Sam Redlark

image generated by Craiyon That night Hôpital arrondissement smelled of fig blossom. The perfume seemed to cling to still, night-time air as if it were dependent on the darkness for its survival, and would be dispelled by the daylight. I first noticed it after we emerged from the Metro, transitioning from neon clubland, buried in our recent past, several miles to south-west, and into leafy Parisian suburbs. The scent of it was still on my dishevelled clothing the following morning. One of the delegates who rode the hotel elevator with me to the ground floor wrinkled his nose when I got in. “You have visited Hôpital,” he said. He asked me whether I had friends in the district. When I answered in the affirmative, he listed off some names, none of whom I knew. Allain's half-brother had a place there. He had inherited it from a uncle who he hated and regarded as a traitor. “Will he be okay with us turning up at his door at this hour?” I enquired. “He is an anarchist,” answered Allain. ...

Why do we pay twice as much tax on earned income than on unearned income? image generated by Craiyon “Oh, I remember the meeting,” waxed Gordon Pimm. “They hold them every seventy years. It's where everything gets pushed into the middle of the table. Then they decide what the treasury gets and what the church gets. By 'they' I mean the ministers and the bishops.” “You must have been about five,” scoffed Joseph Noakes. “I'll have you know I was thirteen, and the illegitimate offspring of the incumbent priest at the church of St Genesius the Martyr, and his housekeeper,” said Pimm. “I served the tea and biscuits at the meeting. And, before you ask, I was old enough to know the significance of what was being discussed.” “I am very surprised they even let you in the room,” said Noakes. “I was press-ganged into the clergy at an early age, in hindsight as an atonement for the actions of my father's prodigal member.” “More like a human sacrifice,” murmured John Furniss. “I...

How big a garden would you need to be self-sufficient for a family of four? image generated by Craiyon Behind a wooden garden fence, on the east side of the house where my parents used to live, there was a screen of mature trees. It was actually more of a small, well-organised wood, modelled on the layout of a commercial forest, but on a greatly reduced scale. The trees were planted in an orderly, four-by-four grid, well-spaced from one another, but with their leaf canopies merging together to form a single mass. I remember them always being there when I was growing up. They were still there when my parents sold the house. My father did not like the trees. He said that they cast an unfavourable shadow over our home and garden. They cut off the morning light entirely during the gloomy winter months, when the sun remained low in the sky. During the Summer, the treetops delayed the arrival of the sunshine through our east-facing windows, and in our garden, by several hours. My father want...

This is my response to a question that appeared on the Notes & Queries page of The Guardian website on the 5th March, 2023. The Guardian is apparently no longer happy to host my comments on their site, so it is appearing here instead. This blog is obviously not affiliated with The Guardian. Its reference to a question that appeared in Notes & Queries is presented here under the terms of fair use. ~ Why don’t the British respect service staff or builders the way they do abroad? image generated by Craiyon To properly answer this question, we must assume the mantle of a profession that could be thought of as antithetical to that of the builder; one that concerns itself predominately with ruins and fragments. I speak of archaeology. In common with these antiquarians of the field, we too must get down on our knees and grub about in the dirt. Our goal is to root out the foundation of the enmity that is commonly expressed by the English for their labouring classes. One point of origin...