A Long Weekend in Italy: Naples, Pompeii and Capri
Mount Vesuvius is big. It creaks over Naples from the southeast, with a threat made obvious by the fame ofContinue Reading
Category: Musings
On Not Publishing A Naked Picture of Myself Yesterday
Yesterday I took a naked photograph of myself – from behind – to use as the accompanying picture for myContinue Reading
Sectioned: A Life Interrupted by John O’Donoghue
Sectioned: A Life Interrupted is a recent memoir by John O’Donoghue, a man who spent his teens and twentiesContinue Reading
On Appreciating Graham Greene
I just reread Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair as it’s being discussed in a class I have this week.Continue Reading
On Going To The Football
Last Saturday I did something utterly unprecedented and attended a professional football match. It feels like it happened ages ago,Continue Reading
Review of 2013
A hip-hop review of the year now ending.
On The Stage
I had not been in front of an audience, on a stage, for several years until this week. Then, fromContinue Reading
The Atrocity Exhibition by JG Ballard
This is the first book I have ever read by JG Ballard. I haven’t read any of his famous ones,Continue Reading
On Coming Out As A Catholic
I’ve decided that from now on I am going to self-identify as a Catholic. A couple of days ago IContinue Reading
On Missing Linguistic Isolation
Something clicked in my head while I was away this Summer. I don’t know if it was something I ate,Continue Reading
On The Dotted Line: Signatures, Sobriety*, Schoolbooks & Shearing
So, I’ve been back in the UK for three weeks. What have I been up to? Where has the streamContinue Reading
Birthday Blog Post: You Ain’t Achieved Nothin’ Yet, OR Old Men, On The Road and Becoming an Old Man On The Road
Twenty five is not, in itself, a significant birthday. However, it does mean that one has distinctly reached an ageContinue Reading
Scott Manley Hadley, Queen of Carthage (It Reminds Me That It’s Not So Bad, It’s Not So Ba-ah-ad)*
Despite dandling no one on my lap, my time in Tunis (so far) has been a highspincycle of emotion. ThereContinue Reading
Of Mutability, Sad and Sand: Me Reading Jo Shapcott in the Sahara Desert as I Really Start To Feel The Loss Of The Anti-Depressants
I’m pretty certain, as I write this on the minibus back to Marrakech, that I have sand inside my anus.Continue Reading
On the Future of This Blog
Right. I am finally taking my own titular advice to heart and heading off for a little bit of living.Continue Reading
On Seeing A Man Who Looked Just Like A Gnome.
Earlier today I passed a man who looked just like a gnome. Minus the hat. He was hatless. And hairless.Continue Reading
On Walthamstow Market and Feeling the Best I’ve Felt In Fucking Ages
Pursuing bright green polyester with the intention of creating an amateur video effects lab, I got up and out ofContinue Reading
Folk Songs
A video of me performing some old songs. I’m considering gigging with my raps soon. Terrifying.
On Granta’s Best Young British Novelists 4
It’s not a book, so I shan’t provide a review as if it were one, but over the last fewContinue Reading
On Cocaine at the Hay-on-Wye Festival
I stumbled, heady on free cheese and Spanish lager, into a temporary toilet cubicle at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival, lockedContinue Reading
On The Fear That I May Be A Tragic Figure
Last night, on the way home from central London, I saw something that shook me up a little. Not somethingContinue Reading
Sad Man On A Beach
Please watch my new short film where, a la B. S. Johnson, I openly discuss the way I see theContinue Reading
On Today’s Self-Indulgent Recreational Activity
I have decided, mostly as a way of procrastinating before a) sending off my first novel to agents or b)Continue Reading
On My First Wrinkle
This week I have developed, or at the very least noticed, my first wrinkle. It is above and to theContinue Reading
On Janis Joplin
I discovered the music of Janis Joplin in the late Spring of my first year of university. I’d just spentContinue Reading
On Getting Things Done
I try to wake up at seven every morning in order to, before I go to my soul-numbing job, attemptContinue Reading
On Poor Time Management
I’m meant to be meeting someone at eight. In town. Which will take me approximately thirty minutes to get to.Continue Reading
On Toys For Old Men
An old man died in the house I currently live in. Although the smell has now dissipated, what remains isContinue Reading
On Baby Aubergines, Pubic Hair and Society’s Innate Pederasty
Sorry for being quiet. I’m about a third of the way through Haruki Murakami’s 1,200-or-so page, two volume epic 1Q84,Continue Reading
On Being Shamefully Moved By Bon Jovi
They play a radio in the office I work in. Which makes me feel like a builder. For the lastContinue Reading
On The Films of B.S. Johnson, mainly Fat Man On A Beach
I don’t feel – because I’m not – qualified to term my analysis of this collection of BS Johnson’s shortContinue Reading
On The Fear of Things I’ve Laughed Uproariously At Other People For In The Past Becoming Traits/Weaknesses I Display
It’s water in that glass. Hence the face. I’ve been drinking a lot of Port recently. This happened for threeContinue Reading
On Bleeding
Sat, supposedly insulated from the horrors of real life, writing the chorus of a hot new rap song, I noticedContinue Reading
On Being Good God-Damn Good-Looking
I recently cut my hair. Drastically. Cut fucking loads off. And I look much better for it. (You’re goddamn right,Continue Reading
On Killing Oneself in the Workplace
Sat at my desk at work, barely a minute (or at the very most two or three) goes by withoutContinue Reading
On Coaches and Trains
I’m writing this on a coach. I know. How embarrassing. I’m failing to read Kerouac by the insufficient, electric, light,Continue Reading
On The Overwhelming Sadness I Felt My Last Morning In Rome
Sat in the central courtyard, Michelangelo’s Cloister, of the National Museum of Rome, I was filled with an immense andContinue Reading
On Being Back In England
It’s cold. It’s raining. I feel ill and exhausted. And I have to go to a job in the morning.Continue Reading
On Ancient Rome
The Roman Forum is fantastic. Eerie, elegant, a little bit scary… Despite being full of other tourists and located inContinue Reading
on euro food culture
I’m in Rome. And a bit pissed*. Earlier today I was served lunch in a small Tuscan-Umbrian border town (Chiusi)Continue Reading
On The Phrase “I Want To Pump You Full Of Spunk”
I don’t believe there is a man alive who hasn’t said, thought, heard, written or read the phrase “I wantContinue Reading
On Things That Do Impress Me (Much)
A few days ago, as part of my scathing review of Charles Mingus’ Beneath The Underdog, I mentioned that IContinue Reading
On Santa Croce With No Baedeker
Rather lamely, Florence is probably the non-British city I know best. It’s full of beautiful, wonderful buildings, sculptures and paintings,Continue Reading
On Daniel Craig as James Bond on Roofs
I was up a tower in Siena this afternoon and was gifted this beautiful view of the red-tiled roofs ofContinue Reading
On the rolling hills of Tuscany
I’m spending a short spell off Shit Island*, which is always pleasant. Even leaving it to be in a countryContinue Reading
On Wee And On Toilet Humour
There’s a pun in that title. Particularly pertinent if you’re aware of my constant struggle to not be utterly tired,Continue Reading
On Dark Thoughts and Distracting Oneself From Them By Thoughts Of Adorable Animals
“Dark thoughts”. Everyone gets them. Some more than others. Some much more than others. I am plagued by – notContinue Reading
On The Lukewarm Critical Reception of The Book of Mormon
I saw The Book of Mormon when it was new. Before it was new, perhaps. I saw it in previews. SoContinue Reading
On The High End Contemporary Art Scene
This evening I went to an Art Show. A Contemporary Art Show. Get me. And I didn’t even take any smack.Continue Reading
On Masturbation As The Opening To A Relationship
There’s a story I remember being told as a teenager that has recently come back to me. It was aContinue Reading
Triumph Of The Now 