Rendition :-)

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  63. I’ve lived in this flat for three weeks without murdering anyone and no one has ever rung the doorbell, I murder one person and ding-dong.

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  64. Cardiff creaked under the strain of the storm; the banks of the Taff struggled to contain the affluent river while anything that wasn't nailed down, and many things that were, were chased down the roads by the cheeky wind.

    Her umbrella was tattered and torn like Natalie Imbruglia's heart, and had been laid to rest in a litterbin, that doubled as an umbrella graveyard.

    She imagined being pecked at by crows hungry after the storm or having squirrels hide their nuts in her.

    he settee resembled a volcanic eruption with Ozzie at the crater spewing a lava of possessions across the room. In one direction his size eleven boots were giving off obnoxious smells, in another direction an unread NME was covered in small shreds of tobacco, a dismantled cigarette, and a torn taxi company card, in a third direction a rucksack; a mini volcano in itself spewing clothes and books from its crater.

    At first she’d tried to tidy up after him but it was pointless, she was battling against a force bigger than her.

    “Fuck that affected her quick,”

    I didn’t like her, her fragile porcelain features and dainty mannerisms made me want to smash her to smithereens but over time she grew on me

    I released it from its trap, and I could revel in the freedom. Satisfaction and contentment were just moments away. I smiled, relief flooded through my body. At last, my phone was in my hand and I could check Facebook.

    I still needed to get it out, release the beast and that was easier said than done.

    Grubby clothes and jewellery that they would sell for a quid in a charity shop but because it is a vintage fair they charge 35 quid.

    if you go to a charity shop or jumble sale then the money goes to good causes, but if you spend 35 quid at a vintage fair then the money goes into the pocket of some ambulance chaser

    And it’s funny how they seem to be able to mirror the latest fashions, they must have warehouses full of the stuff, just waiting for when the sixties come back or the seventies

    (All Steve says makes me laugh)

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  65. there's a mistake in the date in today's post - today is already 6th december - time passes too quickly

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    Replies
    1. One loud male groan signalled that there had only been one winner.
      The sound of other people's lovemaking had made him horny; he had the evidence in his hands to prove it.
      I think you might have left your lady friend a little, um, well underwhelmed
      "It's none of your business, mate," old podgy said.
      "Well for 4 minutes you were making it the whole hotel's business,"

      Delete
    2. His eyes were puffy, the eyelashes drooping; his cheeks were red like Santa’s, but this guy was not bearing gifts.
      Again the words drifted away, not ignored but wilfully disregarded.
      As soon as he sat down, I heard the clip-clop of my knight in shining high-heels.



      Delete
    3. She was desperate to check the message she'd just got, but he barely put a comma into his sentences, barely used a full stop or a semi-colon.
      She sighed, he was an expert on everything, but interesting on nothing. Had she really shagged him on Saturday night?
      His stream of consciousness was spraying conversational bullets in all directions.
      He was hurt; something had penetrated his thick skin.

      Delete
    4. Trev had got himself into a bit of a pickle, well not just a bit of one, he was sinking into a vat of Branston and it was dragging him down.
      He wondered how many people looked at the plane tracker on their phone hoping the plane would disappear, hoping the pilot was suicidal or the plane had developed a fault. Hoping terrorists had a surface to air missile just outside Munich ready to shoot down passenger planes.
      He felt himself slipping deeper into the homemade gooey mess he found himself in.
      The sun was shining, the app showed the plane over Luxemburg, the estimated time of arrival ticked forward three minutes, the Underground was running a near perfect service, everything was going wrong.


      Delete
  66. Go down in history, my arse.
    Thanks for the offer, but no.
    I’ve got a red nose, not leprosy. Well fuck off, fuck off the lot of you.
    Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone,
    or when she’s here, cos we live in Cardiff.
    Christmas time, mistletoe and wine,
    got me into all sorts of trouble at the Christmas Party.
    I daren't show my face in the office in the New Year.
    It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...
    And it's only October 21st.
    Oh yeah he's lovely on the surface; he knows how to push all the right buttons, but when he wants to be, he's a right scheming bastard.
    Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. I’ve got it written on a tablet somewhere and that judge not, that ye be not judged, what does that even mean? It's bollocks, but everyone goes mad for it.
    All of us have been saying don’t judge people for years but old Golden Sandals says it and it's flavour of the month.
    His bulky shoulders almost swallowed his head as he shrugged.
    and you can’t wrap presents with glue:-)








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  67. ‘I’ve come to hang your mirror.’ Mark said.
    ‘That sounds like a line from a porn film.’
    She wished she could catch the words as they made their way to Mark’s ears and haul them back in.
    It’s not romantic; it’s nonsense, pointless, gibberish. If you think about it for half a millisecond, you expose it as hogwash.
    That’s disgusting! Image opening that on Christmas morning. If we get over the grossness of that, it must have been a bit embarrassing; like when you’ve bought someone a diamond necklace and they’ve bought you a Toblerone.
    Oh darling you’re giving me your heart.’ ‘Well actually, it’s not mine, it’s George’s. I thought you’d like it. “Lovely I’ll put it next to the kidney’s you gave me last year.’
    “This guy genuinely needs help. He gave away his heart to a woman who thinks he’s so insignificant she gives it away the very next day and then doesn’t even recognise him just 365 days later.
    For Forty-two years she'd waited for Mr Right, Forty two years of Mr ‘wrongs’, Mr ‘just over the pass mark' and Mr ‘good enough to get you into your third choice university', but never before had she had 'Mr 100% perfect', until now that is.
    Okay, maybe she was exaggerating a little but, he had looks, charm, humour, money, brains, class, empathy, cleanliness, his own teeth and in the bedroom, well he made love like a tortoise; the perfect ten.
    She felt like a beetle about to be trodden by a huge radioactive shoe.








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  68. I’d been vomiting words, but once those were out, I was left with nothing; I was dehydrated.
    Finally, I’d spent hours sitting in cafes, looking for a scene to describe, but in the post-Christmas lull, the characters were few and far between and the women who I usually wistfully described were noticeable by their absence.

    This is so poetic:
    I was cold, wet and depressed memories of loves lost and chances missed washed over me like the rain had moments before. The exercise had stoked my melancholy, but despite being sopping wet, my creative juices were still dry.

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  69. A ten-year relationship boiled down to an overnight bag.

    Jesus, he'd opened that draw 100 times and not noticed them, but now she was gone they jumped out at him.

    Knowing that lopsided smile would never be for him again, knowing he'd never get to kiss those cheeks, or touch those breasts, knowing he’d never taste her veggie curry, was making his heart crack like toffee. He’d thought of her as the last piece in his jigsaw, but now she was gone it was like the whole puzzle had been broken up. Now he had to put it back together knowing that even when it was complete there would always be one bit missing.

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  70. Moment, moment, it’s the alliterative nature I like. Moment.

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  71. And a couple of lines from the archive story as I orefer it to Thursday and Friday stories:
    The way she perched at the edge of the square, the way she mixed her colours, the way she moved her brushes told me this woman was good. She looked like she could paint birdsong.
    Surely the real beauty was in the creating, not the creation.
    I watched a small smile appear on her lips, and then vanish as quickly as it had appeared; as if a happy thought had flitted into her head like a butterfly and then danced away again.
    I must have left it on the bench; a small sacrifice to the god of painters.

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  72. The sky might have hinted at summer months to come but the temperature still firmly said winter.
    Maybe I should have hammed it up, croaked and groaned for her benefit. Maybe she’d have stuck around longer, we could have struck up a rapport.

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  73. “When are you going to shut the fuck up and get me a beer?”

    :-) sometimes, when big moth strikes again, Steve had better shut up:-)

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  74. I was getting tired of digging and getting worried Stan would think the dead body of a cat with no blood would be an anti-climax.

    Had she done a Jesus?

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  75. Had the wearer suddenly had a moment of feminist enlightenment and removed the bra forever, my gate symbolising the freedom she now felt?
    When I got home the bra was still there; hanging on the gate; greeting me like a beloved puppy.

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  76. I thought the government were actually killing off celebs so we won’t notice that the Bedroom Tax was ruled illegal.
    “Yes Ma’am, I understand perfectly but if Harry doesn’t get married we are faced with the real possibility that the Labour party could be voted back in… I know he’s not the marrying type Ma’am but ... Okay, well how about another Grandchild?
    Everyone knows that when the government is in trouble the royals have babies; it’s the way of the world.”

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  77. Tumble down rain; all day and all night rain like waterfalls from clouds like black sheep ,and it looked like it would never stop.

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  78. I’m sitting here trying to think of a story and all I can hear is the clatter of rain against my window and the howling wind that sounds like an asthmatic giant is gasping for breath.

    I try to imagine sunnier climes where the birds don’t cower from the gales, shopping bags and wheelie bins don’t fly past my window, and puddles are not Loch Ness deep.

    I know that right now a thousand Welsh writers are, like me, trying to describe how the wet Welsh weather pervades the soul and embodies the very spirit of the mysterious Hiraeth.

    But does the oxygen of publicity we give the storm give it the energy to grow and mutate into a morose, comic parody of itself.

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  79. Now thanks to her this was the second sticky situation I’d found myself in in a few minutes.

    He had been hoping to share bodily fluids with the girls later but he hadn’t counted on it being blood.

    “Anyway, she didn’t have to worry because I wasn’t that grumpy about milk, I was more annoyed with my reaction.” :-D

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  80. It is diffucult to choose only lines of the poems due to the fact they contain fewer words and the meaning is more condensed... I am not a specialist in poetry but i like reading it mainly because I sometimes come across something, some feeling described, which I feel too but did not know how to describe it with words. So maybe I will choose the lines which are important for me personally:

    The clatter of hail on the windows,
    the rattle of the wind,
    the roar of the thunder,
    are all somehow cathartic,
    knowing that you're awake too.

    Unseen
    I bring the chill
    do you hear me? Sense me?


    I echo the laughter then
    silence it.

    Pale, translucent, still.
    Familiar, but different. Gone.

    Mine’s a limp smile.
    happy / sad.
    Satisfied but unfulfilled;

    Something once full of sweetness,
    now empty and alone?

    Am I still there
    where I didn’t belong,
    but made myself part
    of her furniture?

    Am I still there
    where she crashed my heart,
    but German engineering
    saved the day? ( i do not quite understand this part about engineer but it sounds interesting:-))

    I had to believe
    she was walking towards me
    just taking the long way round.

    No is a simple word,
    often sugared with platitudes.
    A ‘no’ can be a bitter pill to swallow
    but silence is just bitter.

    Rain on daffodils.
    Umbrellas, puddles, raincoats,
    a rainbow overhead



















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  81. Why isn't there an access from the main page to the new lines of the week for people who don't open the blog from facebook or twitter but just go directly here?

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    1. Because that is tricky to set up and I am busy :-) but I will see what I can do.

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