‘I don’t care, I’m keeping my surname. It’s a ridiculous custom. Besides, the hassle. Ugh.’ He shrugs. ‘Oh, I see that. How about if we choose something different? Like, both of us.’ ‘That’s just making a fuss for the sake of it. Why bother?’ ‘Well… I could change my first name at the same time.’ She raises her eyebrow. ‘To…?’ ‘Well I could get it spelled right, to start with.’ She’s too polite to comment, and there’s a silence. He continues. ‘I've been lumped w

“It’s all day! You have to be here ALLLL DAY!” “No, no way. Too long. Let’s just make it a coupla hours? Huh!” “Nope! Rules says ‘It’s a DAY” “But, but” he sulks. “You’re a bully” “I haven’t got all day” demands another “three hours, that’s enough. Three, maybe four, that’s plenty, but not allllll dayyyyy!” “Look sweetheart, if he said all day it’s going to bloody well be ALL-bloody-DAY!!” “What do you mean?” said the cross-eyed snob in the corner “that we ha

Dayve used to be Dave. Why... I hear you ask the reason for the name change? Well all I can say is, what an improvement! For if truth be known, you are much more a DAYVE than a ‘Dave’. There are plenty of Daves in this world... let’s face it. Apparently in 1966 ‘Dave’, D.A.V.E was voted the year’s most boring name... Quite a feat. And that generation knew what it was on about: long hair, beads, free love, and cheap shots at God-blessed politicians who wanted to save th

Day ‘ have ‘Day’ve taken all of dem.’ Dayton scoured the drawers, finding nothing but rubber bands and old crayons from when his nephew stayed last April for the holidays. ‘Where did they put de damn tings.’ His botched dental work from seven years ago, which caused his daily migraines and speech difficulties, had affected his internal monologue. His inner voice, aped the outer voice’s speech. As if his disembodied mental self had an appointment at the same dentist. Did the l

With apologies to anyone with an unusually spelt name! Poor Dayve – one of those kids born to parents determined to bring up their child to be different and they thought giving him a name with spelling unlike any other was a good start. Unfortunately, like most kids in this situation, he was destined to have to spell it for the rest of his life. Maybe he’d come up with a novel way of describing it. It’s “Day” with the German version of “we” on the end – “ve”. Ah, maybe too co

The crows were sitting in their usual tree. Ah Ahhhing as usual. It was a usual day. There were normally three crows but today there were only two. I wonder what they are thinking, I thought to myself, as I sipped my cup of Earl Grey, sans milk, sans sugar. I am a purist after all. I wonder if birds can be purists? I mean will some of them only ever eat a particular type of seed they won't add other seeds to it…or milk or sugar I suspect. They seem to be chatting to each othe