Cinderella Suicide had the Whoremaster backed against the greasy-smooth wall of the Tarot, blade beneath his chins. She had that grinning-skull look that meant she didn't give a damn anymore.

I started recording stories on cassette tape and giving them away as presents way back in the mid 'eighties. I am a big fan of spoken word fiction and do the greater part of my pleasure "reading" by listening to books from Audible.com.

For this reason I spent two and a half hours on a train, with a change at Brussels, for the pleasure of watching Goliath and his wife Madame Goliath parade through rainy Belgian streets under a looming sky.

Inside the crystal sphere / in an identical wooden chamber / sits a glass blower, / completing a pretty vase