Essays
beardogbears
Around here real and imaginary characters are shockingly always crossing paths. Diane Williams – ‘How Much Did You...
No Respect
I was ugly, very ugly. When I was born, the doctor smacked my mother. One night I came home. I figured, let my wife...
Vacant Possession
'Sometimes a disappearance can be more haunting than an apparition. Mark Fisher/k-punk - Nothing Happens....
Radio Gaga
ou have a lot of time on your hands as an only child and one thing I used to do was pull faces in...
Thoughtless
I do not have an inner voice. I found this out by reading about mind exercises designed to stop you thinking, I found...
Deface
hen you’ve finished Netflix it becomes necessary to adjust the viewing criteria. I generally...
Further to Outlandish
Some afterthoughts on the recent 'Onlandish Inlandish Outlandish' essayMy re-viewing of Soderbergh's ‘Solaris’ (2002)...
Outlandish Inlandish Onlandish
“He’ll never die – he costs too much.” I said this to myself but I was imagining that I was saying it to my daughters....
Flight & Fight
Some of the aeronautical terms used below can be examined in greater and probably more reliable detail by clicking on...
Mortem Post
An actor friend called Matthew Scurfield was a member of the repertory theatre company in Barrow-in-Furness. At one...
Undomain
David Lynch’s ‘Inland Empire’ (2006) is three hours and twelve minutes long. The first hour is inspiring, the next...
Over the Road
Between the ages of nine and eighteen I lived with my parents in a leafy road in a nice house and played with the kids...
The Problem with Everything
I'd never buy an autobiography by somebody I'd never heard of. Would you? Life's too short. It's bad enough starting...
Roger, Syd & the Batman – the Dark Night of Cool
This is the text of a talk I gave at Borders in Cambridge in October 2008, in the course of the weeklong 'The City...
Leaving It All Behind
The text below is extracted from a stab I made at an autobiography. The writing of this page-turner initially went...
What We Talk About
I posted this piece some time ago. I have linked it to a current post (09/06/09) in order to support a series of posts...
One with Everything
When I was eighteen I got hold of some oil paints and a piece of hardboard and tried to paint a picture of a dream I...
Leytonstone
Often I'll be going along and I'll find myself thinking about Leytonstone. Leytonstone is an area on the northern edge...
Very Birmingham
Birmingham pops into my mind all the time, unbidden. There are good reasons for this. In the early 70s we took Lumiere...
Self Expression
An article in the New Scientist (07/05/2006) draws attention to a curious development in the Galapagos. In the 1960s a...
Eruptives III
I am ten. My best friend is Simon Parker-Rhodes. Simon lives round the corner with his parents Frederick and Damaris...
Eruptives II
I was born in Cambridge in 1944 and left it in 1965. In my late teens, having read Jack Kerouac's 'On the Road', I...
Eruptives I
Among my fellow students at the Royal College of Art Film School in 1966 was a tall, reserved young man called Ian...
Meat Puppetry
This is an open-ended essay. It consists of a series of observations about a particular relationship but does not...
Essays
Comprising rumination, reminiscence, rue, the ribald.Some of these were written as stand-alones, some were...