Stories for English

Forty Braves Inspired by the poem and song by Irene PAPPAS Saranta Pallikaria… set to music by Vangelis… Forty brave centurions from Lebadia In the prime of their life Boots and uniforms on Muscles and armour shining in the sun One fine summer day Marching on to raid Tropolitsa

Tropolitsa Girls In answer to the poem and song by Irene PAPAS Saranta Pallikaria set to music by Vangelis… The girls of Tropolitsa In the prime of life Dressed and head dressed Their tanned skin golden brown in the sun One fine summer morning The girls of Tropolitsa sing The girls of Tropolitsa In the prime of life Dressed and head dressed Their tanned skin golden brown in the sun One fine summer morning The girls of Tropolitsa sing For the women of Lebadia

A Hymn To Her They kissed… and for a moment the heart shaped of the heads… that vision of their faces stood still… looked like a still… a picture… a pretty painting… the kind you see on the cover of those romance novels in stations’ stationery and confectionary shelves… books women read men never look at…

Impatient Yesterday, visiting the relief doctor for my usual GP when his iPhone rings… right under my eyes… A home number comes up, and slightly disturbed, he mumbles a lame excuse and takes the call… ‘No… I’m listening… Yes… it was a good idea to call… I see… you’re still running a high temperature with a light fever... you’ll need to keep taking the medication… and the antibiotics… I’ll come round tomorrow around 4 or 5… after my home...

Marilyn’s Bag Marilyn had a bag… only little did she know it… How many women know how many bags they have ? No more than those who know what they have in their bags… they have so many…. And yet so few… there’s always another bag… and another… and another… another one… and another on… there’s always a prettier bag… there’s always a bigger bag… there’s always a better bag… What’s a girl’s best bag ? The next bag ! But that one had a Marilyn...

The Girl Who Kissed Sharks Cristina didn’t seem like much to look at… a pretty petite woman… keeping herself much to herself… not letting on… not kissing and telling… I remember… I tried to kiss her once… or twice… I remembered… a little girl… It was years before I saw Cristina again… there in front of me… for the world to see… on my TV screen… in full sheen… pictured under water… just when I was beginning to remember the shy girl in the middle of...

He loved watching The Tudors… wouldn’t have missed them for the world… ‘Yeah…’ I reflected ‘All those sex scenes…’ a poor single man’s porn if you ask me more than history or even adventure… how that programme had made primetime showing was beyond me… and I was no prude… if prudent… but if he was indeed single he was far from poor… ‘Yeah…’ he retorted ‘And the story… and the colours… the costumes…’ ‘Yeah…’ I retaliated ‘And all those...

Mimi fights on both sides of her asynchronous life… what’s right is not what’s left… and what’s left is not right… Her love is here but she is there… her love goes there but she’s here… she’s here and there and everywhere but she’s nowhere where you’d expect her… Sharing… parting a life that seems to be parting ways the best way of departing… She’s here when she should be there and she’s there when she’d need to be here… I’ve tried advising her but...

Fedelma was born into a working class family yet from a very young age she somehow knew it wouldn’t last. Every penny she got Fedelma saved from an early age from her earliest days… She would proudly listen to it clickety-click down through the piggy’s back of her piggy bank. One… Five… Ten… Fifteen… Fifty… pence… Working her way up to her first pound… Given the simple condition of her surrounding she didn’t study very hard nor very long and didn’t even make it...

Listening to Farhad you’d think he was a native… he had gone native so fast… you couldn’t tell him out… and he doesn’t seem to miss his native Iran to the point of thinking of settling down here…. Making the city his home and since you’d think he was born raised in Paris… he is naturally good-looking and his swarthy exotic looks make him the centre of attention the minute he walks into a room… every girl’s and a few men’s dream… The heads just turn on...

Stories for English podcast is a podcast for both teachers and students of English as much as for people who merely like to read a good story and be entertained… In this podcast we will look at how literature promotes learning and furthers the command of English while giving endless reading pleasure… In this episode we look at introducing me and my work… and how it belongs in the study and furthering of English for both teachers and students… and how to introduce stories in the...