A few weeks ago, I turned 23 and was affronted by the mildly alarming thought that it had been exactly five years since my eighteenth birthday. At the age of eighteen, opportunity and possibility seemed limitless. My five-year plan contained as many bullet-points as an entire biography. Buy a house. Write a book. Have children. Get married. Start a business. Go in a hot air balloon. A whole lifetime squeezed into a regimentally scheduled half-decade.
Read MoreOK, so it’s almost here. That time of year when many of us start to look at what we want to change, improve or what we are determined we’re no longer going to put up with or tolerate in our lives. Our New Year’s Resolutions.
Read MoreWhether it is perceived as a transformation or a tragedy or the beginning of a new journey, or sometimes even a liberation, the fact remains that Death is so mysterious and impenetrable that it's difficult to describe it adequately.
Read MoreI was called from next door where I’d been playing with my best friend, they were crowded around the end of the piano where the phone lived, a space opened up and I was enveloped inside it as the news was told. Dad was dead, drowned.
Read MoreAh, January. The grey, frayed no man’s land part of the year. It’s like a dejected child at the end of a party - bleary eyed, bloated and on a sugar crash. It is the Bounty of the months: slightly gristly and only enjoyed by psychopaths.
Read MoreOne of the most demeaning things that a woman in a Westernised society has to do is discreetly hide a tampon or sanitary towel in the sleeve of their shirt or the pocket of their trousers when on their period during working hours.
Read MoreThe only problem is that quite a few of the birth rate policies aren’t very funny. It would be nice to discuss increasing the birth rate without imagining an Atwoodian regime. This time, in the name of the nation, I’ve reinterpreted some government strategies for increasing birth rate to present some legitimate and well thought out alternatives.
Read MoreThe pressure to do well is everywhere - in magazines, on the TV, in emails - and with that pressure, there is cost. A cost that a lot of people can’t afford. So this year for your last minute Christmas presents, why not join me in spending less and making more?
Read MoreThe Conservative party had 6 times as many social media adverts as Labour by the later days of the campaign, but I don’t think I saw a single one. Is it really any wonder we’re confused about what happened when we didn’t even see most of it?
Read MoreThe worst people that want to do the worst things are now in a position to do them in the worst way. We might have just seen the end of any meaningfully left wing, parliamentary opposition, let alone government for years.
Read MoreAt 10pm on the twelfth of December I sat in front on my computer watching a BBC news live stream sobbing. This is not been the first time an exit poll has brought be to tears, I vividly remember 2015’s exit poll having similar effect, watching Iowa go Trump in 2016 and waking up earlier in the year to see that we have left the EU.
Read MoreOn a serious note though, all I’ve thought about since the exit poll announcement was this – how the fucking fuck are we here AGAIN?! Who in their right mind is voting for this Dickensian fever dream that’ve we’ve woken to?
Read MoreFor me, I’ve spent Christmas on a hospital ward as a teenager so I empathise with all the people who will be doing the same this year. The wonderful staff that come to work over Christmas do their best to make it manageable, but it’s indisputable that it isn’t the same as being at home with loved ones.
Read MoreI have a confession. I hate Christmas so much this year that I involuntarily flipped the birdy and muttered “fuck you” at the fairy lights. Thank god the kids were in the living room watching Youtube.
Read MoreI ended up, unexpectedly, travelling solo across Southeast Asia this year. At first I was completely terrified. As I sat in Cairns airport in Australia about to fly to the Philippines on my own, part of me thought that I should just fly home. But thank god I didn’t..
Read MoreIf I had never orgasmed through penetrative sex, and none of my friends had either, and the internet was corroborating my story too, then HOW ON EARTH did every man in the world think his partner came during sex? In fact, how did EVERY woman think that she should cum during sex?!?!!
Read MoreMy oldest, Leo, is autistic; I am his registered carer. I haven’t come across many parents of autistic children admitting that parenting is boring, stifling and terrifying online. Apparently, we are all blessed with special children by God because we are special parents. We are stoical in our “suffering”.
Read MoreWe all know that Christmas can evoke so many emotions. Joy. Excitement. Love. Fun, laughter, sharing and caring. Time off work, food and frivolities and family and friends. But there can also be sadness, grief, loneliness and loss which often need a look-in.
Read MoreAs we lurch towards 2020, it seems that if aliens do indeed invade, there are far worse things on the horizon that should be feared. That is, of course, if that horizon isn’t already underwater. As the devil says in Angel Heart, ‘the future is not what it used to be’. We have exchanged one possible future for another, and this time there is a strictly no-returns policy.
Read MoreThat very question just sums it up and it’s been on my mind for a while now. I was very lucky that after graduating, the stereotypical life plan fell into place for me; graduating, getting a job, getting a flat, getting a fella but despite all of this, I do still feel slightly lost as to where to put my energy next. I tried the house decorating thing, but when your living room starts looking like a display room from IKEA, it’s clear that interior design is not your forte
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