a collection of short literary or philosophical extracts
Not all ideas fit neatly into the pages of a book. When I see, hear or read something that moves me—a news story, a snippet of conversation, a musical phrase, a storyline or cityscape—I capture the thoughts it provokes by jotting them down. From art and sports—whether Wimbledon or the World Cup—to politics, love and war, all topics have the potential to spark my imagination.
What was I thinking? I had got myself lumbered, training as an accountant at £600 a year ($1,200), with two weeks’ unpaid study leave to pass my exams. I was 18 years old, a high school failure,...
Being bachelors, Joe—my boss—would regularly take me out for late-night supper. Calgary, being a sleepy town, only had one place serving food at that hour: Chinatown. The only restaurant open until...
A rarity in the interviewing world once asked me, “You seem unsure of what you are. One minute you say you’re a writer, another minute an author. Which are you?” The question haunted me, as I was...
“How did you get from mistakenly entering Canada Immigration in London to sitting here in front of me in Calgary?” By now, the lunch-hour crowd had thinned at La Petite Pâtisserie. My time was also...
La Petite Patisserie was not one of my favourites. Restaurants or cafés, I preferred “mum and dad” businesses, where you were instantly recognised and welcomed as family. Upon entering, you would...
The phone rang. “Hi! This is Mike, a neighbour of yours. I read the blurb you posted about your writing in the mailroom. Can I buy you a coffee?” Without thinking, I agreed. Did I make a mistake?...
“The mandala – the Buddhist Wheel of Life – revolves through six realms. The inhabitants of the Hungry Ghost Realm are depicted as creatures with scrawny necks, small mouths, emaciated limbs and...
8 December 1996. The whole world was mesmerised by a penny stock company based in Alberta, now worth US $6 billion — from nothing. Anecdotes abounded in small towns and villages across the province...
A tram struck him down one evening on his way to inspect the work-in-progress at the Sagrada Família. No one recognised the old man in dishevelled clothing. As he carried no identification papers,...
Battered by the never-ending waves of gloom and doom — the skeletal images of starving children in Gaza, the doubling of Trump’s tariffs, the pounding of Ukrainian cities — I woke up exulted to...
RECENT POSTS
Emil Rem, an eccentric accountant becomes a writer of eccentric characters, in exotic locales—each chapter taking us on a trip into his fascinating twisted world. Born to a close knit, middle class Muslim East Indian family in Dar-es-Salam, Africa in the 50’s, he is then moved to Maidenhead England at the age of five. The next twenty years are spent shuttling between England and East Africa, wearing a St. Christopher’s cross one minute and attending church, to wearing a green armband and attending Muslim religious classes in Africa the next. Moving to Canada, marrying a woman from the Philippines and having two boys only adds further texture to his stories.
