“Never Go Back”: An Ode to Returning
Sat in my stuffy English classroom, with its chipped yellow wallpaper and alarmingly stained carpets, I read Carol Ann Duffy’s poem ‘Never Go Back’ for the first time. The name might ring a bell—most of us remember the onion metaphor, perhaps not so fondly, but there’s more to it than just
The kindness tax
A customer recently asked me why the pint I had served him cost 10 quid. He leaned over the counter where I studied the freshly poured drink (head overlarge, incriminating tracts of lager streaming down the sides). A fiver because it’s alcohol. Another two pounds because it’s a pub in the