Sketches

nigelhillpaul6

Dec 21, 2023
2 min

AIRPORT LIFE

I followed the last passengers down to the door of the aircraft and started talking to the cabin crew while the final checks were being...

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nigelhillpaul6

Dec 21, 2023
3 min

AIRPORT LIFE

Have you ever wanted to kick a child in the arse so hard, that like that cow, he’d fly up over the moon? Well, I was giving it serious...

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nigelhillpaul6

Dec 20, 2023
2 min

AIRPORT LIFE

I strode into the office out of a sudden autumn squall, chewing my way through the last mouthfuls of my bun. Budden bounced up out of...

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nigelhillpaul6

Dec 20, 2023
4 min

LOST IN PERSIA

I had a proper job once. A job that involved the barking of orders, the kicking of arses and of, well, generally getting stuff done,...

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nigelhillpaul6

Dec 20, 2023
2 min

INSOMNIA

0420. Twenty-past four in the morning. Four-twenty a.m. Not even sparrow-fart. Awake. Or am I dreaming I'm awake. The fish pie was tasty...

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nigelhillpaul6

Dec 20, 2023
11 min

A CHRISTMAS CAROL IN SYRIA

Syria, early January, out in the Dead Cities; Bara, Sergiopolis, Apamea. The long Cold War of the Classical World had turned hot and the...

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nigelhillpaul6

Dec 20, 2023
2 min

AIRPORT LIFE

'Glad you got off your fizzer Sven'. 'Which one Senior?' 'The "casual sexism" one' 'Oh that one'. 'How did you manage it?' 'I convinced...

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nigelhillpaul6

Dec 20, 2023
6 min

THAT BLOODY BYRON ROGERS

I was in the bar with a cocktail and some Hounslow tapas when Blunt Dave dropped a newspaper on my pint of light and bitter spilling my...

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nigelhillpaul6

Dec 20, 2023
1 min

AIRPORT LIFE

'Boing. Boiing. Boiiing. Boiiing'. You can be quite expressive with a 20' perspex ruler, bouncing it on the edge of your desk at...

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nigelhillpaul6

Dec 19, 2023
8 min

THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST

I may have mentioned that I was born into, grew up in, worked, and grew old in the aviation business and have been lucky to have...

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nigelhillpaul6

Dec 4, 2023
8 min

ON THE BUSES

I'd had a pleasant afternoon of tea and hash with the Sufis of Damascus talking quantum mechanics and the unfixed nature of history, but...

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nigelhillpaul6

Dec 4, 2023
10 min

THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA

'The island-valley of Avilion, Where falls not hail or rain or any snow, Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies Deep-meadowed, happy,...

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nigelhillpaul6

Dec 4, 2023
6 min

ENGLISH BOB

Far, far from the swagger of Monument Valley; far from the abstract patterns of Bryce, far from the twisted tortured sculptures of Zion...

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nigelhillpaul6

Nov 23, 2023
4 min

GODS AND MONSTERS

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said that the rich are different to you and me, but he may as well have been talking about the famous when...

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nigelhillpaul6

Nov 17, 2023
4 min

A Very British Obsession With The Weather

I was born in that terrible year of nineteen-sixty-two after the build up to nuclear Armageddon, when my parents’ generation had decided...

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nigelhillpaul6

Nov 3, 2023
5 min

THE SPIDERS OF PHILIPPINE AIRWAYS

Back in those days of youth and vigour, when you could feel the earth tremble beneath your feet, I was a Dispatcher. To some, a giant...

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nigelhillpaul6

Sep 13, 2023
2 min

AIRPORT LIFE

I walk in out of the rain and shake myself like a dog in the porch before striding into the office flexing my hand and grimacing in pain...

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nigelhillpaul6

Sep 13, 2023
5 min

THE THIRSTY FOOL

Picture a film's opening credits, the panoramic birds-eye aerial sweep of a blisteringly hot late autumn day, with the sun beating out in...

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