England’s loss

Like the person at the heart of a sad montage. The one who’s awake when everyone else is passed out around them, with bottles and cigarettes and torn one dollar bills strewn across the room. The one that lights a cigarette from the embers of last night’s fire, feeds vodka to the house plants before...

Saturday 1 February 2020. Afternoon

Some are happy, some are sad Some feel free, some feel trapped But all agree, that all has changed

End of British Summertime III

Time is running out. The day is getting shorter. I wake before my alarm before the light has come worrying that my contentment means that I am boring. The bickering of business the dialogue of democracy when what we need is action. People versus parliament planet versus profit. But I am bothering no one, why...

Wednesday 04 September 2019. Midday

On Sunday, it was the first day of the calendar autumn. On Monday, we booked our team Christmas dinner at work. (Since then I've also had Dean Martin's It Won't Cool Off from his Christmas album stuck in my head) On Tuesday, Parliament reconvened after its summer recess to new chaos and unprecedented divisions. On...

Friday 30 August 2019. Midday

Last night I finished the last page of my diary. Today is therefore time for a new page, a new book, a new start. Today twelve years ago, 30 August 2007, I set sail on a new journey. It was the date I moved to the United Kingdom. I was 19 and terrified with excitement....

Thursday 23 May 2019. Evening

What will proportionate representation bring? For me and for you, for mine and for yours. I've hopes and I've fears and I've only one vote, cast like the Ring into Mount Doom to melt into others and become something else to dissolve and lose shape and its power. For only in hand does it mean...

Friday 29 March 2019. Evening

Too early I wake up from a dream about the end of the world. In the kitchen I open my laptop to research new places to live. £600 for a room in shared house, all bills excluded. From home I cycle to work, one of the most prestigious and richest institutions in the world, where...

Saturday 23 March 2019. Morning

An Uncle and Auntie are visiting from Sweden. We stayed with them in January before the funeral, now they've come for a Cambridge weekend. We will go punting and visit Kettle's Yard and the colleges. We will not go to London. Family time is important this weekend. Last week, while I was on holiday in...

Unity

The minutes are ticking closer to the vote in the House of Commons on the Withdrawal Agreement for the UK's terms on exiting the European Union, also known as the Brexit vote. The result is already predicted; it's the aftermath of that which will potentially enormous consequences for the people living in these isles, myself...

Monday 10 December 2018. Night-morning

It's one of those nights where the tiredness can't defeat the adrenaline fuelled energy of my thoughts, and send me to sleep. Christmas songs spin on repeat and I think about my writing. What to write tomorrow, and whether what I wrote yesterday was good enough. My best writing always comes in that Aurora-state between...