India: The Peacock

Aaaand I’m still in Goa!

Yeah, pretty much as I planned and anticipated, Goa has been a little holiday within a holiday – hence the lack of writing. I’ve not been doing much in the way of exploring or learning. I stayed at Jungle hostel in Vagator for a total of ten nights, which was probably a little excessive but a lot of fun, and have now journeyed a couple of hours south to Palolem, South Goa, which I keep mistakenly calling Paloma, or Palooem, or Palooloo, because I’m thick. Continue reading

India: Goan Whirpool

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I’ve had the time of my life and I’m filled with both the desperate longing for it to continue and the bittersweet reality that it’s almost over. Goa has been wonderful to me. It took me a few days to adjust to the humidity and for the guilt over doing nothing all day to abate, but after one week here I feel at home. Continue reading

India: The Hellbus

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My fourth day in Udaipur was spent doing glorious beautiful wonderful nothing. Two weeks into my trip, and I was feeling exhausted. Heat and booze and a constant flurry of new faces and the ever-looming dread of food poisoning, which has ravaged literally every single person I’ve met bar me, all conspire to leave me absolutely knackered. I spent a half hour in the morning doing yoga on the rooftop with Sandeep, and then happily committed myself to a blissful day of fuck all. Continue reading

India: The Cleanest Lake in Rajasthan, Honest

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I’m writing these a few days behind, so some days are a little trickier to recall. However, as far as memory serves, I spent most of my second morning in Udaipur doing very little, apart from nursing a hangover on the terrace. As time has gone on I’ve found exhaustion setting in; I’ve gotten lazier and lazier in the intense heat, and when you’re shattered in the first place, it quickly becomes a huge task to simply get up, get dressed, and leave the relative serenity of the hostel for the rapture of the streets. Continue reading

The Berlin Dairies – Time’s Almost Up

minimalism-1519045758340-3448It’s the 19th of February, and these dairies have been running on for 18 months now. They’ve become less frequent, sure, partly because I’ve got used to life in the city and therefore am less inspired to write a 3000 word dirge fresh off the heels of yet another evening’s ketamine and kebab consumption, and also partly because I have, through no fault of my own (honest) been drunk a LOT. We’re not talking Oliver Reed or Shane MacGowan levels of astoundingly ever-twatted, there’s no need to worry, but certainly enough booze quaffed over a 6 month period to reopen Bärenquell Brauerei for a long weekend. Continue reading

2009

Look at these kids here. I was 13 years old. I first got their album on a pirate CD with ‘Arctic Monkeys pre album’ scrawled on it in black marker, and half the songs on it were recorded live in noisy bars. I always get caught up  and sad watching videos of bands and shows and old sunny concerts, and I suppose this is what getting older feels like, and I suppose it’ll only accelerate. Continue reading

The Berlin Diaries – Seven Weeks Left

Fifty one. Fifty one days is all that remains of Berlin. I ain’t coming back here once I leave, you can’t do that. I’ll never live in Newcastle again, never Sheffield, never Berlin. Happy memories in all, of course – and that’s the way I want to keep it. If you meddle too much with the cheerful snapshots that crowd your mind, you risk tarnishing them with your greasy daft fingerprints. Continue reading

How Many Resolutions Did Dan Fail in 2017?

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A year ago I wrote an article titled ‘A List of Shit I’m Going to Do This Year Unless the World Ends, Which It Probably Will, Because Donald Trump is a Moron’. If you would care to join me now, I am rather curious to revisit this list and assess how well I performed over the past 12 months. Of course, there’s every chance you couldn’t physically care less about my personal goals and ambitions, and that is fine. Good day to you. To anybody still reading, let’s creep our peepers over the bafflingly long and wildly optimistic list I made, one year ago today… Continue reading