A plethora of walnuts have come my way. I’m a nut lover, a lover of nuts but I do not freely share this love with all nuts. I have my pride and I also have a very small nutcracker …… smirking doesn’t suit you. Brazil has much to recommend it save for its nuts. Brazil nuts are the Sirens of the nut world that will seductively lure the nut eating ingenue into believing that their creamy interior is freely and easily available when in reality, unlike the g-stringed jolies fesses of Copacabana, they are concealed and contained by an impenetrable chastity shell. The aphorism of “being between a roc ..read more

The Jolly Roger rarely comes into the sight line of the curmudgeonly grandpa character that I have studiously created, and behind which it is thought that I sit in paroxysms of jolly laughter, and when it does it is the skull and cross bones graphic, rather than apprehension of the sudden appearance of ear ringed corsairs with nothing but my booty on their minds, that strikes a chill into my heart as no bones are crosser than mine. There is nothing like age, or the rack, to make one aware of quite how many bones we have and how each of them offers the owner its own particular discomfort. An in ..read more

I’ve lived the lie for long enough. Of the lies to live with, whilst remaining covert, it may well be the easiest as its nature is hardly believable. I have hidden in plain sight for so long that, for much of the time, I not only believe the lie but forget that it is a lie. My disguise is as simple as it is thorough; to all appearances I am what I profess to be, but which I absolutely am not. Were my habits to be examined, my computer checked and the house searched I would pass muster with flying colours. For this impersonation to remain watertight it is essential that certain items, items tha ..read more

These images are available, as Giclée prints printed on Hahnemuhle Art paper by the Print Space, on https://www.rogerstowellpictures.com Priced, according to size, from 50€ to 200€. ……or contact me direct on stowellr@gmail.com to ask me any questions ..read more

It’s the end of June, I’m in France and it’s grey outside. How happy I would be if that statement was an oxymoron but in this current annus horribilis, which is as horrible as an annus can be, happiness is seasoned with bad shit, in all its many and varied disguises. Were I to travel back through the pieces which I have written over the years, I would not be surprised to find that I have written similar words at the end of many Junes past; yet I still dream of the sun filled Junes that my mind conjures from the fragmented memories of long gone childhood summer holidays. There was a smell to re ..read more

…two, count to three before you say it.,,,,,oh, f-f-f-f-fudge. Fudge is an odd substitution for the infinitely more potent f word which is fuck by name but not by nature….any more. Fuck has left the bedroom and is in the street effing and blinding at any effing thing or abusing old ladies for not giving up their seats, or because it’s fucking raining or just being fucking angry….it’s left the slick genitals and joined the base ball bat generals. It’s bloody angry is what it is and you can fuck off if …if you…if ..oh,fuck off. It’s been kidnapped…. it’s been taken…… hi-jacked by script writers ..read more

Thighs chapped and sore by wet grey flannel flogging around them in the freezing Worcestershire winters of privileged prep school misery generated in me a longing for long trousers. The move to long from short was profound. To find an equivalent in the progress of a child of today is beyond me as I can’t find any parallels. Long trousers were an iPhone, were liberty, were privilege, were a new hopeful life. We were doomed to wear fucking awful clothes, to be seen and not heard or ideally not seen and not heard but to be put on trains and waved to as we disappeared down the line to be cared for ..read more

This sort of misunderstanding starts wars….or warts. John, hits the space bar instead of the “r” key, now known as the “tur” key, and Norman’s status as an island is lost in a flash The bell has been tolling for Norman and not for you or me over eons of time as nobody has asked, because he asked us not to , as to why the bell is always tolling. Norman can’t hear the bell, doesn’t give a fuck about the bell….what John should have mentioned first is that Norman is not only a clod but is also stone deaf which is why he was writing a note to Norman about the danger of being washed away by the sea ..read more

“We are not going out” is the mantra by which we all are condemned to live in these troubled times. Were I to be young at this time in history I would find the “we are not going out” restriction hard to bear or, more succinctly, unbearable: but I am not young, I am old. As one imperceptibly grows old it makes one aware that there is a difference to the oldness perceived from the outside when compared with one’s view from inside where it appears that nothing much has changed apart from the body becoming less obedient to simple commands. The “we are not going out” of which I speak is the self co ..read more

Social distancing has resulted in my getting up close and familiar, on a daily, nay, hourly basis, with a multitude of complete strangers the majority of whom I insult and given half a chance would maim or kill without a second thought. The very word “distancing” puts one in a much safer place when employing the “cunt” word or similar erudition when arguing a political point or any point come to think of it even if it’s pointless. Within a week or so of my rejoining, after more than a few years, the Twitter fraternity/sorority the magazine of my verbal assault rifle is empty…my last “fuck off ..read more