“So just how fat do you feel right now?” Nikki asked her flatmates with a grin.

Her question was met with a chorus of groans and half-hearted chuckles. The five of them had just managed to eat four large takeaway pizzas, a stick of garlic bread, and half a tub of ice cream. (With chocolate sauce, natch.) There was no real reason why they had suddenly felt the urge to stuff themselves-no-one …

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"Beautiful! Stunning! Okay, hold still, and....Done. No, you looked fine, I promise!"
I promise you would have done, anyway, if you had your eyes open. Or wasn't so fat. Or had at least tried to do something with that dead-looking hair of yours.

Honest to God, would it be too much to ask for some decent-looking shots?

"Okay, now you go back to your teacher, and she'll send your …

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It was time to concentrate. Time to get some work done. Beaumont felt that he had relaxed enough in this past week, and since after the summer holidays he would be too busy marking and overseeing detentions to have much time to work on his novel, he thought that it would be best to get a good start on it now, so that when September rolled around, he would be able to just carry on writing without …

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The bloke in front of me is messing about with his mate. He looks sporty; in his tracksuit bottoms and white t-shirt, it’s easy to imagine him running around…I dunno, a football pitch or… something that involves a lot of running and shoving. His friend is this huge black guy in a blue jacket. I can just about make out his laugh through my headphones-it’s a surprisingly high-pitched bark. …

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Drawing a blank, here. I know I’ve got to do some work today, but I just can’t bring myself to summon the effort. Maybe if I turned off my iPod, found somewhere quiet in the Library and just went for it, maybe I would actually get something done. But I would probably find myself looking around at books and people and the next thing I know I’ll have been sitting in my seat for half an hour …

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Vincent
The Frenchman has many words to speak,
But many cigarettes are passed in silence.

Do not break the night (he says, let her stillness last)
Do not speak or utter syllables aloud, monotonous drones.
Save it for the day when crickets chirp and blind birds sing
To the sun they merely feel brushing their tiny wings.
Speak in the day, let all the night be-
Let your words be words of …

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Did I ever think it as a bad thing? No, of course I didn’t. I was in love.

No one believes me of course, when I tell them that. They all believe the papers, who think two and two making five justifies writing articles filled with words like “Stalker”, and “Suspect”. Which have you afraid to leave the house in case some suburban Charles Bronson with nothing else better to do reads one …

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I wrote this not that long ago, its a short story that hopefully will be appearing in The Ripple sooner rather than later. It's the result of a challenge to write something in under 500 words and it came out suprinsgly well, but judge for yourself.
Better Than You.
It's Sunday night, I'm driving from Manchester to Leicester and it's raining. I'm travelling back to uni from a weekend long …

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Soild
Towering
Stretching as far as I can imagine
The Wall blocks all view, all sound
And casts a far-reaching shadow.

An inexplicable creation
It has always been here
Since I was old enough to think
Or at least attempt to
But how can I when there is this Wall?
This seemingly neverending mass
Of contradictions and conceits
This structure which encompasses all
A truly grand design
This cold, …

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