Richard Blandford

Hound Blog is now here . Please bookmark, link, forward, RT, Digg and suchlike. Read Full Story

A shit book cover, yesterday. As part of my lifelong project to become well-read before the end of it, I read  Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence.  I had not read any Lawrence before, so I thought I perhaps ought to.  In the sixties, what with the Lady Chatterley trial and the Ken Russell film of Women in Love , reading Lawrence was quite the done thing.  These days, you don’t see it happening so much (although I’m sure it still happens behind closed doors), and you can read Cormac McCarthy... Read Full Story

Len kissed his wife on the forehead as she lay half-asleep.  Time for him to pretend to go down the yard for extra hours on the night shift, just as he had every Tuesday for the past month.  He closed the door softly, left the house and got in his car.  There, he could see his breath as he checked his wallet for the third time that night for the card.  ‘The Unfolding Lotus Restaurant – Urbiqui Cuisine’, it read, followed by the address and, written in blue biro, ‘Tue’.  There was no phone... Read Full Story

A while back, I wrote a lot of short stories. At first, I was writing them simply to experiment with voices, styles and genres, and see how far I could push myself. After I’d come up with a few, however, it became clear that something bigger was emerging. The stories began to link thematically, and together became a body of work called The Shuffle. In The Shuffle, connections are made only to fall apart. Order and randomness fight it out for control. The supernatural rubs up against the... Read Full Story

They watched her from the verge, big cats eyeing the prairie.  Their arms folded, their shoulders back, they rested their weight on the fence, each with one leg lying on the ground, the other bent at the knee; a thigh pointing out from their skirt like a weapon. ‘Look at her, the poor lamb,’ said one, dark straightened hair running from under her boater and into a ponytail that sat on the green of her blazer. ‘Yes, poor, poor lamb,’ said her companion, a still taller girl whose fair bob... Read Full Story

We lived each day as if it was a page from a great novel. Our naïve enthusiasm conjured a spell that fell on everything we heard, touched and saw. Once bewitched, the world of that summer became like that in The Grass Harp. For we were living within a novel without a story; at least, not one that we, or perhaps it was just I, could detect while still locked inside it. It was books that brought us together. English Literature A-Level to be precise. The set text for the term was The Great... Read Full Story

One of the many interesting things Melissa said before she dumped me and moved out to go back to university and learn more interesting things of little practical value, was that a French term for ‘orgasm’ is ‘le petit mort’.  Literally translates as ‘the little death’.  I didn’t understand it when she said it, as up until recently I’d found the act of ejaculation to be positively life affirming, but now, after recent events, I know what it means only too well.  I wish to God I didn’t. It... Read Full Story

Kyle, come here now.  I said, come here.  Come here or there’ll be trouble.  Come here now, or you’ll get a smack.  I mean it.  Kyle, come here now and stop being silly.  Kyle, come here, or I’ll hurt you.  Right, that’s it.  I said, didn’t I?  When we get home, I’m going to slam your fingers in the drawer.  I mean it.  Just do as you’re told, Kyle.  Do as your told or – right, that’s it. I’m stapling your face, when we get back.  Going to staple your face because you’re being naughty.  I don... Read Full Story

THE PROFESSOR I called out to the Professor but he did not hear, and as he went to cross the road he seemed unaware of the double-decker that so nearly winged him. When he stepped onto the pavement and I could see that he was not himself. He looked distracted, pained. I placed myself in front of the Professor and waved; he nearly passed me but I caught his eye just in time. Turning to me, he smiled and offered his hand. ‘Ah, my dear friend, how good to see you!’ he exclaimed loudly; too... Read Full Story

I bought this biography by Pope Brock in a closing-down sale, and I have to say, it’s the best nearly nothing I’ve spent in a long time. Charlatan: The Fraudulent Life of John Brinkley tells the story of a world-famous quack doctor of the 20s and 30s whose gimmick was goat gland transplants, which he alleged worked as a cure for impotence.  Essentially, this operation involved opening his victim’s scrotal sac, making a slice in the testicle, and slotting in whole or bits of goat’s ganad... Read Full Story