mostly david ephgrave

Few products fill me with more trepidation than Poundland fireworks & bacon. The worrying thing about the former in the Hitchin store is they’ve been displayed right by the counter, which makes for a tense queuing experience. That’s where you normally position stock most likely to provoke an impulse buy, which isn’t exactly their remit, unless you’ve been hit by the urge to commit a dangerous prank involving a letterbox; let's face it: whoever purchases fireworks last-minute either wants them for a nefarious reason or isn't a safe pair of hands to put on a small-scale display. There’s a more concerning undercurrent to proceedings and that’s the fact the fireworks presumably cost just a pound each; another reason to be concerned about standing next to them while waiting for a till to be free, let alone attempting to light one. How many corners were cut to guarantee such cheap overheads? Selling bacon for a quid's not much better; what hopelessly deformed pigs they...

Like most people, Guy Fawkes Night calls to mind memories of my childhood. I grew up in Stevenage: a much-maligned town, though when I was younger I wouldn’t hear a word said against it. I was an only child – and as a result, would spend a lot of time in my own company, entertaining myself. I was obsessed with magic into my mid-teens – and would often been found in my mum’s bedroom, practicing the latest trick I’d bought mail-order from Davenport’s Magic Shop in front of the only full-length mirror in the house. Any time not spent working on my sleight of hand was split evenly between Stevenage Indoor Market (looking for vinyl to add to my ever-growing record collection), or riding my BMX Panther around the town’s many cycle paths. Mine was a simple childhood. Our house was in the old town in the midst of a natural valley – and my mum’s bedroom window looked out on a view that impressed me. The garden backed onto an allotment with the railway line just behind it. Bey...