Europe We’re teaching our sons about Europe. The size of it. The shape of it. How much is theirs. We’re driving around Europe marvelling at examples of the continent’s rich history and magnificent infrastructure, its  museums and art galleries and national parks. We’re gazing in wonder at roads and airports and railways and bridges. We … Continue reading What We’re Teaching Our Sons #132: Europe & #178: The Loneliness of Billionaires →

  Whales We’re teaching our sons about whales. Their habits and habitats, their evolutionary history, their cultural and economic relevance, the many stories told about them. An adult male sperm whale has washed up, dead, on a beach on the Norfolk coast, and we’re following the clean-up effort on TV and the radio and the … Continue reading What We’re Teaching Our Sons #603: Whales & #189: Geology →

The Network is Not the Territory In business, as in war, the important thing is not how much geography we hold, but the supply lines we control. How we get food, fuel, people, goods from one point to another. The only map that matters is the one that describes the routes we own. Everything in … Continue reading Against The Nostalgia of Objects: Extracts from A Manifesto for The Container Shipping Industry →

The internet had killed the mail-order business and I was broke. I had to go back to Big Frank Metcalfe and beg for a job. “You know I can’t use you David,” he said. “You're a loose canon. A maverick.” “I’ve changed,” I promised him. “No more fancy stuff. Nothing avant-garde. I hardly care about … Continue reading A Model World →

Things now took what could be described as a turn for the worse, if we are to consider the situation from the point of view of our Captain and his employers, as on the night of April 25th a great commotion took place in Whitehall, the result of the most audacious action yet undertaken on … Continue reading Including The Incident Of The Montgolfier Balloon →

At the Museum of the Agreed Future will we consume timely and relevant content, appropriate to our particular wants and needs. At the Museum of the Agreed Future we will spend our days trying to remember everything we have lost. At the Museum of the Agreed Future all public gatherings of more than five people … Continue reading Proposal for the Museum of the Agreed Future →

Dracula sunk in despair.  Dracula drunk before noon.  Dracula wandering the magnificent, draughty rooms of his castle, wrapped in a heavy blanket and swigging from a bottle of three hundred year old plum brandy.  Dracula alone, his former brides all having left for the consolations of plastic surgery and younger, richer men (footballers, mostly). Dracula … Continue reading Dracula, Sunk in Despair →

...and you can read my entry here: http://www.thewhitereview.org/fiction/i-told-you/ [Edit: I WON!]

We lost the first girl before we even got on the boat. We’d been stuck out on the Argentinean pampas for a week, waiting for the steamer that was going to take us up the river. We spent our days sitting on the hotel porch drinking pisco sours and staring into the vast landscape as … Continue reading Ballerinas Across the Andes, or The Great Ecstasy of Werner H. →

Burton is drunk again and explaining to the barmaid about astral projection. It’s Friday night and the tiny, one-room pub is half empty. Burton is telling the barmaid about the impossibly thin thread that ties her to this mortal realm, and about the wonders we could all experience if we could only shake ourselves loose … Continue reading Green Grow the Rushes →