Category: Uncategorized
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A lunchtime stroll around St James’s Park, Westminster
A writing exercise: a familiar location in 300 in words. Blue sky, bracing wind, biting cold, but a welcome rest from a computer screen, I’m in St James’s Park on a February lunchtime. This is a regular spot for me, be it a midday stroll or taking the scenic route home post-work. St James’s must…
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Ward 3A West
A piece originally submitted to the Anthology Magazine 2024 personal memoir competition…it didn’t win. The box I’m sat in is inside-out. Instead of labels stuck to the outside of this box, the information is recorded inside, in real-time. People come and go, but I won’t be leaving my box, not for six days. I’m grateful…
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Queen’s Wood: 51°34’55.2″N 0°08’34.8″W
Sat in a corner of Queen’s Wood is my favourite bench. It almost has a view, across a dip in the terrain, hemmed in by beech, oak and hornbeam, a wide swell of green. I shan’t tell you exactly which corner my bench sits in (and, no, it isn’t the coordinates you see above). The…
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This post is definitely not about Los Angeles
Or, what actually is it that I’m looking for when I visit somewhere? As I was resolutely not going to write about my visit to Los Angeles to see my brother and his better-half (now my sister-in law!), this post isn’t about Los Angeles. Firstly, it would be unfair to write about a city that…
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Frieze Sculpture ’23 @ Regent’s Park
One perfectly blue early-October afternoon, one man and his sketchbook took a trip to Regent’s Park to explore the 20th edition of the Frieze outdoor sculpture exhibition. Photogenic it may be, with its vibrant greens and occasional deep mauves, but being too manicured and twee Regent’s has never quite been my favourite of London’s Royal…
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‘What place has deeply affected you and why?’
A writing exercise in response to Condé Nast Traveller’s Future Travel 2023 competition (which I only came across after the submission deadline), which asked respondents to answer the question ‘what place has deeply affected you and why?’. There were many contenders for my answer: Colombia – too vast and no specific location; Krakow and Auschwitz –…
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Canary Wharf: a town full of rubber plans
If memory serves, my first encounter with Canary Wharf was via a TV appearance by Radiohead around 1995, Thom Yorke introducing ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ by informing the viewer that “this is a song about Canary Wharf”. It was the beginning of a near-30 year love of Radiohead and a simultaneous cynicism for that sterile corner…
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Thoughts on The White Ribbon
My first non-travel post. Maybe there’ll be others like it, maybe not. Some thoughts on Michael Haneke’s 2009 Palm d’Or winning film ‘The White Ribbon‘ (Das Weiße Band – Eine Deutsche Kindergeschichte), which I first watched at the cinema on its release, but recently revisited with post-Trump/Meloni/Orbán/whoever-on-the-nationalist-populist-right eyes. **Note that this may contain spoilers** “I…
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Bologna: the red and the ragù
When setting out to write about a visit to Bologna, the first decision that English writers are obliged to address is whether to embrace or ignore the standard clichés about Emilia-Romagna’s largest city. I normally detest clichés, but this time find them hard to resist from the get-go: colour, specifically red, is unavoidable here in…
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Ferrara: a tale of two families
On a gorgeous May Saturday, I take the Trenitalia Regionale from Bologna Centrale to Ferrara; an easy and affordable 30 minutes coasting through the verdant Emilia-Romagna countryside, horizon studded with the hallmarks of the region’s agricultural industry: this land is Bologna’s breadbasket, apt given that it is as flat as a piadina. Despite the perfect weather, the…
Tom the Curious: Ramblelogue 