Raymond G. Taylor
Bio
Author living in Kent, England. Writer of short stories and poems in a wide range of genres, forms and styles. A non-fiction writer for 40+ years. Subjects include art, history, science, business, law, and the human condition.
Stories (637)
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Oblivion: three
Having rearranged various appointments and assured my features editor I would later file the articles that she was expecting from me, I headed to the bank. Fortunately there was nothing I needed to submit to the news editor. Why I was taking such trouble over all this, I really did not know. Perhaps it was just the investigative journalist in me.
By Raymond G. Taylor6 months ago in Fiction
Drinkdown diary
Day zero Wed July 30 2025 Friends over for lunch with their two lovely and very clever children. The youngest, who has only recently started to write, spent his time connecting various devices to the Alexa unit. How he managed this, I have no idea, but when he asked if he could use my iPhone, I said no. Our son, working from home in his room, was surprised by the sudden start of a strange selection of songs on his smart speaker.
By Raymond G. Taylor6 months ago in Psyche
Beating the booze. Top Story - August 2025.
'Beating the booze' may be an exaggeration. All I have done is to come up with a new approach to cutting down my alcohol intake. Why? Am I a drunk, an alcoholic, a problem drinker? No, to at least two of these questions and 'not really' to the other. I will admit that I drink more than is strictly healthy so that, from time to time, I make attempts at cutting down my alcohol intake. Some are quite successful... for a while at any rate.
By Raymond G. Taylor6 months ago in Motivation
Oblivion: two
The Institute of Directors is a stylishly elaborate Regency-era building at 116 Pall Mall, roughly halfway between Trafalgar Square and St James's Palace. The Palace of St James is the most senior palace in the UK and is where the Queen grants audience to foreign ambassadors and other dignitaries. It is used on ceremonial occasions and has a its own guard of honour. It is like a smaller, more discreet, and older version of Buckingham Palace, being built by order of King Henry VIII. I have never been inside the palace though I had walked past it enough times.
By Raymond G. Taylor7 months ago in Fiction
Blank page bites back
What do you write on a blank page? Oh the fear, the excitement, the anticipation of that first word, the first sentence. Fear of getting it wrong. Ordinarily, I would not be particularly phased by the prospect of a blank page or, as in my case, a blank screen. On this occasion I had taken myself away for a one-man author's retreat to a lonely cottage on Dartmoor. Birthplace of many an Agatha Christie Mystery and bleak setting of The Hound of the Baskervilles, my least-favourite work by Arthur Conan-Doyle.
By Raymond G. Taylor7 months ago in Fiction
Out of oblivion
"You don't exist." "And yet, here I am." O ~ o ~ The first time I met him I was working in London as a business reporter for the Financial Times. It was 1999. I had started to get all sorts of strange calls about the millennium bug, about the end of the world, the end of humanity and about climate change. This wasn't one of them. It was a regular call from one of my regular PR contacts. One of the more reliable PR firms in a business not noted for its reliability.
By Raymond G. Taylor7 months ago in Fiction
