Varanasi. It’s surely either the end of the world or the beginning. I can’t figure out which. Continue reading
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India: Life, One Second, No Life
I arrived in Bangalore/Bengaluru in the morning and passed a couple of nights there, but nothing of note happened except a nice picnic in the park, a rowdy bottomless cocktail drinking session, and a ‘ladies night’ which I was invited out on by three boozy Americans but ducked out of because I was shattered and day-drunk. It’s a nice enough city; not too hot, clean, expansive and brimming with shops, bars and restaurants, but I was jaded from the past few days and was perfectly happy to take it easy. Continue reading
India: Sleepless and Stoned
Don’t even know where to begin. I’m sitting in the living room of my hostel and it’s 30 degrees and my train to Agra leaves in a couple of hours, and I’m gunna have to go get a tuk tuk to the station because it’s impossible to walk anywhere in this city. Continue reading
Book Excerpt: The Wedding!
Hello you.
I am reluctant to publish too much of my book-in-waiting for fear that it would spoil the twists and turns of the story, but at the same time… fuck it. Continue reading
The Berlin Diaries – Robo Poetry
Here, right so: Dave is pretty smart. His head’ll swell if I say ‘really’ smart, so it’s just ‘pretty’. He loves maths and algorithms and all those things I hate. Dave likes to fuck around and make new little formulas, and his latest thing is a programme that analyses large examples of text, then rearranges it into new sentences. And he’s done it to my site.
And lo, below you will find the result: generated completely at random from the snowfall of daft old blog posts that make up this website, a few dozen barmy snippets of prose. They actually sound like me, which is weird. They make fuck all sense, of course, but they’re entertaining. Some are funny, some are bizarre, and some read like neo-noir science fiction haikus, which is pretty cool.
Give it a read – and try not to think about robots taking over and stealing all our jobs and whatnot. It probably won’t happen. It’s going to be fine. Everything will be fine. Continue reading
The Berlin Diaries – Spoken Word, Finally!
Oi you lot, guess what.
No wait, don’t guess, because there’s no point, because I’m going to tell you in around a hundred and fifty words’ time, and anyway you lack the means to actually respond to me beyond yelling at your laptop screen and, though it certainly tickles me to imagine you getting all red faced hollering at a small plastic oblong, in the end t’would be only a waste of both your time and mine, although I suppose I’ve already wasted my time by writing this – and wasted yours by making you read it – and so basically, what I really want to say is: I am deeply sorry for ever starting this sentence which is, to be frank, so lengthy as to be obscene, and I wouldn’t at all blame you if you logged off your computer right now and went for a lie down rather than read the rest of this god-forsaken shit-heap of an article. Continue reading
The Berlin Diaries – My Year in Music
I’ve just had a look at the Spotify playlist ‘Your Top Songs 2017’, which is a playlist unique to each listener, listing their 100 most listened to songs. It’s funny looking at it all now; you can really see where you’ve been. I love all of these songs so much. They capture everything. It’s been a brilliant, devastating, unforgettable year; simultaneously the worst and best of my life. So much heartbreak, so much joy, so much chaos and creativity and love.
I want to run through a few choice tracks and explain why they are so important. Continue reading
Holes in my Shoes
I’ve got holes in my shoes
And its autumn now so when I walk to work my socks get wet
I could buy more shoes but that’d cost money
And I don’t have too much of that. Continue reading
A Loss
I’ve been meaning to write this for weeks but I couldn’t find the words. Continue reading
The Berlin Diaries – The Eggs
Dave turned 23 last weekend. It was Friday night and I was three sheets to the wind, sitting cross legged on the floor of a colleague’s bedroom with a handful of workmates, listening to music and getting ready to head to some tropical-themed party across town. Dave called and told me to head to his flat, as everybody was there. He asked me to bring some drinks but the signal was bad; all I could really make out was that he wanted me to come over.
Continue reading