Grantgoddard Stories

"Why are you choosing a university so far away?" aunt Sheila demanded of me. "You should commute from home to Guildford so you can help your mum." I...

"Which bus goes to the University, please?" I asked. The man replied helpfully, but I could not understand a word he had said. He spoke English, though not an...

Magazine editors. What do they do? "They create editorial calendars, develop story ideas, manage writers, edit content and manage the production process..." ac...

"If this gets out, we're screwed," my boss told me. Actually, I have paraphrased because at least one expletive was guaranteed in this man's every sentence. He...

The motionless car stood sideways across the road with its four doors wide open. A road accident? Moving nearer, nobody was visible either in the car or on the roadway...

1976. With trepidation, I knocked on the door of the Durham student newspaper to volunteer, opened it and encountered a cacophony of shrill, loud voices in an office no...

"I am here for the Accommodation Office, please," I said with trepidation to the uniformed man behind the huge wooden reception desk in the lobby of the Old Sh...

"Would you like to dance?" the girl asked. I was dumbfounded. Nobody had ever asked me to dance. Particularly a girl! "Er, no thanks," I mumbled path...

"You will present a weekly two-hour rock music show on Saturday night," my manager informed me. No if's or but's. No offer over which to mull. No demo tape to...

"Each of you will subscribe to 'The Times' newspaper and read it every day," Mr Hodges told us. "In class, we will discuss one of its news stories about e...

"Do you know who I am?" my workplace colleague shouted down the phone. "Do you know who I work for?" I suspect customer service personnel at Fortnum...

Here in Phnom Penh, there are seventeen radio stations on the FM dial, even though Cambodia's capital city has a population of less than a million. But you are more like...

"Just putting you through, dear." Thousands of calls received each day demanding telephone numbers of businesses and individuals across the country. Shelves of...

"Ground staff have told me our plane is four inches too close to the gate," the pilot announced in a tone midway between bewilderment and exasperation. "I...

"CRUELLA DE VIL", our teacher had chalked onto the blackboard at the front of our classroom hut. We had been reading aloud excerpts from the 1956 children's no...

"Gimme your money!" he shouted, pointing a pistol at me. He had jumped out from behind some bushes. It was a dark winter evening. I was alone. Nobody was about...

We were standing in a concert hall designed like a futuristic room on the 'Discovery One' spaceship in the film '2001'. Every feature was brilliant white. White plastic...

"Grant, why haven't you written anything? What did you do yesterday evening?" Our teacher had walked along the row of desks in the classroom and noticed that I...

A colleague would arrive at my workplace some Mondays with evident cuts and bruises. A tragic case of domestic violence? No. He was a loyal fan of Millwall Football Club...

Technological advances made during the last two to three decades have changed our world almost beyond recognition. Everyone now has the ability to be almost permanently...