A Dutch factory worker reaches an important milestone; the letter G is banned; a Korean scientist engages in an unorthodox protest; aliens make first contact in Harrow; a jaded circus monkey learns to love again.At the beginning of 2014, Patrick Kidd made a resolution to write a short story every week for a whole year, based on prompts collected online. The resulting 53 stories run the gamut from comic to pensive, intimate to sweeping, realistic to fantastical - but always absorbin...

Politics looked straightforward when Patrick Kidd took over the reins of the daily political sketch in The Times in 2015. David Cameron had just won a general election and would clearly be Prime Minister for as long as he wanted; George Osborne was his obvious successor (rather than the editor of a free London evening newspaper); Theresa May was a slightly underwhelming Home Secretary and Jeremy Corbyn an anonymous Labour backbencher best known as a serial rebel against his own party. Then...