Jeremy Clarke

It’s my birthday. Four in the morning and I’m in the back of a cab coming back from a night out in town with Trev. He’s in the front, telling the driver about this 18-year-old he’s been seeing. You’d think an 18-year-old would be a sort of Holy Grail to a 51-year-old, but no. Far

I’ve been to Mali. Oh, yes. We went overland from the east, 23 of us in the back of a Bedford truck, via the Congo, Cameroon, Nigeria and Niger. And even after that succession of astonishing countries, Mali stood out as having a unique flavour of its own. The first intimation that we ain’t seen

A superstitious Devon woman who lived and died in the residential home run by my parents, used to reckon that, if her first glimpse of a new moon was through a window or in a mirror, she was in for a month of rotten luck. If she first saw the new moon when she was

I woke in an upstairs room, face down on bare floorboards, my body wedged into a coffin-shaped space between a divan bed (unoccupied) and a chest of drawers — which wasn’t half as uncomfortable as you might imagine. I stood up, checked for phone and wallet, and looked out of the window. Although the sun

Waiting at a country bus stop in a downpour. Not sure if I’ve just missed one. No raincoat. No phone signal. Two o’clock in the afternoon and already too dark to write a will. No wonder everyone that can do leaves the country at this time of the year. There isn’t a bus shelter so

I’ve been away for three months but now I’m back in my gym shoes, gym glasses and faithful old gym pants with the colour washed out of them and I’m presenting my membership card to the bloke behind the desk. It’s the same old unfit unfriendly fat bloke. He probably hasn’t broken into a run

My grandson turned three last week. His mum blew up balloons and laid on a sumptuous spread of artificial colourings, preservatives, thickeners, acidity regulators, stabilisers, emulsifiers, flavour enhancers, silicates, stearates, sweeteners, anti-caking agents, gelling agents, paraffins and waxes. We stood lovingly to one side while he, his four brothers and sisters, and an assortment of

At the end of the carol service, the vicar invited us to stay for a cup of tea and a mince pie, to be served at the back of the church. Seeing me standing alone with my cup and saucer, one of the elderly parishioners approached with a smile of Christian welcome. I was afraid

When I rang for an appointment, the receptionist said, ‘Can you be here within the hour?’ I arrived with ten minutes to spare and presented myself before her. ‘Have you been here before, Mr Clarke?’ she said. ‘I have, yes,’ I said. ‘Ah, yes,’ she said, studying her computer screen with interest. She wrote a

Last week I received by post an invitation card from The Spectator office to the Parliamentarian of the Year Awards at the Savoy. My goodness, you should have seen this card. It was handsomely embossed, printed in beautiful copperplate, and so large that the postman couldn’t fit it through the letterbox. The Spectator requested ‘the

After the open-air night drawing class, the teacher invited anyone who felt like it to repair to the pub afterwards to have a drink and maybe something to eat and maybe a discussion about art. On the way to the pub I’d nipped off to the cashpoint. By the time I got to the pub,

Two policemen and a policewoman were the first of the emergency services to arrive on the platform. The policemen ran about like headless chickens. The woman was calmer. She quickly grasped the essentials of the situation, such as under which wheel the suicide lay, and who had been driving the train. Then more police arrived,

I was on a train last Sunday evening, quite late. Reading in Berkshire to Redhill in Surrey, a journey of about an hour and a half. The train was three carriages long and we trundled at a leisurely pace across country, with frequent stops at freezing, deserted platforms. I was sitting in the front carriage

On the Thursday night, my grandson had another asthma attack. Because my boy had had a few drinks before going to bed, granddad had to get up and drive everybody to the hospital. That night I had an hour’s sleep. On the Friday night I had no sleep at all. Check-in time for my flight

Brazil! What fantasies, mainly erotic, are conjured up by that word! At Salvador airport, as promised, leaning over the rail bearing a sign with my name on it, was a man sent to drive me to the hotel. I gave him a nod (I was too tired to smile) and without further ado he led

The film started ten minutes ago, says the man as he hands us our prebooked tickets. Another young man shows us down the stairs and through doors marked ‘Screen 2’ into darkness. There’s no light coming from the screen and it’s so dark in there I can’t see a thing. Fortunately the usher turns on

We hop on a bus. It’s moderately full. We stand downstairs, next to the doors. The bus pulls off and I study her from the side without her noticing it. In a Sunday newspaper style magazine that I read recently, there was a piece by a woman writer about ‘the ten things women really want

I peered through the slatted blind to see what the weather was doing. A Mediterranean-blue sky was parked over the rooftops of Camden. Few people were out and about in the street early. I was the cab driver’s first fare of the day. He didn’t look elated to see me. When I told him where

I saw a 1985 Mercedes SE 380 advertised in the classified ads of the local paper and called the number. I was more curious than anything. A ton and a half of no-expense-spared German engineering, powered by an aircraft engine, and all for the price of a top-spec iPad. You don’t see many 380s on