Let me begin with a phrase so worn-out it almost dissolves on the tongue: We live in strange times. It’s not its repetition that makes it banal. It’s the fact that it couldn’t be otherwise. Even a line like “we live on planet Earth” at least allows us to imagine that things…

I suppose many of you have heard that now-iconic Beckett quote: Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. The fact that I’m beginning to reflect on this particular theme is, of course, no coincidence. Failure as theory and failure as reality are two…

“No,” said the Girl, and there was a familiar note in her voice. Painfully familiar. “No parking!” “Keep off the grass!” “Occupied!” “Oh, come on,” thought the Boy – who by now wasn’t really a boy anymore, but a short-cropped, greying little man. “It was ‘no’ the other day, too,…

What awful luck! Just moments ago, the weather had been glorious, but now, as if from nowhere, thick, dark clouds had gathered, swiftly blotting out the sky with an ominous speed. The wind grew stronger and stronger. The trees and bushes in the garden bent and groaned under its…