Authors Electric

 To begin with: a disclaimer. I was mulling over ideas for topics for this contribution and first put finger to keyboard the day that Andrew Crofts’ New Stages of Life appeared here on the 27 th of last month. Serendipitously (or otherwise) while the topic I chose is somewhat related to Andrew’s, my thesis (NB ‘thesis’ = pretentious word for ‘stuff’) and ‘conclusion’ (NB ‘conclusion’ = the point at which it’ll stop) are not. Part of the reason may be that my response to Andrew’s current ‘grandfather to three’ status is simply to note that I am the eldest of 3 sisters and 2 brothers, the youngest of whom is already a great-grandmother of one. Thus dotage permits me to get away with most things and, anyway, there’s no connection whatsoever between our separate contributions. But, partly, like Andrew's, mine is also about age. I’ll start way back and to avoid overly embarrassing anyone, mainly myself, I’ll dress it up in semi-linguistic stuff. First, though, a (marginally relev...

The other night I found myself in a crush of shoppers at a big-top market. Its cavernous space cheerfully illuminated: Murmurs blended into the ambient up-music amid a kaleidoscope of kiosks, redolent with e xotic victuals. I was bringing an order of barbecued prawns to my inamorata and a couple of friends who sat at a food court table chatting merrily. As I approached, someone informed me that I had dropped something. Shrimp were falling from the soggy bottom of my bag, one-by-one, leaving a trail behind me. Then the bag gave way and the rest plopped to the tiled floor in a slippery mess at my feet. There was a hush. People tried not to stare. No use attempting to salvage anything. I could just hear, “Clean-up on aisle 4,” over the loudspeakers. “ Tooozi again! Get that Toozi off the court!” I remembered my red-faced high school basketball coach blowing his whistle and yanking me out of practice games for passing the ball to opposing players. I grinned fe...