Alice Clarke

The bad poetry got me somewhere. It taught me: how not to write.

Pickled eggs. Eggs pickled? About twenty of them float in a screw top glass jar, sat between Tuckins teacakes dressed in red and silver foil, and packets of pork scratchings, my favourite snack, 80p.

“In the dungeon, to perfect oral attention, we would practice this for at least a month…”

Meandering through trolleys, down aisles, past the bakery and dairy goods, this building was a maze.

“I would massage raw steak into it though and then fix it up, tartare.”

Since getting sober, divorcing my past and embracing the way of the universe I sometimes had to put my hand to my chest and check that my rock and roll heart was still beating.

This is how to kill a chicken. The hardest part is actually catching the bird. Lay it chest down on the floor, with the head facing away from you.

When I was around eight years old my grandma gave me a cactus: a small, thick-leafed, green gift of responsibility.