NEW ENQUIRIES DAILY 2026

 

In order of composition, newest at the top. 

Photographs from Ashurst, New Forest unless indicated otherwise

She was looking out 

from under a shadow, 

wondering what that represented,

when I caught her looking away.

(Oxford Circus underground station)

This city gent

must be older than he looks.

Who wears a top hat

nowadays?

 

(Liverpool Street, London)

       

They look to be ready

for any number of fires,

here where there seems to be

nothing much to burn…

 

(Peckham, London)

 

I’ve heard that this shop

won’t be opening

ever again.

I wonder if it’s true?

 

(Hornsey, London)

It's good to be surprised

and I hadn't expected a low-fi version

of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 

to pop up in Whitechapel.

 

(Whitechapel, London)

 

What is the best of all possible words?

‘Consummate’ might be a runner,

perfectly recalling that first time

we were moved to add a ‘d’.

                           

All this streetlight 

appears to illumine -

at least from this angle -

is that's there's a toilet to let.

 

(Bow, London)

 

I’ve seen umbrellas wounded -

a broken strut, a rip in the gut.

I’ve seen umbrellas dying.

But this one is definitely dead.

 

(Peckham, London)

 

Sorry about that

I didn't realize just how strong I am.

Did you want my wallet,

or was it just the phone?

 

(Ashurst Bridge)

 

The woodpeckers

seem to have fled their label,

though not before they’d pecked

not wood, but brick.

(Ashurst Bridge)

If I’m being photographed

photographing this,

what do the surveyors make

of a surveyor of surveyors?

(Ashurst Bridge)

 

I do admire how solidly

cattle stand around.

That may be why the game of cow skittles

has been rather slow to catch on.

 

‘Hiya Cynth, how’s it going?’

‘Good, thanks, Cynth! I had a great time

 with Cynth and Cynth last night. 

Though I'm still annoyed that all of us got the same name.’

  

It feels a bit soon 

to be nostalgic about the EU, 

even though I don't know anyone

who's glad that we're out.

 

(Brussels)

 

What is it about buildings

that makes them think

they can get away

without ever having a haircut?

 

(Brussels)

 

The Belgian pigeon

looks much the same as his British cousins.

What does he speak, though,

Flemish or French?

 

(Brussels)

 

Unless you count

a patch of sand as a destination,

this is a path to nowhere –

but it does look fast.

(Brussels)

 

I don't know what the Belgians

have against leaves -

or, come to that, against branches -

but the nature of the objection is clear.

 

(Brussels)

  

 

That must be twice

they refused to let someone win

wasn't the first smash

warning enough?

 

(Ladbrookes, Kings Cross, London)

       

How many forks

is a broken fork,

the halves of which 

fork?

 

Long legs?

I suppose so,

up to a point  -

but woefully short of the columns. 

 

 

Night is when

you want a mattress,

but maybe this is not

the one you want.

 

(Clerkenwell, London)

 

     

Ross Smith, Josh Rock, Rob Cross…

What's with all the pretentious darts names?

Is it any wonder

that Jermaine Wattimena is Dutch?

 

(Those listed - and picture in order - are among the world's top-ranked 24 players at the time of the Winmau World Masters in Milton Keynes, ensuring them automatic entry. I’m sorry to see that Chuck Bull has slipped so far down the rankings that I couldn't find him. Luke Littler beat Luke Humphries in the final on 1 Feb 2026)

In the Eurostar queue

‘You know how you have to speak French

or else they get angry with you?’

Glad I'm going to Brussels, not Paris.

Clap for the pigeons!

Or stamp your feet.

More fun, perhaps, to try to kick them,

safely aware that you can’t.

(Southampton)

To peel

or not to peel

might seem an innocuous question,

but I wouldn't like to be flayed.

 

Who knows which colour

is the boss

in the world

of two-tone moss?

Can I be a pedant

and point out that there are twelve corners

in three squares,

even if you insist on avoiding triangles?

 

(Three Corners Adventure Playground, Clerkenwell, London)

 

It feels polite

to blur this man

and his raggedy blanket

into a miasma of anonymity.

 

(Old Street underground station, London)

 

I suspect it’s the trainees

who get to design

the cardboard box building

that advertises the firm from outside.

 

(Wilkinson Eyre architects, Shoreditch, London)

 

I suppose you want

your ball back?

But we play hard ball round here,

so hard luck.

 

(Clerkenwell, London)

 

You wish it could be Christmas everyday?

If you do,

this house agrees:

it’s January 24^th.

(Clerkenwell, London)

 

  

When the light falls

on what is not a veil,

you may find yourself veiled

nonetheless.

(I got a bit of cellophane trapped in the TLS: that's 'Self-Portrait in a Straw Hat' by Elisabeth Louise Viglée Le Brun, 1782)

 

Who is

this near-imposter?

And why are they

not stocking him?

 

(HMV, Southampton: Corey Kent – he needs to work on the hyphen – is a country singer born in Oklahoma, 1994)

 

Could you have found

a more appropriate backdrop

for such an impoverished

urban tree?

 

These circumstances

have remained unforeseen since 2017,

posing the question:

how hard can it be to foresee the past?

(the original closure was put down to a building problem, but as Nat West reduced their branches from 1,550 at the start of 2017 to 450 at the end of 2025, I don’t suppose much effort was put into solving the issue)

I've never been in there

Some online reviews

claim it’s misnamed,

others say it isn’t.

 

(Trip Adviser ranks it 19^th of 25 restaurants in Totton, not an overwhelming endorsement, but based on very little data)

When did ‘mate’

start to mean

someone with whom

you do not mate? 

 

(Internet image illustrating platonic friendship)

You wait months

to find someone thoroughly orange

then spot four of them

coordinating orange acts to boot.

 

(Mayfair, London, January 2026: After taking the photograph for ‘Orange Revolution’, November 20205, I resolved to take a picture every time I saw a fully orange person) 

It’s lucky the car park isn’t very full

given that I’m taking up two spaces

with my otherwise-modest Toyota

and its greedy reflection…

(Southampton)

Tiles can be beautiful

but how often do we hear that

said of the grout

that we expect to hide beneath?

(Chancery Lane underground station. London)

         

If you happen to have

unmatched feet,

here’s your chance to match them for nothing

with unmatched footwear.

(Southampton)

    

I’m not convinced the complex scaffolding prize

is really worth winning:

they build it up, of course they do,

but fall down on the cash.

(Soho, London)

      

No wonder the police

are slow to respond:

they're all tied up

collecting malparked bikes.

 

(This implausible claim is made in South Kensington)

We’re forty miles from Surrey

Close compared with Yorkshire, Sydney,

Mars or the nearest nebula,

but a pretty long walk from here.

 

(Ashurst... Glasgow is 365 miles from Ashurst, Sydney is 10,700 miles, Mars is 140 million miles on average. The closest nebula to Earth is the Helix Nebula, 650-700 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius. One light year is 5,878,625,370,000 miles - call it six trillion - so we’re talking a decent schlepp there.)

 

 

I wonder how close

they think I think Mars is now?

And how much closer

they’ve persuaded it to come?

 

(South Kensington Underground Station. In case it helps the Science Museum, I believe the answer varies considerably. The closest Mars has ever been to Earth in recorded history was in August 2003, when the planets were approximately 35 million miles apart. This close approach occurs when Earth passes between the Sun and Mars, aligning the three celestial bodies. When I saw this poster in January 2026, Mars was 235m miles from earth, closer to the solar conjunction when it is opposite the Sun from Earth – near to the maximum distance 250m miles. So the museum’s timing is open to question: right now, I’d guess that most people seeing the poster do believe that Mars is closer than it is. To be fair, they might mean Luke Jerram’s touring artwork model of Mars, which you might have guessed was on view somewhere in Britain, though even that is currently accessible only in Massachusetts.)

The dead on the living

seems the wrong way round.

Shouldn't the efforts of the living

be built on the achievements of the dead?  

 

(Southampton)

 

This is the cleverest pheasant I know

Aware that I take photographs,

he always strikes the identical pose

when I drive past, keen to be seen at his best.

 

(Minstead)

This type of Gellyfish

has no sting.

I doubt if they can guard themselves,

let alone the contents of the flat.

(Fordingbridge: my sister-in-law, Geraldine ‘Gelly’ Kent, is a keen aquarist)

         

Why didn’t we think

of that?

An external curtain

to intercept the drafts at source!

 

(Fordingbridge)

 

This is a dog-friendly pub

Yet should the pooches

really be

let loose on the cappuccinos?

 

(The Three Lions, Fordingbridge)

 

The pen is

mightier than

the penis

even though it has the same letters.

(Internet image)

 

I suspect this post 

of taking the double piss

by parking on the red lines,

then showing them up as insubstantial...

 

(Southampton)

 

No-one likes cones

But does that justify

treating one with this much

cone-tempt?

 

(Southampton)

Judging by the guide

to its wildlife in winter

even the hardest of the park’s inhabitants

will start to feel the cold.

                

 

The Big Van has gone

I don’t remember it having a tail,

but it seems to have wagged it

on the way out. 

File under

‘I can't believe

they're not leaves’

while knowing you can believe it easily enough.

(Kensington, London)

Do they sell buzzes and bangs

or is the shop called Onamatopia

because that was the least

onomatopoeic word they could conjure?

(Lyndhurst)

 

There's the whistle!

Have they just begun

or was that the sale’s

concluding Phweeeeep!!! ?

(Marylebone, London)

I know I’m not much

of a completer-finisher

but I do OK

when it comes to books and sex and Twix.

 

The moss caterpillar

is crossing the woodland floor.

Its butterflies are rather rare,

I wonder what we're in for?

   

From where

would you like

your bricks knocked out?

This wall seems to know.

(Totton)

    

Brett the window cleaner is a helpful chap

but he’s left our hosepipe out on the lawn.

Does he not realise that, under Stephian law,

that’s very close to a capital offence?

Here's a house

that failed the test

of reading the seasonally altered

waste collection schedule.

Having spent a summer

without occlusion

I’m happy enough to see, if imprecisely,

matters getting vague. 

 

That's what I call

a thorough felling:

I'll found a tree religion

if it rises from that!

 

        

 

Supposing the shadow

of wood on wood

were an illusion,

where would we be?  

 

 

Time again to monitor

how the paint is chipping

in the pedestrian underpass

that runs beneath the A 326.

 

The sun is winning

the tunnel’s light contest

despite the handicap

of 93 million miles.

Here may be where not to live

Right up against the railway line

at just the point where trains must hoot

to warn any pedestrians on the upcoming crossing.

 

(3 Foxhill Close, Ashurst)

 

A fridge

in the forest?

That

is not cool.

 

If I had a parking spot

as convenient as this

I, too, might be

exceptionally reluctant to leave it.

(Southampton)

 These chafer grubs

appearing to grin at each other,

might both be looking to say:

‘It’s no good grinning when you’re dead’.

Has anybody seen a dog

without a blue lead?

It was being taken for a walk

by a woman with a matching lack.

 

The Forest Edge retirement flats

are three miles from any plausible forest,

leading me to wonder

just how big an edge can be…

(Totton)