A Hot Potato

Merely seizing a pen can provoke us into shaping something that carries meaning and ideas from the whirlpool of our mind and ferries them over safely and smoothly into the minds of others. The pen I’m holding now faces precisely that task. A Hot Potato paints a group of characters (all dwelling cheek by jowl in a single street), who somehow survive and get along together by swapping humour and rumour. They are living in the Victorian period, when endless work in mines or factories does little to relieve them of poverty and general deprivation. No matter how hard they work, or dream of progress, they face failure in pretty much every effort they make towards progress. The title carries an idiom that refers to any topic of urgency and importance which arises in a society and causes ceaseless discussion.