I Intended This One To Be A ‘Year In Review’ Type Thing, But I Immediately Got Carried Away Talking About How Much I Love Teaching

Because I don’t have any better ideas, I’ll begin by describing the room I am in. It is a bedroom. It is a bedroom in my mum and stepdad’s house, in Bardsey, in Leeds, in Yorkshire, in England. It wasn’t always mine, this room: it used to be Charlie’s, back when he was finishing Sixth Form and I was away gallivanting. For many years, I had no permanent room in this house. That’s changed now: this room is largely considered to be “Dan’s’ room”, because for the last year or so I’ve been living in it. Nice to have a room.

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AK ’23 | Dr Knobhead, I Presume?

First thing she did was ruffle my hair, that incorrigible Yankee dickhead. I’d been extra careful that morning to get it just right. Now I was a mop-end scarecrow once again, angel-pube loofa head. God damn. I’d been thinking about how cool my entrance would be all the way there: I’d sweep up beside her, unseen, and I’d mutter some obscure literary reference, some fantastic quippy masterclass in British understatement – but no. She ruffled my hair, and after a year apart the first thing that escaped my mouth was something like:

“Dick!”

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At Home | More Scheming, Less Steaming

You wouldn’t know it – I mean, how could you know it – but I write these diaries all the time. I just never publish them. What usually happens is that I begin doing some other thing, like working or reading a book, and at that instant I am struck by inspiration, and I throw everything aside and sit down and hammer out 2000 words in an insane blur that I barely even remember. Then I sit back and crack my knuckles and read what I’ve written, and while I read my jaw gently slackens, until finally I think ‘nobody must ever discover how shit a writer I am, how inane, how poundingly mediocre my thoughts are’ and I delete them all in an orgasm of self-loathing.

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At Home | The Big 3-0

Wag’wan.

Only got 30 minutes to write this before my next class starts. I’ve been working like a nutter for the last two months, teaching English, and on the side I’m trying to get my novel published – editing it, sending it to folks – and I’m also trying to get in shape, and I’m also trying to do social life stuff, and I’m also trying to eat a balanced healthy diet, and I’m also trying to get enough sleep, and—

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Why I’m Voting For Labour

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This post has been created specifically for my family and friends, a select few of whom I will be sending it to prior to the election. The intention isn’t to be argumentative, or to be disruptive, not at all; I am writing this article because I passionately believe in Labour, and if the country goes to the polls tomorrow and I haven’t done everything in my power to gain votes for the party I believe in so strongly, I won’t forgive myself. So let’s get into it. Continue reading

On Jeremy Corbyn and Leadership

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This post is not travelling related, but listen: shut up. This post is about politics, it is about ideologies, and it is about bravery.

The UK will have a general election on the 8th of June. Current polls have Labour some 20 points behind the Tories. If nothing changes in the next six weeks, Labour are set to take a pasting, Corbyn will be savaged, and a triumphant Right will cheer the fall of left wing politics across the Western world. Because, you know, the idea of affordable housing and fair pay for nurses is fucking nightmarish. Continue reading