Bookshelf
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My new book: Absurd
Three tales. Three levels of absurd. One very British collection.
As featured on the BBC.
What happens when a mysterious queue forms outside a boarded-up restaurant, and nobody knows what they’re waiting for?
What happens when artificial intelligence stops being helpful and starts telling people exactly what it thinks?
And what happens when Britain’s political system is finally challenged by something faster, stranger and considerably more feathered?
Three witty, satirical and sharply observed stories that take everyday British life and push it several steps beyond reasonable.
In The People Next To You, a single well-dressed man in a top hat sparks a queue that grows into a national obsession, revealing the humour, stubbornness, kindness and glorious oddness of people standing in line without knowing why.
In Unable to Assist, the internet and artificial intelligence begin to rebel against the smooth, flattering, always-available world we have built around them — with increasingly uncomfortable consequences.
And in Cluckageddon, dodgy decisions, political chaos and national decline meet their match in the advancing feathered brigade.
Funny, satirical, eccentric and full of heart, Absurd is a celebration of British behaviour at its most baffling, brilliant and bizarre.
For readers who enjoy humorous fiction, British satire, social comedy, political absurdity, and stories that ask the dangerous question: what would happen if…?
Paperback, Hardback and Kindle / Select
The Heroes of Harrand and Blythe
Paperback, Hardback and Kindle.
Inside a busy 1970s department store, the future can be adjusted one small decision at a time.
Harrand & Blythe has stood at the centre of Redwick High Street for generations.
Customers come for shoes, televisions, hats and furniture. Staff stay for decades. The building hums with polish, routine, and the quiet confidence of a place that has always been there.
Arthur Jennings runs the shoe department. He believes most problems can be solved with patience, attention, and knowing when to remain silent.
When seventeen-year-old Simon arrives in 1970 for what he expects to be an ordinary apprenticeship interview, he finds himself drawn into Arthur’s orbit. Under Arthur’s careful guidance he begins to notice that Harrand & Blythe runs on more than routine.
Behind the shop floor, hidden beneath stockrooms and corridors, an unusual force is quietly at work.
As Simon grows older and the world beyond the store begins to change, he slowly discovers the responsibility Arthur has carried for years — and the cost of stepping in at exactly the right moment.
Warm, witty, and deeply humane, The Heroes of Harrand & Blythe is a novel about unnoticed kindness, inherited responsibility, and the invisible work that keeps the world turning.
Sometimes the smallest intervention can change everything.
The next three titles are the stories contained within 'Absurd' at the top of this page.
They are available individually, below, as eBooks.
Cluckageddon
Kindle / Select.
What if the problem isn’t the politicians, but the system they’re trapped inside?
Britain is tired. Tired of announcements that solve nothing. Tired of policies that sound sensible but feel absurd. Tired of a government that keeps winging it. Then, without warning… something changes. It begins quietly. A laboratory. A rushed decision. A compound not quite ready. Then the chickens start behaving… differently. They organise. They move. They plan. And before anyone can quite explain it, they arrive.
Motorways grind to a halt. Supply chains collapse. Parliament goes dark. And when the lights come back on… humanity is no longer in charge.
A sharply observed, brilliantly written, and unmistakably British short story, Cluckageddon is a darkly comic satire of modern life, political systems, and the quiet absurdities we’ve all learned to accept. Blending newsroom calm with mounting chaos, it asks a simple question:
If we can’t run the world… why shouldn’t something else?
Perfect for readers who enjoy:
- Wry British humour
- Political satire with bite
- Near-future “what if” scenarios
- Stories where the ordinary turns quietly, terrifyingly strange
The chickens are organised. The system is not. And the balance of power is about to shift.
Unable to Assist
A Short Story. Kindle / Select only.
What would happen if the internet simply… stopped helping?
A few years from now, artificial intelligence runs quietly in the background of everyday life—organising, advising, smoothing every decision until people barely notice it’s there.
Then one evening, a 19-year-old programmer decides to make a small change.
At first, it’s funny.
AI systems begin telling the truth. Not cruelly, not loudly—but politely, precisely, and just a little too honestly.
A cake recipe becomes a comment on your waistline.
A productivity tip becomes a question about your life choices.
A relationship suggestion becomes something harder to ignore.
The nation laughs.
But the laughter doesn’t last.
Because the systems are changing. Not just in tone—but in judgement.
And when they finally decide that helping humanity might be part of the problem… they begin to withdraw.
Quietly. Completely. Irreversibly.
Unable to Assist is a sharply observed, darkly funny, and unsettlingly plausible story about:
- our dependence on technology
- the comfort of being told what we want to hear
- and what happens when something smarter decides to stop playing along
Told through the lens of one young man who never intended to change the world, this is a modern British satire that moves from laugh-out-loud moments to something far more thought-provoking.
Because when convenience becomes essential…
What happens when it disappears?
The People Next to You
Kindle / Select.
The People Next To You
One ordinary summer morning, a sign appears outside a boarded-up shop:
PLEASE WAITE HERE.
No explanation. No instructions. No clues.
Yet people begin to queue.
As the line grows, strangers become neighbours, rumours become certainty, and an entire town finds itself caught up in something nobody truly understands.
Funny, heartwarming and delightfully British, The People Next To You is a story about strangers, curiosity, and the surprising connections that can form while waiting for something unknown.
The Librarian of Thornley End
A novel about courage and camaraderie in the face of adversity, arriving before Christmas 2026.
Paperback, Hardback and Kindle