I’ve been consuming a lot of media recently about the 1960s. It wasn’t on purpose – it just sort of happened. It started a few weeks ago when I went to visit Vic in Bristol for a summery nostalgic weekend and on the way there on the three-hour bus I listened to a song in my headphones – I forget what it was exactly, maybe She’s So Heavy or Her Majesty or something – but it was a Beatles song, and I decided to look it up on Wikipedia.
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London | A Walk To Brixton Station
Open the door. Look down: see the ginger cat with sky-blue blue collar who makes a bed of the planter by the front step. She flees, hissing, down the garden path – follow her but watch your hair; the thorny arms of the rose bush are overgrown and reach overhead in a long arch. The postman caught his forehead on one last week and gave me a telling off, which I was determined not to feel guilty about because A) it’s not my fault that plants grow and B) he should watch where he’s going.
Continue readingLondon | Darth Vader Freaking Out in Hawaii
Thought I’d switch it up a bit – something new. I tutor a nine-year-old boy from China, now living in Melbourne, Australia. Every week we read a few pages of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, because he is really into magical adventure stories and he’d never heard of Narnia. He speaks English at a level that’s close to native but his parents want me to help him with his writing.
Continue readingLondon | Philosophy Class
I must write something or I’ll explode. I have written articles yesterday and the day before and deleted them – rather uncinematic, I admit, if I had a typewriter I’d at least have had the satisfaction of ripping out the shite I’d typed, scrunching it up and hurling it into a little iron basket – and I’d determined to make something today, right now, even if it’s shit and meandering, whatever, whatever, fuck you, fuck me.
Continue readingLondon | Crimped
I do not remember the last thing I wrote about on here. And I will not check! There doesn’t have to be any narrative consistency to these dairies. That’s not life! This is life! This! LOOK AT IT.
Alright I regret starting this article that way but I’m not going to delete it because that would mean I have to think of another intro and I just… don’t want to do that right now.
Continue readingLondon | Birthday Man
It was my birthday two days ago and I took the day off work to do nothing. It is not particularly rare that I do nothing, however it is exceedingly rare that I do nothing without suffering from monstrous guilt. The rules are different on birthdays, however: you can do whatever you want.
Continue readingLondon | Loonies at the Open Mic
Sitting in bed writing this, 8:52am, had a coffee and two slices of toast (one marmite, one honey), and the footsteps of my flatmates above through the creaky floorboards are so loud every morning it makes me want to throw a brick at the ceiling (if only I owned a brick). Why do two humans need to walk around so much: that is my first thought upon waking every day. Why do two humans need to pace back and forth eighteen times over the space of half an hour: tell me. Their bed is on one side of the room, their drawers are on the other. There is nothing else in the room. So: what is going on up there.
Continue readingLondon | Oh Just Chatting Away Really
I’ve started writing on my hand again – I used to do that when I was a teenager. I also did it in my early twenties. Then I stopped for a while. Not sure why I stopped – I just did. And now, at 31, the back of my left hand says ‘Call Vic’, because I need to call her, along with a hastily added ‘+ Dad’ underneath, because I need to call him too.
Continue readingLondon | Tubby, Or Not Tubby
I continue my slow, sensual crip walk into eccentricity. I’m certainly going through a bit of a ‘phase’, but I’m not really sure how to define it. I’m just sort of… exploring things. Finding new pursuits.
Continue readingA Sliver of Book, A Side of Chatter
Alright. Let us begin with:
The Siege of Pugglemunt, Chapter Seventeen: An Excerpt
They had crested the horizon: the view was clear from the Magic Tower. In one great, rippling, flesh-and-leather coloured mass, the dark horde was approaching from the west, moving fast across the fields surrounding Pugglemunt. Thin plumes of black smoke went up from every home and hovel they rode past. I was glad I’d given the order to summon all surrounding villagers to the keep. Actually, hang on a second—
“Quince, did I give the order to summon all surrounding villagers to the keep?”
“No, my liege.”
“Oh GOD. SHIT.”
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