Finch’s Quarterly Review

by Type

by Publication

by Tag

  • The perfect lipstick

    Upon the cold marble floor stands a dark brown wooden table, heart height. Upon the tabletop, its varnish scarred with rings, …

  • The perfect massage

    Take a deep breath, get comfortable, and close your eyes.

    Ah. That isn’t going to work.

    Take a deep breath, get …

  • The perfect gloves

    Gloves are made to be shed. Whether you’re a hot-headed chevalier throwing your gauntlet before a rival or a haughty dame tossing your mitt into a …

  • The perfect porridge

    Our initials rarely have much emotional resonance in our lives. They tend to be forced upon us by others, in the …

  • The perfect memory

    Forget accolades. Forget those times when you became, just for an instant, what you always wanted to be. Forget the palm …

  • The perfect jacket

    Twenty- seven today. The day is a twenty-seven sort of day. Neither here nor there, bright nor dull, fresh nor jaded, summer nor autumn, it …

  • The perfect perfume

    Next time you are amongst a group of women, sniff. Not a delicate little whuffle, man; a big, snorting lungful of shared air. That noxious …

  • The perfect holiday reading

    Summer 2006; Cannes; Cormac McCarthy’s The Border Trilogy. Theoretically, a great idea. It had sand, it had heat, it had shovelfuls of atmosphere and, most importantly, …

  • The perfect knickers

    Let’s rummage, deep; into textures humble and whorish, colours wanton and wan; into spandex and silk, lycra and lace, black and blue …

  • The perfect complaint

    Well, first, what are you wearing? When it comes to public protestation, your outfit could make the difference between receiving a ‘Dominos apology’ or a Fortnum …

  • The perfect bank holiday

    Bookended by trains, the quintessential bank holiday smells of oil and steam and damp tarmac; of the sickly cinnamon milkiness of AMT chai …

  • The perfect eggs

    It’s enough to turn you religious.

    When you’re topped with a head that is buzzing with tiredness and tailed with stinging pavement feet, ten minutes …

  • The perfect book cover

    Silence in the room. Three supposed women, looking like the fourteen year old girls they were when they met, loll on sofas in T-Shirts and …

  • The perfect pair of glasses

    Gap-toothed, straggle-haired, scab-kneed, exploring the wide golden demesnes of the untrammelled infant mind, she is startled by the sudden flash and looks up with a …