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It all started, as these things often do, with a joke.I was CTO of a financial firm with all the warmth and ethics of a crypto Ponzi scheme wrapped in a navy-blue tie. Travel was part of the gig. Not glamorous travel, no business class champagne or crisp white sheets, just airport lounges that smelt of beige, and hotels that forgot what city they were in.We had a handful of general admin staff, ruthless time-warriors in cardigans, who booked our travel. You emailed them your needs and, without further interaction or acknowledgement of your humanity, you'd find yourself on a flight manifest.One Tuesday afternoon, sleep-deprived and high on sarcasm, I sent them a request:“Please book me on the first flight to Melbourne tomorrow. Any airline. Book it under FS Forbes (the F is for Fantastic). Cheers, Sam.”And that was it. The email equivalent of a raised eyebrow and a smirk to myself. I printed the confirmation when it came through, folded it neatly into my jacket pocket, and thought no more of it.Next morning. Pre-dawn. Brisbane Airport, haunted by blinking machines and half-awake travellers. I strode up to the Qantas counter, presented my ID, and declared:“Ticket to Melbourne. FS Forbes, or Francis Samuel Forbes.”The attendant tapped. Frowned. Tapped again. A pause.“Sorry, sir. There’s no ticket under that name.”I leaned in. Explained. Mentioned the admin team. Offered a winning smile.She frowned again, less apologetically this time. I handed her the printout from the admin, confident it would resolve things.She read it. Blinked. Then tilted her head with a weary sigh.“Sir... the ticket is under Fantastic Forbes. That’s what the booking says.”She showed me the screen. There it was. Like something from a dream you try to forget: FANTASTIC FORBES – MELBOURNE – 05:30I laughed. She didn’t.“Unfortunately,” she said, slipping into that firm, airport-legal tone, “without a ticket that matches your ID, I can’t let you on this flight. Even with the email.”And that was the moment I stepped through the looking-glass into the land of Kafka.What followed was a bureaucratic pilgrimage through Qantas middle management. She called someone who in turn, called for Barbra the ‘Verification Manager, Ticket Identity Escalations Division’, who appeared waring a lanyard with real purpose, and ordered me through to the back office. My luggage was forgotten, my coffee went cold. I was marched through grey corridors that smelt like printer toner and despair.Every new person I spoke to had to read the email again. Each one blinked at "the F is for Fantastic" like it was some kind of security code. Some laughed. Most didn't. One manager, clipboard in hand, asked me if this was “a known alias.” I half expected ASIO to be summoned.“Why did you write that?” someone asked.“Because I’m an idiot,” I replied. At least that part was clear.Eventually, miraculously, someone up the chain, possibly weary from the sheer absurdity of it all, stamped their bureaucratic blessing and whispered the magic words:“We’ll print the boarding pass... but change the return ticket. And next time—don’t be clever.”With minutes to spare, I sprinted to the gate, nearly dropping my jacket, my email, and what was left of my dignity. I boarded the plane just as they were closing the doors.And there, strapped in at 34,000 feet, I began to laugh. First quietly. Then uncontrollably. The sort of laugh that turns heads and makes flight attendants check on you. It was absurd. It was entirely my fault. It was... perfect.And so, Fantastic Forbes was born. Not from glory. Not from greatness. But from one too-clever line in an email to an admin girl with a sense of humour and access to Amadeus.The nickname stuck. It followed me around the office like a glittery ghost. People emailed me as “Fantastic.” Someone stuck a sticker on my monitor: “Fantastic or nothing.”Honestly? I deserved it. FSF

F.F.F.

In the early 90s, unemployment was my shadow. Loyal, broke, stubborn. With logic borrowed from a drunken gambler, I decided to start a business. How hard could it be? I'd never owned one, never planned to. My business skills matched my cash flow—zero. Still, I chose sandwiches.My business plan: bread from a bakery that believed baking was art, fillings from a deli with imported meats and cheeses no one could pronounce. Armed with a heat-sealed plastic bags, ice packs, and audacity, I marched into battle.Each dawn, stumbling in darkness, I loaded eskies with sandwiches priced like gold. My market research involved roaming Brisbane’s CBD, the Valley, and Spring Hill, selling style over substance to office workers with budgets bigger than sense. Astonishingly, they bought. Sandwiches flew off my ice packs faster than reason could catch up.Success arrived suddenly. Too suddenly. Soon, I had five sandwich routes, staffed by young women inexplicably content selling lunch. My empire, built on rye and salami, was as fragile as it was ridiculous.Then came the Melbourne Cup. And with it, destiny.The orders started early. "Can you do something special for the race?" they asked. "A catered lunch?" they said. I didn’t hesitate. I saw my moment. My magnum opus. The event that would take me from sandwich man to sandwich maestro. Visions danced in my head—linen-draped tables, platters arranged like Renaissance still-lifes, office workers gasping with joy as I delivered handcrafted lunches like edible symphonies.I poured everything into it. Bulk orders. Decorative flourishes. Extra napkins. Fruit skewers. Cheese cubes with little toothpicks. I imagined press coverage. Maybe a write-up. Maybe expansion. Maybe franchising. I didn’t sleep the night before. I was conducting an orchestra of bread and ambition.On Melbourne Cup morning, I stood over tables stacked high with food. It looked glorious. I believed. And then—it began to collapse.The scale was off. The timing worse. My team was small. Too small. There were no backup drivers. No buffer time. No contingency plan. Just me, a van, and an ever-growing mountain of sandwiches against a ticking clock. Orders backed up. Streets were jammed. Tears flowed. The city moved slow while I spiralled fast.We scrambled, flailing through deliveries like doomed marionettes. Some orders got there. Many didn’t. Most were late. Way too late. Customers fumed. Phones rang off the hook. My dream, once plated with garnish, wilted in the heat.By the next week, the dream was dead. Word spread. "He ruined our Cup lunch," they whispered, then shouted. Regulars vanished. Doors closed. "Two hours late," they spat. "Never again."I knew it was over. I knocked on café doors, selling off what remained. One café took pity, or saw profit, and bought the routes. I handed over the eskies. I walked away.Bruised. Embarrassed. A little wiser.Yet, walking away, I felt it shift. The thrill wasn’t the bread—it was the making, the spark. Maybe I’d try again. Not sandwiches. Maybe technology.Never bet your soul on sandwiches at the Cup. FSF

The Emperor of Rhye

As a child, the place choked me air thick with pollen and unwashed wool, heads sunk, ostrich-deep, in dust.Chores bloomed like weeds after a hard rain, no end to their grasping roots. My words were moths they swatted from their light, each question a spark they doused with frowns.No face echoed mine, no path led out. With excuses thin as frost, I fled to cities where streetlights erased the stars, believing distance could unmake me.I found my kin in the hum of crowded nights, and for years, forgot the weight of where I began.But time stacks stones on the chest, sleep a thief, pulse a drum without rest. On a rare return, the irony unfolds: here, of all places, I breathe. Sleep wraps me, soft as the childhood I never held.Beneath this unyielding soil, peace hums, a root I never knew.FSF

Beneath familiar soil

A boy, they say, is cleverhis fingers dance on keys, &nbsp;not to weave a thought, &nbsp;but to summon a ghost. &nbsp;ChatGPT pens his plea &nbsp;to Grandma for a screen, &nbsp;and the crowd erupts— &nbsp;digital palms slapping backs. &nbsp;*What a kid!* they cheer, &nbsp;as if he’s cracked the code &nbsp;to some new Eden. &nbsp; I blink, adrift on this pixel planet, &nbsp;where thinking is a relic, &nbsp;and writing—oh, writing— &nbsp;is just a prompt to skip. &nbsp;Research whispers: &nbsp;*Writing is thinking, child.* &nbsp;Analysis, synthesis, &nbsp;a mind stretching toward the stars. &nbsp;But this boy’s outsourced his voice, &nbsp;a ventriloquist act for algorithms, &nbsp;and the stage is empty. &nbsp; Narrative, they’ve found, &nbsp;builds bridges to hearts, &nbsp;empathy stitched in scribbled lines, &nbsp;a child’s messy truth. &nbsp;But what’s a note &nbsp;that’s never been felt? &nbsp;A rough copy of love, &nbsp;warmth without a pulse, &nbsp;an uncanny valley of emotion,where sentiment’s just code. &nbsp; The crowd claps on, &nbsp;a sinister squad of smiles, &nbsp;lauding a lobotomy dressed as progress. &nbsp;*Such efficiency!* they beam, &nbsp;as neurons dim, &nbsp;as struggle—sweet, jagged struggle— &nbsp;gets swapped for slick ease. &nbsp;Bandura’s ghost nods grimly: &nbsp;*Growth is born in the wrestle, not the win.* &nbsp; I’m no AI foe,I forge its steel myself. &nbsp;But I stand here, squinting, &nbsp;at a world gone hollow, &nbsp;where cleverness is a slot machine, &nbsp;and depth’s a glitch to patch. &nbsp;Camus leans in, absurdly calm: &nbsp;*It’s not the tool, it’s us—* &nbsp;clapping as we melt &nbsp;into bundles of buzzes, &nbsp;addicted to the offload, &nbsp;allergic to the fight. &nbsp; Are we raising simulations? &nbsp;Yes, and worse— &nbsp;we’re teaching them &nbsp;to be human is to be fast, &nbsp;to feel is to prompt, &nbsp;to live is to optimize &nbsp;for Grandma’s click. &nbsp; The trick with tech, &nbsp;as light screams past, &nbsp;is to dodge the dark it drags,the lie that speed is meaning, &nbsp;that delegation’s wise, &nbsp;that a child’s soul &nbsp;can be compressed &nbsp;to a string of ones and zeros. &nbsp; So I ask, &nbsp;on this Earth-turned-circuit: &nbsp;What are we becoming? &nbsp;A flicker on a screen, &nbsp;efficient, hollow, &nbsp;and gone.FSF

The Child as a Simulation

I lean against the Senior Common Room window, sixteen and already worn like an old shoe. The new kids looked small. Fresh haircuts, polished shoes, bags too heavy for their skinny frames. Jaguars and BMW’s lined the driveway like glossy beetles in the sun. Mothers leaned in for last hugs; fathers stood aloof, hands in pockets, nodding briskly. It looked familiar and strange all at once. I remembered my first day. Raw even after all these years. A jagged thing lodged in memory. Within a week, these kids would learn the hard truths. The welcoming speech about community, belonging, and lifelong friendship wouldn’t mention the food. Tasteless slop, cold mush, gravy that came in clots. It didn’t mention sleeping fourteen to a dorm, beds hard as tombstones. Didn’t hint about the Seniors prowling corridors after lights out, waiting like wolves for a whispered word or a stifled laugh. Just one muffled sound, and lights would blaze, voices roaring: "Who made that noise?" A fork in the road every night. Admit guilt, become a martyr. Seniors smiling as you held encyclopaedias, arms trembling against the wall. Cleaning shoe scuffs off basketball courts at 2 a.m., knees raw on freezing floor. Gargling shampoo till your throat burned. Or worse, silence. Everyone punished. A community united in fear, bonded by bruises and mutual suspicion. If you dobbed someone in, that poor bastard faced hell alone. Then the rest of the dorm taught you loyalty with fists and folded towels. Silence was safest. Every day of my first year repeated this quiet violence. Tougher boys waited at teatime, biscuits vanishing before you reached the trolley. Steak disappearing from your plate with a casual sneer. Survival meant choosing your response carefully. Run crying to mummy, and you’d leave disgraced. Tell teachers, branded forever as weak. Throw punches, risk broken bones and hospital visits. Or you could stay silent, stare them down, let your eyes say what your fists couldn’t. Stoicism as the ultimate currency. I watched the last car pull away, a mother waving frantically, a boy turning resolutely towards the stairs. Their faces were innocent, shadows lengthening under hesitant steps. They didn't yet know this place, didn’t yet understand its cold generosity.How they responded would carve their futures here. I hoped at least one would meet it with steel eyes. I watch the last kid trip on the stairs, bag spilling. He laughs it off, nervous. I turn from the window. My coffee’s cold. The house hums, waiting to swallow them whole.FSF

Steel Eyes

It started, as these things often do, with a calendar invite titled simply: “Catch-up.” No context. No agenda. Just Dan. Dan, who always seemed to lean back as if management were a reclining chair he’d earned in another life. Dan, who loved phrases like “circle back” and “boil the ocean” and “I’m just the ideas guy.” Which meant you would boil the ocean. And build the pot. And gather the wood. And if the ocean didn’t boil fast enough, he’d ask why you weren’t showing more initiative. I didn’t hate him. Not at first. He wore nice shoes and had the sort of jawline that HR seems to promote. But I did begin to notice how every success had his fingerprints on it only after it had stopped screaming. I remember the first time I thought, quietly, “I think I have to manage this man.” Not work with him. Not support him. Manage him. Like a skittish horse. Or an unmedicated uncle at Christmas. I didn’t say it aloud. I just began folding his ideas like paper cranes and flying them back to him with my fingerprints missing. I learned to nod in meetings, &nbsp;a monk in a Zen koan, while beneath the table my foot tapped out a Morse code of despair. I learned how to email him in a tone that said, “Of course this was your idea, Dan,” even when it wasn’t. Especially when it wasn’t. At night, I dreamt in PowerPoint. My therapist called it “mild adrenal fatigue.” I called it “Wednesday.” Some days, I imagined telling him the truth. Pulling him aside in the kitchen between a weak coffee and a stale muffin and saying, “You don’t lead this team. You orbit it. Like a lonely moon made of jargon.” But I never did. Because I needed the job. Because the team needed me. Because I’d read enough Greek tragedies to know the hero dies when he believes in fairness more than timing. Instead, I played the long game. I made him look good. I coached the juniors. I cleaned the messes he hadn’t noticed he’d made. And when he got promoted for “building a high-performing culture,” I smiled like a man watching a dog accept an Oscar. Eventually, I left. Quietly. No drama. Just a tidy folder called “handover” and a bottle of single malt on the desk. I didn’t look back. Except sometimes, in moments of weakness, I wonder if he ever knew. If some small part of him, drunk on attention and KPI glory, felt a tremor in the scaffold I built beneath his feet. Probably not. Dan was never one for introspection. But I imagine he noticed the silence when it came. The way his inbox stopped answering him before he’d asked. And maybe, in that silence, he heard my voice for the first time. Not loud. Not angry. Just tired. And done. FSF

F.S.F

Writing, Poems and Rants

F.F.F.

The Emperor of Rhye

Beneath familiar soil

The Child as a Simulation

Steel Eyes

The Art of Managing Dan