Out of the sun

Another one of my stories that integrates lines from one song. Can you guess the song? Answer at the bottom. Check out Let's Dance for a teaching idea based on this concept.

It’s times like these that I wished my tired feet were fire-proof. The underground was so hot, so airless that I was half expecting to spontaneously self-combust. I was on the underground but even for the people walking above it was too hot to do anything. It was the kind of day weather forecasters called glorious, gorgeous, beautiful from the sanctuary of their air-conditioned studios. There was nothing glorious about the smell of BO, nothing gorgeous about the constant drip drip of sweat and nothing beautiful about sound of the carousel of opening doors and moving trains. By rights I should have been indoors, out of the sun, stripped down to my boxer shorts, a cool lemonade by my side and the cricket on the TV. But despite being hot and sweaty and stuck on a crowded train there was the smallest of smiles on my face. In ten minutes time I thought to myself I’ll be free, in ten minutes, I’ll be in the shade, by the river, in ten minutes on a blanket with my baby is where I’ll be. 

Something Silly

This recording carries a 18 certificate.

The Pyramid Story

Felix didn’t want to be a star any more. His tired, drunken eyes longed for a night in a real bed, not a cot on a tour bus with 6 other drunk, smelly men. His insomnia, his paranoia, the alcohol all contributed to a dark, dark mood that sat in his brain like an ex-boyfriend at a wedding reception, uninvited, unwanted but no one quite knew how to get rid of.
He had no idea where they were; the tour bus had stopped in a service station so the driver could get some rest and Felix had got out leaving the other members of the band sleeping and snoring loudly.

 All he knew as he lay in early morning sun and stared into the bright blue sky was that this wasn’t the life he’d dreamt about; this wasn't the sex, drugs and rock and roll he'd been promised. Their manager kept telling them they were three quarters of the way to success, but if the first 6/8^ths had been a marathon the last quarter seemed like the an iron man race stretching out ahead of them; an iron man race fuelled with whiskey and tobacco. The car parked next to him had the radio playing, the DJ was rabbiting on about nothing in particular.  But then he said something that made Felix smile for the first time in days; not the fake smile that he plastered across his face for the fans or the local media interviews but a real genuine smile.

‘Went to see this band last night, boy do they know how to sparkle and the lead singer Felix Matthews is gorgeous.  - this is 'The Pyramid Story' and their new single 'Mask'’

Perhaps Felix did want to be a star after all. 

The Suitcase (audio version)

Part 1 Part 2 Ending 1 Part 2 ending 2 Part 2 ending 3

The Test Part 2

For part one of this story click here - that also has the cubes for this story.
Thank you to the person who suggested this different angle. 

‘So he took you to feed the ducks and then he dumped you?’ Claire’s voice was full of incredulity. Lisa nodded.

‘Who the fuck takes a girl to feed the ducks and then dumps them?  A lovely romantic gesture and then a killer blow; is he mad?’

Again Lisa just nodded letting her best friend blow off some steam.

‘Sorry mate but you are better off without him, he sounds like a right dick… and you have no idea why he did it?’

Lisa shook her head. ‘Nope, just all of a sudden after we’d started throwing bread at the birds, he adopted this Clint Eastwood look, became all remote and just spat it out.’

‘I bet he thought he was being all moody and cool.’

Lisa smiled, Claire was right that was exactly the look  he was trying to achieve.

Claire took a mouthful of beer. ‘So was anything different, did you do anything weird in bed? Anything odd about the night?’

‘Well not really, the only odd thing was that there was money on the floor of his apartment, not a lot, loose change, about £3.50. Just on the floor like it had fallen out of his jeans. I was going to pick it up but then I decided not to. I mean I didn’t want to look like I was tidying up after him, or nagging him like I was his mother or something.' Claire nodded  
'I wanted to be his lover not his mother. So I just made a joke about being rich enough to throw money around and left it there.’

‘That can’t have anything to do with it, I reckon he’s gone back to his ex.’

Lisa winced, no girl likes to be left for an ex, but she had to admit Claire was probably right. Not even a man who takes a girl to feed the ducks to dump her would be stupid enough to break up with someone over money on the floor.

The Suitcase

This story has three endings. Read part one and then make a decision. If you prefer stark choices, read version 1 or 3, if you prefer light and fluffy go straight to version 2 

If you fancy listening to the story you can too. Click here 

It was as he travelled home from prison that Dave had had the idea to steal suitcases from trains.

It was so obvious he wondered why he hadn’t done it before. People got on trains and left their worldly possessions at the end of the carriage, unprotected and unguarded in luggage racks; an open invitation to someone like him. All he had to do was pick one, get off the train and then leg it.

So two days later he did exactly that and now he was in his living room like a kid before Christmas, waiting to open the present before him.

Dave smashed the lock one last time with the hammer. He put extra effort in and this time it shattered into pieces; he was in. He hurriedly, excitedly unzipped the bag. Surely it would be full of clothes or valuables, something he could sell so he could buy the magic potion he’d been longing for.

At this point decide if you want version 1,  version 2 or version 3

Version 1

Once unzipped he couldn’t believe his eyes.

Dave was no expert but he was pretty sure he was looking at a bomb. He had no idea if it was primed but he felt pretty sick at the thought that he had been hammering 7 kinds of shit out of the lock just seconds before.

Now Dave had a problem, he had options but none of them were pleasant.

He knew he should phone the police tell them, but he was out on parole and that fact coupled with his record meant they’d chuck him back inside and throw away the key.

His other option was to dispose of the bomb. But that was easier said than done. What if it exploded?  It might kill someone; that would make him a murderer. Even if it didn’t explode someone might see him, then the police would come looking for him. Either way the police would never believe he’d stolen the bomb, they’d lock him up as a terrorist, a bomb maker, a killer. Whatever the decision he was facing a long time in prison.


Dave didn't want to go back to prison, on the outside he was a crook but on the inside he was a victim. On the outside his ratty features and slim frame made him the perfect parasite but in gaol it made him the bully's go to guy. Also could he cope without that amber nectar flowing through his veins? 

There was of course a third option available to Dave, one that would help him escape this spiral of crime his life had become. One that would spare him the trauma of going back inside. He weighed up the three alternatives, picked up the hammer and, in one deft movement, blew all his problems away.

Version 2 

Once unzipped he couldn’t believe his eyes.

The case was jam-packed full of sandwiches, home made sandwiches wrapped in cling film. There was white bread, brown bread and what looked like wholemeal. Some were cheese, some ham and some looked like cheese and ham, Dave even thought he saw some jam ones there. They’d all been cut diagonally and wrapped in twos. There must have been 200 little packets maybe more. Dave looked at them and scratched his head in disbelief. It looked like one of those drugs busts from the airport programmes on TV, but this was a suitcase full of snacks not smack. Questions swam through his mind. Had he really risked getting re-arrested for a case full of sarnies? Why on earth was someone carrying this many sandwiches in the first place and why in a suitcase? The big question though was could he make any money from them? He picked one up, cheese and ham, unwrapped it and took a bite. It was good, Warburton’s bread he reckoned and nice mature cheese, the ham was rich – off the bone stuff not processed muck and there was a little bit of pickle to add a kick.

As if kickstarted by the pickle Dave had an idea. He had nothing in his freezer, he could freeze them all and then live off them for the next month. That meant all his dole money could be used to buy gear. Dave smiled to himself as he took another bite of the sandwich. Who said crime doesn’t pay?


Version 3 - Note this starts the same way as version 1.

Once unzipped he couldn’t believe his eyes.

Dave was no expert but he was pretty sure he was looking at a bomb. He had no idea if it was primed but he felt pretty sick at the thought that he had been hammering 7 kinds of shit out of the lock just seconds before.

Now Dave had a problem, he had options but none of them were pleasant.

He knew he should phone the police tell them, but he was out on parole and that fact coupled with his record meant they’d chuck him back inside and throw away the key.

His other option was to dispose of the bomb. But that was easy said than done. What if it exploded?  It might kill someone; that would make him a murderer. Even if it didn’t explode someone might see him, then the police would come looking for him. Either way the police would never believe he’d stolen the bomb, they’d lock him up as a terrorist, a bomb maker, a killer. Whatever the decision he was facing a long time in prison.

Just then Dave stopped thinking, in fact he stopped breathing, to be honest he stopped living all together, so did his neighbours and their cat. Car alarms rang along the streets, dogs barked and people screamed above the sound of glass shattering. 

When George had realised that his suitcase was missing he panicked. That wasn't in the plan. That wasn't going to get him the promotion in the Party he'd been promised if he'd carried out the attack successfully.  There was only one thing to do, he took his phone out, found the message and hit send. He knew that 30 seconds later someone in the Newport area was in for the shock of their theiving lives. 

Which version do you like best? Vote here. The Vote is now closed. 

Clocks go forward

That horrible day when the clocks change, one fewer hour in the day but paradoxically the day feels longer with the light lasting long past its bedtime, and the body clock struggling to adapt. To make it worse, spring was still tightly coiled; short flurries of snow were carried in on the bitterly cold wind. The weather seemed to reflect the mood.

Except for heavily armed gangs of police, the streets were largely deserted, the crackdown of the day before coupled with the cold weather saw to that. People chose to stay indoors, in the warm, away from the twin threats of police brutality and frostbite. There were a few people milling around braving the police presence, braving the weather but as Anna watched the street from her window it seemed to her that even the ‘public’ were actually police. The ‘plainclothes’ just a little too plain, a little too conspicuous.  

The whole thing stank to high heaven. A morally bankrupt government using force to maintain an authority they had lost months before.

Peaceful protest. That is what it had been, a peaceful protest. People had carried flowers and played music, they sang and danced, they brought colour and life to the grey austerity imposed by the defunct regime. But in contrast to the protesters' gaiety the police had wielded guns and threats. Not idle threats either; in a blink of an eye, what had been a carnival turned into a bloodbath. Anna had no idea what triggered it, from her vantage point high up in her building it had looked like a premeditated plan. The police went in like rampaging elephants; the protesters stood no chance. Anna didn’t know the figures but she’d seen casualties and corpses - too many to count.

The clocks had gone forward but Anna wondered if they had anything to look forward to, if the country she’d loved for 70 years had taken a giant step backwards.

There is a second part to this story, click here for that.