Scott Manley Hadley’s More Triumphant 2018

Lol. Remember when I used to hate my life?

For many years this blog was a catalogue of horrors, a scream into the ether, a terrifying series of confessional pieces about the need need need I felt for my skin to be peeled from my muscles and my face held down in a shit-filled toilet until I fucking choked. I used to hate myself, I used to hate where I lived, how I lived and how I felt trapped in a never-ending cycle that perpetuated my staying still and stuck. I had to wade through some proper psychological horrors in 2017 to get outta the funk I was in, but now – highly medicated but reasonably balanced – I am back, baby, and have absolutely without a doubt just had the best year of my life so far.

So strap in for some fucking positivity, because SCOTT MANLEY HADLEY HAD A FUCKING GOOD TIME FOR ONCE!!!

Here’s a countdown of the TOP reasons why 2018 was so fucking great for me, even though, obviously, the planet continued to spiral towards political and environmental collapse. But, if a middle class whiteboy can’t gleefully write poetry while the fucking world burns, then who the hell can???

REASON SIX:

BOOKS. I read a lot of, obvs, with some of my highlights including the following:

• A Spy in the House of Love by Anaïs Nin 
• Bear by Marian Engel
• The Bridge Over The Drina by Ivo Andrić
• Drunken Baker by Barney Farmer
• The Fat Black Woman’s Poems by Grace Nichols
• The Fear of Being Seen As White Losers by David Jackson
• The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
• I Am, I Am, I Am by Maggie O’Farrell
• I Love Dick by Chris Kraus
• Known and Strange Things by Teju Cole
• My Brother’s Husband by Gengoroh Tagame
• Pamper Me To Hell and Back by Hera Lindsay Bird
• Seven Terrors by Selvedin Advić
• So Far From God by Victoria Gonzalez Peña
• Street of Thieves by Mathias Enard
• Sursum Corda! The Collected Letters of Malcolm Lowry Volume One: 1926 – 46
• Takeaway by Tommy Hazard
• Tell Them of Battles, Kings and Elephants by Mathias Enard
• Walking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black by Cookie Mueller

REASON FIVE:

POETRY became my bag, lol, and also my book, Bad Boy Poet, which is available now from many good book stores and probably some shit ones, too. Order direct from the publisher, Open Pen, here.

REASON FOUR:

I left London, possibly for good, certainly for a while. I spent six months in Spain, hanging out with my beautiful dog in beautiful squares drinking beautiful cava. It was beautiful, and the cheap car I bought managed to just about hold out until it got us back to the UK for Christmas.

REASON THREE:

I had a LOT more writing published than ever before, including lots of dark, personal stuff that I’d been holding back for a few years, and also this cheeky piece on being bald for the Metro.

REASON TWO:

Done much much great romance with a much much great lady, 2018 has been much much great great in this regard. She’s great.

REASON NUMBER ONE:

I managed to fix the weird problem I had with my penis where my foreskin kept swelling up so it looked like a massive chapped lip. Basically, I was treating a mild bit of cockburn with a product that turned out to be absolutely terrible for my penis, so every time I applied more, the condition got worse, and thus I applied more and it got to the point where I couldn’t comfortably wear clothes for a couple of weeks. At this point I switched to medicinal moisturiser instead of the hippieish herbal remedy and the problem went away within days, which was a relief! My advice from 2018 is don’t put anything on your genitals that hasn’t already been successfully tested on someone else’s. Read that however you want.

So, that’s me: I’m off for an evening of fun with multiple dogs. Happy New Year, and I hope you all follow my example and:

• stay medicated if you need to be
• eat lots of vegetables
• follow your dreams
• stop listening to dickheads
• eat out less
• have a wonderful dog
• be in love.

If I was pessimistic, I’d be shouting that 2018 will always be the best year of my life. But I’m not going to say that, because I don’t believe it has to be: I had a great year, and I hope you did too. Here’s to many more, for everyone… except the dickheads, of course!

The year is dead! Long live the year!

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On November 14th 2018, I launched my first book, Bad Boy Poet, in the basement of Burley Fisher Books, Dalston. Here are some of the songs and poems I performed:

Order Bad Boy Poet from the publisher here.

Order Bad Boy Poet with free Worldwide Shipping from The Book Depository here.

Order Bad Boy Poet from Amazon/Waterstones/Hive/Foyles etc if you’d prefer.

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