Lorenzo had booked the local pub, boasting to a few hopefuls that they’d win “oh fifty quid” and have the attention of a hundred people when they performed.
The worst thing that could happen was that they’d be laughed at, although this crowd tended to look away in embarrassment when a no-talent embarrassed themselves.
Continue reading
It isn’t the kind of building you’d notice on Google Maps. A red brick set amidst terraces of red brick. The Mission is a working, sleeves-rolled-up place, somewhat larger than the surrounding houses, but no more ornate. Like many of its type, set in poorer streets across the land, it is loved with a rough, unsentimental familiarity and relied on to do its work.
In past times, the Mission performed its original purpose as a non-denominational meeting- house with both religious and educational aims. Working children were sent to Sunday school there and, after a modest lunch, spent afternoons struggling with reading, writing and adding-up.
Continue reading
Returning to office camaraderie was a major life event: arguably third after marriage and buying your first property? Edwin savoured the anticipation. Jumping the steps 2 at a time, he reached the colonnaded entrance of Mean Streets Communications; a.k.a Moan Streets Miscommunications by fellow trainee journalists.
That first regrouping was a creative recoil against 18 months of enforced house arrest and Zoom meetings. Piotr, old- school consulting editor, was in the “control” chair directing the pent-up tsunami of creativity. Fountain pen in hand, he wrote each suggested scoop-in-the-making on a physical clipboard. Retro-style reporting values he called it. Meanwhile the trainees tapped electronic devices desperate not to miss the opportunity of reporting tomorrow’s leader.
Continue reading