The Window Man Basildon

Stray Notes on Basildon

Stray notes on the parish of Basildon

A Madhouse, Only with More Elegant Jackets

A banker who discovers the legendary 'Anarchist Penny'. A man who can't get to sleep. A gardener whose work is obscured by the Calgary heat and his employer's mysterious behaviour. An out of control driver who relives his accidents. Learn also about the stranger than fiction life of hard-living, hard-rocking, soft-boiled legend Frankie McQueen, and also a band I am not legally allowed to name. And three chronicles of the irrepressible gentleman adventurer Simba, who has to protect an android duplicate of Charles Dickens, attends a performance of Faust with a mute Conservative, and for whom a cloud over Korea, resembling "judgemental, oil-drenched cotton candy" presages not just bad weather, but disaster. Overall, nine stories--some short enough to read over a biscuit, a couple undeniably longer--from the mind of Hamish Crawford. And if madness is relative, just imagine what this guy's family feels like. 'A work of genius ... every word masterfully chosen, every incident balanced between surrealism and all-out bonkers brilliance ... surely, to include Dickens is Simba's way of paying tribute to an author who would almost certainly repay the compliment'--The Gudgeon Literary Supplement