It was Jose; my partner; who assured me that my mum and brother, the people who I wanted to please so much, would be happier with a large smile on my face rather than with a large house in the beach
Read More
Every time I pick up my phone or open my computer I am inundated with invitations to watch theatre online. From archives of shows I’ve been dying to see to play readings on Zoom, there seems to be something for everyone. As an avid theatre goer I should be reveling in the onslaught of content, right? So what’s the problem? It’s just not the same.
Read More
Covid 19: or how I stopped worrying and learned to love Zoom. As Zoom has been the flavour of the month for almost every month since time began (do you, reader, also yearn for the golden era before quizzes), we are spending an inordinately large amount of time staring vacantly into the little fishbowls of each other’s homes.
Read More
I’m not much of a traveller, in fact I’m quite an avid NON traveller. I don’t like to go in cars, I’ve never been on a plane, I’ve been abroad twice and both times were awful and very short. I’m just not cut out for it.
Read More
At the time of writing this, the world is mid-global pandemic. And yet, more than ever before, I am being bombarded with online content promoting weight loss, fitness challenges and body transformations. Without sounding boorish, do we not have slightly more pressing issues to be worrying about amidst this crisis than who can emerge from lockdown with peachier glutes, a smaller waist or a new personal best on their press ups?
Read More
We are experiencing unprecedented circumstances and the main priority of governments should be to prevent the virus from spreading. But what rights are we ready to give up in order to do that? What kind of planned actions would make us feel safe enough? What degree of trust and compliance can governments expect, and which decisions should be enforceable?
Read More
‘I think my phone is trying to take me down’, I thought to myself, paranoid, as I laid sprawled out on the floor staring at its screen from across my room. We were just together a few minutes ago, why is it already luring me in for round two? It seductively waves me over, winking and stroking my ego with all the ways it can fill my boredom.
Read More
There is plenty of anger here; plenty of intelligence; and enough understanding of our need for systemic change. Yet it seems to me that we’re whimpering, rather than shouting. We’re spitting on the glass and wiping it clean, rather than smashing it straight in. So I ask you: is revolution still possible here, and how would it look in 2020?
Read More
In the past three months, volunteering has been seen as something that each one of us can do, rather than an activity reserved only to ‘charitable’ souls. The pandemic has forced people to think about what community - big or small - they are a part of, and what they could do to help keep others safe.
Read More
The time stolen from them is now invested in me. It is my responsibility; no longer just mine to waste as I please; I must do something with it, use it for us. There is a real, working part inside me that does not belong to me. It has lived in someone else. It is rented, borrowed, robbed, a gift that was never intended to be mine.
Read More
Since the UK went into lockdown, and the world went crazy, it’s been difficult adjusting to the ‘new normal’. Some days I am the most productive, running 5k’s and baking banana bread, whilst other days it's a miracle I even leave my bed at all. On the days I am at my least productive, it is hard not to feel like I’m wasting time;
Read More
I started mine about 10 minutes before a group of my school friends & I were due to perform our very energetic dance at a rival school’s competition. I was not prepared and was ushered to the office in silence by a teacher I didn’t know and handed what can only be described as THE BIGGEST SANITARY PAD IN THE WORLD.
Read More
If I can get through this completely alone, with no distractions for the first time in my life, I can get through absolutely anything completely alone. And I will come out of this a better, stronger person. With a huge arse.
Read More
Prior to the lockdown I felt like I had been running on ice for months. Since finishing University, I had felt like I had been moving frantically in a desperate attempt to stay balanced, but I couldn’t find a way to step forwards in the direction I wanted to go in.
Read More
I loved my cap when I was younger. It wasn't any old cap but a Chicago Bulls cap circa 1992-3. And I considered it to be a lucky cap. Though you have to understand that for a 17 year old young man of colour, living in pre-gentrified East London was not always a breeze.
Read More
Our society has been built on the idea that time is linear, that we are constantly evolving and developing our ways of living and creating - however, Hauntology presents an alternative, that perhaps time is something less one-dimensional and in fact, the past, present and future are able to coexist through the acts of recycling and repetition.
Read More
When nurtured, these sensitive characters (often highly reactive when young, seen to present physical excitement at stimuli that warranted a mere smile in the future extroverts) are referred to as orkidebarn, or ‘Orchid Children’. People that if brought up in nurturing and guided environments will bloom into flowers of unusual beauty, especially if given greenhouse care.
Read More
After a short spell of illness which caused me to temporarily lose my appetite, I lost weight which as a result, and seemingly overnight, put an end to the negative abuse I received. Instead, I was greeted with comments like “Wow, don’t you look great?’”. I remember feeling seen and acceptable for the first time. I particularly remember a comment from a friend of my brothers who remarked that I was turning from an ‘ugly duckling into a swan’.
Read More
Taking a relaxed approach is no longer acceptable in my opinion. If we want a beautiful planet to explore, we’ve got to save it. Which may mean taking fewer flights and planning holidays closer to home. If you aren’t prepared to give up your long-haul lusting then why not try and ensure your journeys are as environmentally friendly as possible; making sure there are no stopovers is one option when travelling huge distances. Websites such as ‘Skyscanner’ do the work for you and highlight the green journeys.
Read More
Trump is a nasty human being. He is a racist, sexist, greedy, narcissistic, thin-skinned compulsive liar. What I could never understand, no matter what I read on voting patterns and voting incentives, was why anyone would vote for someone so obviously evil.
Read More