Thirteen days of thirsting. Ten spent without food. Hours in the shadeless sunshine Sucking the leather of our shoes. Jagged glass in our unshod feet In the unrelenting midday heat The soles of our sandals hanging out Of our mouths like tongues, Desiccated and shrunk like sponge Begging for the sky to weep And the…

‘Ai Weiwei! Ai Weiwei!’ ‘Oh no! Not again! Where’s the mop?’ ‘No! Ai Weiwei! Dissident artist!’ ‘Dissident, pissident, what’s the difference?’ ‘Want to go! Ai Weiwei! Want to go!’ ‘You already have! Ai Weiwei. With the fairies! Now let’s get these trousers off!’

Jim came out sideways, more or less. ‘Fuckin’ Jesus Christ’, yelled his mother, pretty much in the way she had been taught all her life not to. ‘The little bastard’, she expired, expressing no more than the truth in her dying breaths. They were the only words she ever spoke to him, if you discount…