Is the real world ever known?Here it feels like I’m an exile who’s coming homeSo certain that something reminds meOf a place and time that were always in my dreams Blanco White, So Certain
I have the impression that some people enjoy being lied to. They seem to particularly like big lies which they can cling fast to, and help promulgate themselves, and dedicate their lives to with a zealous passion. I suppose that’s why they read newspapers published by billionaires, which tell them daily that the poor and …
Terrorist attack on Dover detention camp not being treated as terrorism, because… oh, I can’t be bothered to write this post. Just read the satirical one I wrote in 2007 and change the names: Act 1883.
Once more, I must recall: Hate no one, no matter how much they’ve wronged you. Live humbly, no matter how wealthy you become. Think positively, no matter how hard life is. Give much, even if you’ve been given little. Keep in touch with the ones who have forgotten you, and forgive the one who has …
Looking back at photos of myself in my late teens, and seeing what other people saw, I realise I was so stupid to believe in all I imagined to be true. I toy with sharing such an image so that others might see what I mean, but they are so horrendous for me that I …
It’s exhausting: this unrelenting conflict between brother and sister. Since the clocks have changed, I started work early, logging on before seven to plough through the emails accumulated during three days off work. A productive hour, before the kids came down. And then: Boom! The fights, the arguments, the insults… He winds her up. She …
I wonder if anyone remembers the television gifted by two strangers visiting from London, twenty years ago, lost in the maze of numerically named avenues. Who knows?
Guests depart, office returns. Pleasure departs, work descends.
One of the eternal mysteries of life… why are our kitchen cupboards jam packed with plastic containers, just in case? And how to broach this sensitive topic? Or has the time come for a surreptitious purge?
On reflection, there was so much my companions did for me in those early days, intent on smoothing the way for me. They facilitated my move from the my grotty flat opposite King’s Cross station to a flat share in an upmarket apartment in Waterloo. They attempted to fix my body by prescribing a personal …
I remember that day at university when my new Muslim friends clubbed together to buy me a smart long woollen coat, to replace the threadbare jacket I was found wearing. It must have been shortly after my testimony of faith, when they didn’t yet know me very well. It’s amusing to think of it now, …
My parents were just telling me about miraculously bumping into a close friend of theirs from church while out and about seventy-five miles from home. So we’re all walking that road, it seems, crossing paths, thinking to ourselves, “What is the chance of that?” So much for those reflections a year ago, thinking it impossible …
Caught in the act by our lad, scuppering a birthday surprise for his grannie. But this is nothing new. Years ago my wife and I were having a romantic weekend away. There we were enjoying a river cruise, passing beneath a bridge, when all of a sudden we heard from above. “Mummy, daddy!” There he …
Throughout my life, in understanding their actions towards me, I have projected assumed piety onto others. In my mind’s eye, I convince myself that their behaviour was justified, in upholding lofty principles or morals.
