Archive for: April 2010

The corner of his titanium-grey eye just caught the dull red ballistic airbursts a split femtosecond before the slugs from a brace of 7.62mm Schneitzler semiautomatic machine pistoles hammered into the historic iron gates of Buckingham Palace. Instantly he perceived …

The three princes of Serendip were always making discoveries, by accident
and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of.
Horace Walpole 1754

In an era of increasing negativity, the Campbell Laboratory latterly acted as a haven of scientific open-mindedness. Fergus relished …

I distinctly remember seeing that streak of red and black shimmy down the left wing against the fluoresceine green of Old Trafford (no-one had colour tv in 1968, but the electron guns of my imagination were always set to maximum …

He’s a man I’ve never spoken to. I only ever see him riding his bike or running occasionally, but I’m completely convinced his character can be inferred from the way he moves and the calm look on his face.

He’s bald, …

My father employed a string of young men over 30 years or so as his apprentices. Brian, Michael, Adam, Len and Eoin were not my brothers but each of them was discussed across our formica kitchen table as if they …

I lived in a flat once which underlooked Edinburgh castle. Just far enough away to be able to hear the bagpipes during military tattoos without actually being inflamed enough to declare war on Scotland. That was to come later. My …

This definition given isn’t exactly the one I was taught at my mother’s knee, but at least it confirms that the word isn’t just another of those vivid memories that I’ve invented to explain my childhood. It was always used …

The thing about a drawerful of pruck is that, in my seven-year-old mind, there was the persistent belief that it could be assembled, somehow, into a novel, complete working system or machine. It didn’t matter that almost every individual component …

Even though it’s a redbrick relic of the days of Victorian industry, it feels as if it the fishhouse has always been there -nestling in the leafy glen of Stranmillis. The door is glass panelled wood which has shed …