it won’t be easy
Two years ago today, a long-ago ex-lover of mine died.…
•memories•
oh no, not all this again
Watching the rise of transphobia in the media through 2020 has filled me with a sense of déjà vu. The arguments are all the same as homophobes used in the 1980s.…
the crashed motorcyclist test
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.…
where the story began
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.…
the map’s in your soul
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…
a history of chares
Following my map research last month, I grew increasingly interested in Newcastle's geography and how it came into being.…
je t'aime
Walking through Newcastle earlier this month I noticed this graffito. L'amour est partout où tu regardes.…
circling round
When I got a my first full-time job, at Birmingham University, it was the second time that I'd moved from northeast England to Birmingham, because I did my BSc at the same university.…
online social networking in the 1980s
Last week the Ironic Sans blog published an article about joining an online social network in 1998 with the passing comment that “many consider [sixdegrees.com] the first online social network”. Also this week, while googling for something else, I…
Newcastle revisited
Returning to Newcastle 25 years after living here has been a disorientating experience. Walking down familiar streets, there are unfamiliar absences and presences, and, which is even odder, buildings that I can see are new, but I can't for the life of me remember what was there before.…
adventures in social media
Today I travelled to Newcastle to start on my MA in Creative Writing. I don't really remember what it felt like to come here 29 years ago, to start my PhD.…
the centres cannot hold
I was interested to read a news story the other day warning that town centres could become ghost towns because experts have been warning that this was going to happen since the mid 1980s.…