Liars' League

Passing the Spatula by Stephen Parrish

CLICK HERE to play Passing the Spatula MP3

Read by Martine McMenemy

My mother-in-law's potato salad recipe remained a secret for years.  The family often convened behind her back to debate how best to extract it from her.  To ponder what the consequences would be if she didn't pass it along before going to Heaven.  To wonder how we'd cope with the loss.

Rich and creamy, the sliced potatoes just the right firmness, and seasoned exquisitely: the salad inspired moaning at my mother-in-law's dinner table.  No conversation took place during its consumption.  To speak, even of divine things, while chewing those heavenly morsels, would have been sacrilegious.

 

Requests by Gregory Jackson

CLICK HERE to play Requests MP3

Read by Freddie Machin

The last time Larry Agar had played Brenda’s bar in Rapid City he’d wound up in a fight after the show with Brenda’s new husband, Pancho Juarez, and finished the night in the Holy Trinity Community Hospital with two cracked ribs. That was back in March and his body still remembered the fight, even if the reason for it was long forgotten. Larry’s ribs had ached all through the summer, especially when the cab of the Toyota got cold at night. And, as if that weren’t enough, pretty much every time he checked his email there’d be a fresh request for payment from the charity care department of Holy Trinity. If it wasn’t the hospital, it would be somebody about the rent-to-own agreement on the Toyota, or MBNA politely reminding him that the minimum monthly payment was due on the plastic. Everyone made requests. It was the same on stage or off.

 

Nobody Leaves Hungry by Graeme McGregor

Nobody Leaves Hungry pt1

Nobody Leaves Hungry pt2

Read by Tony Bell

Henry sits on the edge of his bunk and slides his tongue across his teeth, feeling the dull edges and the sudden points of his canines. His lips, circled by grey stubble, are pocked with cold sores. His sleepless eyes rove the four walls, absorbing each scratch and piece of flaking paint. He chuckles to himself quietly.

“Last fifteen years, don’t I think I can remember feeling this fucking alive …” The words echo in his cell.

“Sorry to interrupt your deep and meaningful cussin’, son”, says a porter, smiling sympathetically through the metal bars.  Henry looks blankly at the man in his short sleeved white shirt and white pants. “I’m here to take your last meal order.”

 

The Greatest Breakfast in the World by Owen Booth

CLICK HERE to play The Greatest Breakfast ... MP3

Read by Miranda Harrison

It’s two thirty in the morning when you write off the second rented Ferrari. You leave it wrapped around a lamppost somewhere in East London and pay a passing teenage drug courier five hundred quid to lend you his BMX.

By the time you reach your mistress's flat forty minutes later, the ketamine is already wearing off and the two highly poisonous, highly illegal Japanese puffer fish under your arm are on the turn. You’ve had better - and worse - Saturday nights.

Barry Large, celebrity chef: you’re a monster.

 

Food & Drink stories for Tuesday 11th September

We've deliberated, cogitated and digested, and the menu for our mouthwatering Food & Drink event on Tuesday 11th September has been chosen!

We've got five tasty stories to tempt your palate, involving crazed chefs, last meals, secret recipes, boozy musos and the breakfast to end them all.

STORIES CHOSEN
Passing the Spatula by Stephen Parrish
The Greatest Breakfast in the World by Owen Booth 
Nobody Leaves Hungry by Graeme MacGregor 
Requests by Greg Jackson
The Apocalypse Breakfast by Nigel Robinson 

Stuff your face with fiction for just a fiver - and don't forget that you'll also get a side of free books (if you win our infamous quiz, that is) and bargain wine to wash it down with.

DOORS AT 7PM - SHOW BEGINS AT 7.30. See you there!

As ever, tickets cost £5 on the door (cash only, no advance booking) and seating is unreserved - so it's a good idea to get there a bit ahead of time if you want a good table.

The venue is the downstairs bar at:
The Phoenix
37 Cavendish Square 
London 
W1G 0PP

(The Phoenix is five-minute walk northwest from Oxford Circus tube station, which is on the Victoria, Bakerloo and Central lines)

Map here