I’m in the neighbourhood dumping ground. It’s a large pit that backs onto people’s houses that used to be an embankment containing an old railway tunnel. It’s full to the brim with kitchen sinks and shopping trollies, and on this occasion, large boxes wrapped in red tissue paper. They’re about the size of what you’d store a Christmas Tree in, and they’ve even got labels on. I rip one open and stuff a hand inside. I pull out something green and viny. I suddenly realise that it's a trap. Someone has filled the boxes with Japanese knotweed. Within seconds, I feel my wrists tightening. I look down and green veins have started sprouting all around my wrists and a purple pansy appears like a 3-d tattoo. My whole arm is paralysed. I need medical help. The fastest way for me to get help is to pass through a block housing estate to get to a doctor’s surgery. At a footbridge, I’m approached by two youths. One of them stabs me in the left side of my chest with a small blade.
Adventures of Mr. Paul
Musings and misadventures of a wannabe writer...
Monday, 23 February 2026
Monday, 9 February 2026
Metres from death: The hero city defying Putin despite constant drone attacks
It’s not a city that fights back with a large force. It has to be a city that’s still occupied and the locals are looking after the army as well as their own to keep things going as normal as reasonably possible. There’ll hopefully be tales of teamwork and people working together to repair their infrastructure as quickly as possible. Mind you, it’s a bit laughable that Putin hasn’t managed to achieve his objective after all this time. It’s one of the very first cities that was attacked owing to its proximity to the border. Initially, they were abandoned by the state but still came together to defy the enemy. They were reporting where the drones and tanks were. Volunteers came forward to undertake rescue missions to preserve life. Their terrain and change of everyday life has completely, and it becomes difficult to maintain hope each day. The odds aren’t in their favour, and more effort needs to come from the outside world.
Saturday, 7 February 2026
Hidden Bonus #dreamdiary 215
We arrive saddled up on a t-rex and slide down its tail to the bottom of the structure. There’s a great big blue wall that we have to climb to reach the pool at the top. We know that at the top of this, there’s a big pool indented at the surface with waterslides and it’s surrounded by sunbeds. It’s like a pyramid, only steeper. It’s made of cobbled tiles. In the centre there’s a big green map of the world, but it also looks like slime. My only goal is to get my niece there. We give up trying to climb the structure. It doesn’t look very safe if we were to slip and fall. We’d certainly break a bone. Instead, we walk up the west side which is a slope ridden with grass. We wonder why we didn’t get our dinosaur to stop so that we could jump off at the top.
Thursday, 5 February 2026
Ayres a thought
There’s a sense of a rugby-type background about him, but also of the nerd. You get the impression that he started his gym training late. He has short hair and an oval face with triangular glasses. He’s got thin arms but a large chest that loves to stretch out what he’s wearing. Then there’s a small waist which is attached to a large pair of legs. Long walks and keeping fit are the preferred modus of operation. Doing things to excess isn’t an option as there’s always something to attend to to keep on the move. It’s also a great excuse to back out when you feel like it. It’s like there’s a hidden agenda and there’s things you must do to fit in and maintain the connections but don’t always want to do them. Family and keeping a fixed income is always a priority. After that, it’s just a case of snuggling up and letting everyone else take care of everything.
Wednesday, 4 February 2026
Do Not Adjust Your Viewing Device
Tuesday, 3 February 2026
As a Muslim in the UK, why do British people eat pork when the UK was founded as a Christian nation and true Christians follow Leviticus which forbids any unclean animals including pork?
I would question the notion that the UK was founded as a Christian nation. We’re more likely to have been colonised by Romans. Prior to that, we would have lived in groups of villagers who would have warred with neighbouring tribes. While we were doing that, we would scavenge and eat whatever we could find. This is where we traditionally learnt to cook our leftovers, including stews, where we’d reuse every last scrap to make it last. When it came to pigs, we found that we could use intestines to wrap meat to create sausages to store. Our religion may have changed over the years, but some people still prefer to follow nomadic traditions. Not everyone will do what you say, despite how illegal you may make it. And what is classed is an unclean animal? Does that mean that if you wash the meat first, it will be OK?