I am very pleased to announce that the launch date for Stingray has been set for the 10th December, 7-10pm at Swanfield Yard (2b Swanfield Street, E2 7DS). We hope you can make it for an evening of celebration and fun with words, but in the meantime, here is a sneak preview of what is to come.
The boys stare and shuffle grubby legs, clearly unsure if they are expected to reply. The girls giggle. A tall teenager, wearing a ragged once blue t-shirt like a glamourous dress, steps forward and bows. “Isabel
‘Ned’, a young homeless man, notes the irony. “Before the TV series on homelessness [scheduled for January 2010 broadcast] was produced last month, the BBC emailed the police that they were going to make the programme. During production week – I was sleeping in the Haymarket at the time – the police always woke me up at eight in the morning and they’d say hello, good morning, they’d tell us where to get a cup of coffee and everything, treating us like celebs.” He laughs. “Before that they’d kick you and say right, you’ve got 5 minutes to move on, pack up your cardboard and everything.” From ‘Rough Sleeping on the Road to the Olympics’ by Judith Amanthis
She was as interested in the stems as in the blooms, rubbing the side of her face against the thick green bodies, indulgently; oblivious. Whiskers twitching, my cat watched this, craning forward like an old hermit seeing a stranger on the horizon. Your cat carried on sniffing the flowers, the way I think Elizabethan ladies might have done; the way, at least, they’re depicted on TV. It was only when, bored of the inertia, I rapped on the window, that your cat looked across and saw my cat. From ‘My Cat and Your Cat’ by N Quentin Woolf
Songs like ‘Matana LaChag’ (gift for the holiday) or “Ani Text Politi” (I’m a political text) symbolized Israeli culture in a nutshell whereas the phrases themselves created a wide range of association and meanings in their own right. ‘Matana Lachag’ for me utilised the form of consumerism masked by religious traditions – a gift for the holidays is what every child expects from his parents (a ‘gift for the holiday, in reasonable expectation’ as the song goes) while “Ani Text Politi” seemed to me a rebellion against the politicising of each element of cultural life in Israel. This wasn’t an aggressive out-cry, it was subtle, elegant and intelligent. From ‘A Gift for the Holidays’ by Udi Radomsky
When you get there answer mum that you’d love a cup of tea and then put the kettle on yourself. She’ll follow you into the kitchen but you’ll have to find the teabags, the cups, the spoons because mum will look out of the window and be distracted by the adults sitting on the roof and the children sitting on her fence. She’ll believe you when you point out that the adults are chimney stacks and the children are pink roses blowing in the wind. (Why doesn’t her family cut back the rose bushes for her you’ll ask yourself exasperated or tidy up the teabags come to that?) and then mum will tell you about the adults sitting on the roof and the children sitting on the fence. From ‘The Teabag Tree’ by Janet Jacobs
She delivered the eggs and I was sure I detected a flirtatious gesture between them, something indescribable. I watched as he smiled, powerless as ever whilst the sweater made its familiar moves – flick of the cuff, a wink of the button hole, a sly unravelling of hem. ‘Babes, are you alright?’ Navy is good with brown: better with blond. It was almost unbearable. From ‘Ex-jumper’ by Melanie Venables
“The chatter of the gathered crowd had become more volumous. From over the wavering murmurs came the swirling of a siren. The crowd parted and two men in black uniforms got out of a white patrol car. In synch they jogged towards Alan, slowed about five metres away and began to circle him. “Put down the sandwich and come with us, we don’t want to hurt you,” said one. “But we do,” added the other.” From ‘Alan’ by Simon Jablonski
