The consummate French bar tender pours the well-heeled Englishman his drink. He knew right away; saw it in his customer’s eyes. Always a giveaway. Discreetly he says bugger all. Keeps it to himself. A reliance on ‘tips’ ensures tact. Under a tiara of smoke rings, the racy girl perched delightfully upon a bar stool. Nonchalant … More UNDER A TIARA OF SMOKE RINGS
During the occupation of Paris the actress Arletty had a relationship with Hans Jürgen Soehring, a Luftwaffe officer, and gave the famous riposte to a member of the French Forces of the Interior interrogating her after the Liberation: ‘My heart is French, but my ass is international’ It seems that the French authorities had Ms … More THE SNOW WHITE TIGRESS by Mike Steeden
A long, long time ago in a land where night was always day and day always night and where the clocks ticked anti-clockwise there was once an old blind man who collected all the spare daydreams others no longer had any use for. He kept them in a stovepipe top hat bequeathed to him by … More EKTA’S MIRROR
My new book: ‘The Blue-Eyed Cat’ has finally been freed from her solitary confinement within the lonely prison cell that is my dark and empty skull. At last at liberty, the world is now her oyster…although all indications are that her ideal preference would be pride of place upon the shelf of a grand bookcase … More THE BLUE-EYED CAT
A Photo Salvador Dalí kindly took of Shirley & I at our favourite Parisian Café back in ’24 It is June 1924 in the magical period of the ‘Années folles’. We are in The City of Love. Paris by any other name. Moreover, we are young and devoted to one another. Overnight, spring has turned … More SCOTT FITZGERALD’S PENIS
Reveil, Boulevard de Clichy – Anders Zorn, 1899 Drunk on Pernod, lost to opium and thoroughly fatigued, gifting smoke rings to ungrateful stars, contemplating an interlude with an immodest, exiled Geisha touting for business somewhere along the Boulevard de Clichy, she found me; saved me. Slapped my wrists, gave me the evil eye, even had … More THE ENGLISHMAN
(artwork by Ted Giffin) A fragment from within my new book, ‘Notoriously Naked Flames’. This piece is taken from near the beginning of the tale. The picture above, by artist Ted Giffin (www.tedgiffin.com) captures perfectly the look of my heroine as I perceived her. EARLY SUMMER 1952 – SUSSEX, ENGLAND She examines her defenceless giant … More EARLY SUMMER 1952 – SUSSEX, ENGLAND
In the early hours, around the time of the summer solstice of 2016 the torturous drip, drip, drip of a blocked guttering woke me up from a zonked-out nightmare. I found myself contemplating the fact that for reasons unclear I was bored beyond measure. I’d previously written a couple of books of what I had … More NOTORIOUSLY NAKED FLAMES
The stillborn moon, born of mother earth, sired by the sun, a blemished perfection, a gyrating mausoleum, its foundations, a lethargic magnetism. An old man winds back time, her image from long ago at his shoulder, reflects upon her charcoal lips, the echo of their days of carefree forbidden delights, all the time hearing the … More THE STILLBORN MOON
14th June 1940. The hasty words and deeds of the Sunshine Girl extinguished the sparkling lights of Paris, becalmed all passion that night the City of Love became the Shadowy City of the Mystified. No river boats on the Seine, Montparnasse bars, cafés, restaurants alike, all shut up shop. In her wake, just empty boulevards. … More THE SUNSHINE GIRL
- MIKE STEEDEN - 