On no man being an island

On no man being an island

I am a man of my word, and I have promised my Twitter followers a sneaky peek inside my latest book in return for a bit of crowd-sourced writing.

Our Cornish hero Thomas Young attempts some ham-fisted philosophising with his flat-mate, not-a-murderer-at-all Dai Williams:

"You've got to remember, Dai," I said to my Welsh arch-nemesis, "No man is an island."

"Apart from Cuba Gooding Jr, obviously. He's an island."

"Obviously."

"And Dan Barbados, he's an island an' all."

Dai has clearly gone crackers again.

"Who?"

"Dan. Danny. Dan Barbados. From the pasty shop on The Moor in Falmouth."

"I'm pretty sure his surname isn't Barbados, Dai. I remember him from two years below us at school, and we would have taken the mickey mercilessly if he was called Dan Barbados. I just thought everyone called him that because he once went there on holiday," I tell him.

"Yeah, an' when he came back, he changed his name by deed poll."

"And, what, pray, was he before?"

This had better be good.

"Daniel J. Mallorca, Esquire. He likes to remember his holidays."

Yep, that's good, and Williams is now on a roll.

"The Isle of Man. That's a whole lot of men who are an island."

"Spotter's badge, mate, and my analogy is looking flimsier by the minute. But my point remains - no man can live in isolation from the world about him..."

"Isla Sheppey."

Philosophy is wasted on some people.

"You're just making them up now. And besides, she'd be a woman, which actually goes to prove my point about no man being an actual island."

"Isla Dogs."

"Shut up."

"Fern Britton. She's a right cracker now she's lost all that weight."

"Just SHUT UP."

"Barry Island."

And they all went home and had a nice cup of tea.