Blackness and swirling drunk dreams of conversations with people I’ve not seen or even thought about in ten years. Continue reading
Month: May 2017
When Labour Lose The Election
It’s the 9th of June and Labour have lost. Despite optimism in the polls as Labour support seemed to swell in the weeks leading up to the election, and a newfound audience in politicised young people, it was a Tory landslide. Continue reading
The Berlin Diaries – Birthday With My Weird Family
Hey hey I had the most brilliant birthday and I’ve got to tell you about it while it’s fresh now and before a single blip of it is lost in the dank recesses of my memory because it was all so wonderful and I don’t wanna forget any of it. No time for mincing words, come on come on come on, let’s GO! Continue reading
Drink, Play, Loathe: Day 7.5, Venice After Dark
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Drink, Play, Loathe: Day 7, Venice by Sunlight
It’s 11pm and my last night in Venice has been spent in the hostel bar, after a lonesome meal by the canal on a candlelit terrace, where the waiter felt sorry for me and gave me free wine, with a wink. I was extremely humbled and grateful until the bill came and I found I’d been given free wine but charged 4 euros for a glass of tap water. Bastardo.
I was hoping to meet the Toronto girls from yesterday and chill, but they’ve gone to the opera. I had a look at tickets and they were around 40 each, so no. Instead, I sat myself at a central table in the hostel bar and nursed a beer, my eyes roving around the bar for a friendly face. A group of Spaniards in animated chatter, no; a rabble of droopy eyed Englishmen all attempting to charm the same one American girl, no; a middle aged Chinese couple knotted up in each other on the sofa, no. So that’s the kind of evening it was to be, then. I began to unpack my bag with a sigh, reaching for Kafka, my most loyal friend of late; a twisted, morbid companion, but a companion nonetheless.
‘How’s it going, mate?’ Continue reading
Drink, Play, Loathe: Day 7, Venice by Sunlight
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Drink, Play, Loathe: Day 6, Venice by Moonlight
Got up early, quickly dressed and escaped the snoring, smelly dorm, and skipped breakfast; no time and no money anyway. I’d arrived in Venice under darkness, and stepping outside and seeing the city in the daylight was a true and rare joy, one of those moments in life where you actually stop and say ‘whoa’ out loud, even though there’s nobody around. I kicked through the hostel doors with a yawn and a stretch, and I was greeted by the bluest lazy waters, easy young skies in a cirrus haze, majestic old buildings and barnacle clinging docks. Oh fuck yes, what a day. Continue reading
Just A Haiku, and Maybe Some Advice
Friends are your lifeline
And you shouldn’t be afraid
To say you miss them
Travelling Back In Time To Break My Father’s Nose, or, The Weirdest Story I Have Ever Written
Do you think you could beat your father in a fight? What about when he was in his prime? My uncle asked this very question at my father’s birthday dinner last weekend, and my father, without a hint of irony or humour, gazed straight into my eyes and told me he would ‘massacre’ me, even now. He’s 59 years old with a hernia and a beer gut, I am 25. The hubris. This simply won’t stand. Something must be done.
I am going to break your nose, old man. Not now, not today, while you’re old and feeble and your best years are behind you. There’d be no satisfaction in that, there’d be no challenge. No, father, I’m going to go back to the 1980’s, I’m going to find you, and I’m going to make you wish I’d never been born. Continue reading
Drink, Play, Loathe: Day 6, Venice by Moonlight
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Drink, Play, Loathe: Day 5, Barce-Loner
Awoke alone and lay cosy in the dorm a while. Dragged myself to get ready, checked out and caught the bus across the city to Park Güell, as I wanted to catch the views in the midday sun. Entrance to the park’s centre is ticketed, and I was given a slot around midday. To kill time, I hiked up the hill behind the park and sat in the sun enjoying magnificent views of the city, it’s soft edge square blocks of rooftops and terraces, viridescent mountaintops beyond, and at the end of it all, sparkling ocean merging with the horizon. Continue reading
Companions – Short Story
I did my fly up and rinsed my hands in the sink. My paper hat was skew-whiff in the mirror. I took it off, parted my hair, repositioned it, then for the fifteenth time checked I hadn’t got any sauce on my shirt. I shook my hands dry as I turned, and through my own interminable bad luck I found myself flicking water over James Dean’s groin.
“Shit, sorry man,” I murmured as I bustled past.
“Ah, it’s nothin’,” he shrugged, undoing his belt and slinking past me into a cubicle. Continue reading