I’ve been back from the the US for a few days now so had time to run through some thoughts I’ve had on the place. This was, I think, my fourth time over in the states. Over the years I’ve been to the East Coast, the South, the Middle and, […]
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Interesting recently to see a revival in the ‘lost experts’ spiel in British politics. People lamenting the fact that experts are no longer respected/listened to in the political and social discourse. Which is bollocks, from what I can see. Not the bit about experts not being listened to, but the […]
While the writing piles up in a dark corner (one novel, one novella – both good to go sooner or later) I’ve been getting distracted by other, shiny objects. T-shirts especially as I’ve started releasing some of my own, original, hand drawn work on them. You can grab yourself one […]
Been a while since I posted anything up here. Been a while since I wrote anything in fact, anything worth sharing at any rate. Just over a year ago now I was in Nepal finishing up a novel. A novel which is currently squatting malignantly in the basement levels of […]
Journalism at the moment seems to be, in some quarters, at the height of its nihilistic pessimism. Social Media, routinely derided as a den of fake news, propaganda and echo chamber self-confirmation, is still undermining the traditional institutions of the news media. Local news, in print and other forms, continues […]
To be honest it generally feels a little futile to write about guns in the US. Every now and then I try to write articles or prose that in some way connects to tragic events in the world. I think it’s important to do so. All art should, in part […]
Another quick artist recommendation today – Najimir, a Lebanese artist whose forte is despair. Only a handful of lines and he does a great job of capturing a heavy-weight air of misery. Beautiful, but it’ll get under your skin. Anyway, you can find a load of his work on Instagram […]
I love Guilherme Kramer’s work. He was the first artist to actually stick in my culturally ignorant mind and his pictures inspired my biggest (and still growing) tattoo. Even my own idle attempts at drawing were triggered by a desire to match his stuff, although hopefully I’ve moved on a […]
Probably not much of a revelation to most this one. Mike Duncan’s excellent ‘History of Rome’ podcast has been around for years now, long enough for me to have run through it two or three times at least. The first time out of pure interest in the history but with […]
My recommendation for the day is the Athletico Mince podcast with Bob Mortimer and Andy Dawson. Mostly it’s two blokes talking absurd bollocks for a bit and then stopping, which is great really. If you’ve seen Bob doing stuff like Would I Lie To You? then you’ll know he can spin a […]