Month: July 2020

I can tell the summer holidays are around the corner. This time of year feels like a fold in a page. Everything I’m doing feels like it can either be sacked off and carried over, or must be done immediately before I lose the thread entirely. There’s a natural break in the direction of my life at the moment and it’s eerily matching up with the end of term. 

I’m lethargic and I want to be anywhere but my desk. I am close to having a temper tantrum. I literally got up and had a nap in the middle of this sentence. We’re supposed to be easing back into some assemblance of normality but fundamental things have changed. The world continues to be a dangerous, unpredictable place. When my mum used to say “what is normal?” in a spooky voice I used to think it was cringey and annoying, but now that’s my constant state of being. There’s no normality and there’s nothing I can do about it.

 And I can look on the bright side too; I’ve managed to get a lot of other things done recently. But none of it is my actual job and as the weeks tick on and the days at the beginning of lockdown seem further away and more imaginary, I’m left wondering if I’ll ever have a normal week again. A normal sleeping pattern again. A steady income again.

Who knows? Sometimes all you can do to feel like you have a grasp on the situation is whinge about it. Thanks for letting me whinge at you. Now on to the good stuff:

Other Stuff

• Feeling all of the above? Try watching videos of massive forges and hydraulic presses. Makes me feel better anyway.

• This video on women smoking in cinema is really interesting and delves into the engineering of consent and the use of women’s liberation as a marketing campaign, the effects of which are still benefitting tobacco companies today.

• A conversation between a writer and a billionaire Wall Street guy. The bleakest thing I’ve read in ages, and I read a lot of bleak shit. There were a lot of comments under this online saying how pointless and awful it was for Max Abelson to be so passive, or even to have given this anonymous richo a platform in the first place. I think I was grateful to hear from a totally alien perspective, to read for myself how out of touch, ignorant and callous money can make a person. (Or were they always that way? Fascinating.)

• Shelter has been fighting for “No DSS” rental bans to be outlawed for years, and this week a judge ruled them against equality laws. Shelter genuinely do amazing work supporting people facing homelessness, fighting against corruption in housing and filing suits against disreputable landlords. If you are looking for a charity to support this month, I ask you to check them out.

• The magical story of a 4thC CE golden ring engraved with the Pagan goddess Venus found in a field in 1785.

• In the Guardian Life & Style section there is a Tree Of The Week column. I am very into this. And I particularly like this Welsh yew.

• Short story “Rule One” by Simon Stephenson read by Cel Spellman in aid of UNICEF.

• “An ode to Peckham on a Sunday evening when everyone has gone to Burgess Park”

• Is everything cake? By now, yes. I loved this investigation into the viral video of not-cakes that were actually cakes featuring writer and cordon bleu cook Olivia Potts.

• Support your local museum — buy a mask from their gift shop. And then for the love of god wear it. (There’re a lot of great links to online art exhibitions in this piece too, FYI)

• A beautiful piece on the self-made myth of Sun Ra, blackness and a search for identity by Namwali Serpell. “He’s the boy who cried wolf, he’s the wolf itself, he’s the shimmering go-between.”

• Culinary Backstreets is one of my favourite food sites on the internet, and its coverage of how cities are coming back from lockdown are really interesting and, even though I found them hard to read to start with, are actually quite uplifting. Here’s a great piece on how people are adapting Catalan culinary traditions in Barcelona rather than losing them altogether.

• Black Lives Matter is not over. Don’t let it fade. Here’s a list of petitions to sign.

• Mammoth Cave, the longest cave in the world, was first mapped by Stephen Bishop, one of the cave’s first tour guides and a slave. In 1972, computer programmer Patricia Crowther was the first person to cross the boundary between Flint Ridge and Mammorth Cave, proving its connection — something cavers had been trying to do for more than a century. It’s a fascinating read and then you also learn that her maps were coded into one of the first ever video games by her ex-husband. Oooh I LOVE reading about caving and this is a great story.

My Stuff

• I completed the first draft of my novel on Sunday. I think I’ve claimed this in error before — since then I added 25,000 words. I’m on with the first round of edits now. Only 159 A4 pages to go.

• Pre-order a copy of August’s edition of Counterpoint magazine and you’ll find me in there, writing a story about tarot cards.

• If you feel like buying me a pint, I always gratefully accept ko-fi tips. Especially since the pub is actually open now!

Stonehenge with the comet Neowise by Matthew Browne

It’s been a big week of personal change, and things are only going to get changier. It’s odd that everything in the world seems to be in flux at a time when so much is being shuffled and reset in my own life. It feels like a natural break in transmission. Like lockdown was a temporary power cut, and as the lights flicker back on I’m looking around and seeing faces doing the same, noticing the world again.

Over the weekend I went into the Yorkshire Dales to go camping and I was worried about how I’d react to unfamiliar open spaces after so long in the same landscape. When we reached Malham, I realised how much I had missed green hills and limestone. I could have hugged every walker we passed in bright waterproofs. I can see my countryside again. We stopped talking for a moment, having not shut up for an hour, no radio on. We were both choked up by the sight of the steep valley of Wharfedale, and the thought of being free.

How melodramatic.

Other Stuff

• A sensitive and interesting look at Virgina Woolf’s letters to Violet Dickinson in the context of our current situation by Kamran Javadizadeh. “From where I sit today and write, Virginia’s desire to leave behind a climate of illness, to get up and go away, to be transported to a future one can’t quite see—and which may not exist—feels familiar and intense.”

• The joy and clear admiration in Rebecca May Johnson’s voice when she recounts how Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party at the Brooklyn Museum changed her life and outlook is invigorating. Like being stood out in a stiff wind, or standing in a room full of music up as loud as it can go.

• Gay’s The Word bookshop are running a scheme where you can buy a copy of Gender Explorers for somebody else. Call 020 7278 7654 if you’d like to buy one as a donation. If you’d like a copy of the book but aren’t able to buy one at the moment, email gaystheword@gmail.com and they will send you a copy somebody else has purchased, subject to availability. (Remember to include your address in the email.)

• Rachel Hendry has created something really special with her off-the-cuff but deeply-felt weekly wine emails. J’Adore Le Plonk is the wine and culture newsletter that cuts through the shit to the truly joyful stuff that you didn’t know you needed. Here’s the full archive and signup link.

• I have said this before but Vittles is the fucking bomb. This week a newsletter contributed to by multiple writers focused on eating disorders and disordered eating, specifically during lockdown. Vital reading for anyone in the food and dining industry, difficult and relateable to many, important for everyone.

• Incarceratedly Yours is a zine created by artists incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison in California. This particular edition is about the worries and dangers posed by COVID-19 in the overstretched prison system, and asks why prison is seen as a suitable/functioning part of society in 2020. It’s a stunning piece of work that invites action as well as education. There’s a poem called Secret Ocean in it that really stopped me in my tracks.

• The Windrush Posters by Rianne Jones are now available to buy on her website. All proceeds will go to the Anchor Windrush campaign.

• Zinnebir, immortalised forever by Eoghan Walsh as the true beer of Brussels — “the Brussels people’s ale”. You can argue, but you’d be wrong.

• A profile and interview on Michaela Coel that’s so good I don’t know whether to be divinely inspired by her (and, fair play, the writer of the piece E. Alex Jung) or give up writing forever and move into a cave somewhere.

• I’m reading Boy Parts by Eliza Clark and it’s the first book I’ve picked up in ages that I can’t wait to get back to.

My Stuff

• I spoke to pro quizmasters about how to create the best pub quizzes so that I don’t have to answer who Henry VIII’s wives were in order ever again.

• I submitted some short stories to Unbound as a collection. Will let you know if I hear anything back.

• Tom and I are working on a very exciting project that I may be able to reveal more about in a couple of weeks. Before anyone “hilariously” asks, no, I’m not pregnant.

• Do you like vegan food? Follow Vegan MCR on Instagram, we are gonna be working on something together soon.

• Tonight I’m co-hosting a Graftwood Q+A for Manchester Cider Club. I’m worried I don’t actually have any decent cider to drink for it (my cupboards are bare and I forgot to put an order in! Sob!) but you should join us! Zoom link here. Starts at 7pm.

Zinnebir by James Albon

This weekend the pubs are opening. I know this, not because I read it in a paper or because I saw it on a sign pinned to the door of my local, but because it is the current constant ambient city street noise on Twitter. It’s a distant siren getting closer and closer. Soon the noise will get too loud to talk over and then it’ll just stop: the pubs will be open.

For sanity’s sake throughout this horrible few months of boring home imprisonment I’ve tried not to think about having a pint of Pride of Pendle with my friends and pubmates in the front room of the New Inn. But now I’m thinking about it, and I’m really looking forward to it. I really am. But it so happens that a friend and I booked a camping trip for this weekend, so I’m actually not going to be able to pop in for a ceremonial first-post-lockdown pint at my local. How fucking typical is that? 

I haven’t enjoyed drinking in the house. It’s not the same to chat over Zoom with a tinny. I’ve really missed being able to talk about things over a table of pints and a packet of quavers. Video calls feel forced, and I don’t ever want to say how I really feel. We’re keeping in touch and keeping each other’s heads above water. These conversations are not the place to set the world to rights. You can’t have a good-natured argument over the phone. Not easily anyway, and not while there are several horsemen of the apocalypse cantering overhead. So I will, despite being afraid to go outside and extremely nervous about catching a deadly virus, be going to the pub when I can and when I can be shown how safe it is. And I’m letting myself get a bit excited about that.

Other Stuff

• The microcosm garden in Geneva is where parts of CERN’s equipment now live in their retirement. 

• Joe Strummer made a radio show for the BBC in 1998 and you can listen to it here. I highly recommend it, especially if you love reggae, punk, world music, Latin jazz and maybe even some Berlin techno.

• Get your Pellicle shirt here. Be cool.

• “But plant roots can crack and buckle even concrete slabs.” Ruby Tandoh’s wonderful story of Esiah Levy’s life’s purpose as a gardener, and of seeds and migration and preservation.

• I have no tie to Chicago. I do seem to read about it fairly often though. This report on Blackbird restaurant closing forever due to the coronavirus was sad, all reports like it are, but one question in it stuck with me: “Are we even Chicago without Blackbird?” What would have to close near me to make me ask a similar question?

• Transform Harm is a really useful resource hub full of articles and information about important topics worth educating ourselves about and interrogating like abolition, transformative justice, carceral feminisms and community accountability.

• I have never been to the USA, but I do watch a lot of TV shows and listen to a lot of music. I’ve always wondered what a 40 was, so I gave in this week and Googled it, and found not one but two great articles about them.

• Something I’ve been coming to terms with recently is that my view of food has been unrealistically comfortable and rose-tinted. Articles like this one by Bettina Makalintal describe how narratives in food programming are overwhelmingly white, and that food does not, and cannot, and should not be allowed to be seen to transcend the political and social issues bound up within its production, preparation and distribution.

• How can food media work to improve and ultimately stamp out its racism? Cathy Erway for Grub Street has some solid ideas.

• Sandra Oh on bringing her characters’ ethnicities forward in the work she does (most recently Killing Eve) because nobody else is stepping up.

• “How To Know You’re Not Insane” is a difficult but essential read on how Nicholas Carter was gaslit and fired from his writing role at Cards Against Humanity, sectioned despite being healthy, and ultimately fired because he tried to speak up against racism within the company.

• A review of Underworld’s 1999 Glastonbury appearance, dictated over the phone while the writer was off his tits.

• I want to play this game very much. Hurry up and be released.

My Stuff

• I’ve spent this whole week trying to finish the first draft of my book (which I thought was finished but absolutely was not).

• I also entered two short story competitions this week. As always, thank you very much if you tipped me via ko-fi — this is how I paid for the (frankly, extortionate this time) entry fees.

• From the archives: Bread For All, And Cider Too — my interview with Dick and Cath, the Manchester real cider activists.

Joe Strummer running the London Marathon — Steve Rapport