Latest Posts
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Unfinished and Inconclusive
I have been completely stumped writing this week’s blog. I started a few pieces but not finished one. They start off strong with heartfelt anecdotes, hyperbolic metaphors and sarcastic protestations before they drift and fizzle out. My blogs have found a structure of their own. They grew into a framework the way a toddler grows Continue reading
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What shall I do?
I find myself, a little too often, dreaming of a million other lives. Just earlier today I walked alongside the river and dreamed of a life where I do something creative and hands-on. In that life I have calluses on my hands from carving, nailing, painting and making something so original it doesn’t yet have Continue reading
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The devil appears in a red flame
I step out onto the street and it’s pitch black. The roads are empty and lamp light glows on the pavement. In my left hand I clutch an alarm with my fingers poised to pull the pin should anyone get too close. I’m aware of everything and everyone. I cross the road when figures approach. Continue reading
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Long happy shadows
The days are short and dark now. Compressed between them is a claustrophobic grey that lasts mere seconds before it’s night again. It’s always night or always going to be night. Night looms like an antagonist in a pantomime waiting for the crowd to jeer when they see it. At whatever point in the day Continue reading
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My Japanese Grandma
My Japanese grandma is eighty-four and still rides her bike, even though we tell her she really better not. She cycles even though it takes her just as long to bike as it does to walk. I’ve stood on her front steps and called out ‘kiotsukete ne‘ (be careful) only for it to land on Continue reading
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My legs ache from vigorously exercising my democratic right to vote
It’s exciting to pencil an X in a box. Whenever I vote I usually feel a good swing of momentum before. I like to look up the candidates and unintentionally scoff at the SDP’s ‘Stand Up to Woke’ campaign and then chuckle along to the anti-ULEZ and anti-LTN proposals from Howard at Reform UK. Consistently Continue reading
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Name one thing worse than British lads on holiday — I’ll wait.
It’s nighttime. A group of English lads wearing button-downs and too-tight white trousers stand in a clump. They slosh their pints and yell. They smoke and chuck the butts in the centre of the circle. We are to understand that they are ‘real men’. One of them breaks free heading for the bar and almost Continue reading
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We were lied to: smoking is cool
When I was a teenager at school, it was only the cool girls who smoked. They would go behind the huts that were built on the playground that were never removed nor replaced with sturdier structures despite always being referred to as ‘temporary’. If you were not cool, you knew not to go behind them. Continue reading
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Blog Rebrand — Now that’s a good pants occasion.
The other day I woke up feeling groggy and gross. I knew my work day would be frantic and I was dreading it. As I left my room, I cast a longing glance over my shoulder to my bed and thought, ‘I can’t wait to be back with you again’, as if I were a Continue reading
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Frontal lobe here I come
It’s my sister’s birthday this week! She is turning twenty-six and I can hardly believe it. She’s now saddled herself on the late side of her twenties and to celebrate I made a carrot cake. Gone are the birthday cakes of childhood and adolescence with Kit Kats stuck to the rim and a ball pit Continue reading
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