When I learnt to drive, my dad taught me, in our slightly rusty Peugeot 304. Having moved back to the area where I grew up, I regularly drive along the road where I had my first ever driving lesson, so I’m often reminded of it.…
It's been a strange summer. It can't be the first year I haven't had a holiday, but it's the first year that a global pandemic has forced me to cancel my holiday and stay at home for month after month.…
The final hand-in deadline for my MA course is at the start of September, and effectively that will end my two years as a mature student. I enjoyed the classes, the cameraderie with classmates, and the access to university facilities,…
Time and space are important issues in the novel I’m writing. It’s mostly set in the early 80s, because there were a lot of things I remember that I wanted to write about. That’s not a problem at all.…
When I started my MA course in Creative Writing, I told a few people the story of how I started writing. I had an inspirational teacher at the age of 9, that's the shortest version.…
Interstitial spaces are defined by what they are between. They are non-places, between other, proper places. Here is one. between two walls (Hatton Gallery, Newcastle)In web design, an interstitial meant a “please wait” screen displayed to deter the user…
Yes, it's a post about the COVID-19 pandemic, because this year nobody is talking about anything else. But I've been holding off because the situation changes every day…
Down at the end, round by the corner, close to the edge, just by the river.…
I found this quotation about novel-writing from E.L. Doctorow and immediately liked it. It reminded me of a car journey I once made, when I was a PhD student. I needed to return to Newcastle, but there was a very heavy fog; I didn't realise how heavy, until I got out of town…
Following my map research last month, I grew increasingly interested in Newcastle's geography and how it came into being.…
I've written about my contributions to OpenStreetMap before. Surveying the ever-changing Newcastle Helix site for OSM, I noticed that part of Corporation Street no longer exists on the ground, bulldozed to make way for a new building that is just being started…
I've taken a lot of photos that I'm very happy with since updating my phone a year ago…