Wandering around the shops today I saw a man walking very fast, carrying a bunch of red roses. Ah, Schmalentine’s Day. I’m a little envious of people who don’t have a fuck to give about this. I wish I could be so cold and unfeeling. I tend to go overboard with the paper heart bunting.... Continue Reading →
‘Hardly a Season for Daylight’ – reading Lanark by Alasdair Gray
I hated Glasgow for the first four years that I lived here. Before I moved, I’d been warned that it would rain interminably, but ‘the humour’ would make up for it. The city seemed to me (eighteen years old and fresh from the Highlands, as green as you get) just a big brawling mass without... Continue Reading →
Secret Style Icons No.5 & No.6: Thelma and Louise
‘I don’t ever remember feeling this awake’ – Thelma It starts the way all films should – two gals, a convertible and a loaded gun, off on a road trip together. They’ve got high-waisted jeans and enormous swaying hair. They’re getting away from hard work, boredom and Thelma’s cretin of a husband. What could possibly... Continue Reading →
Banned Books, Pseudonyms and a Secret Magazine
“Secrets, silent, stony, sit in the dark palaces of both our hearts: secrets weary of their tyranny: tyrants willing to be dethroned.” James Joyce, Ulysses Maybe it's a symptom of living in almost certain safety, to find the idea of banned books romantic. Imagine: the soft crackling of a paper bag containing a hard-back first... Continue Reading →
The Introvert’s Guide to Disappearing
Important Daily Activities: An Incomplete List Make coffee. Dress. Neglect to check mirror for errors made while dressing. Check Facebook, Instagram, What’s App, news websites and Twitter. Stare out of window at high rises. Feel tired. Download a Taylor Swift song. Arrive at work Attend meetings that go on for 56 hours Answer several million... Continue Reading →
The Friday Happy List: 30th January 2015
If ever a Friday needed a Happy List, it's Friday the 30th of January. One day I plan to gather all my feelings about this time of the year (acht, wretched January) into the introduction to the astonishingly brilliant, culturally significant, grammatically experimental book that I will write. This will not be a post-modern classic about... Continue Reading →
Islands and Books and Winter
In the winter of 2009, I spent four days in the dark windswept wilds of Shetland. Without any phone signal or internet, I was reduced to digging my book out of my bag. Luckily, that book was Lanark by Alistair Gray. It was just what was needed. It reminded me of the days when I... Continue Reading →
Happy New Year! Let’s Explore Space Together, Forever, in Peace
My resolutions for 2014 involved drawing on a moustache and starting a band called Our Collective Jungian Dream. I have achieved both. I also started riding a sweet 1970s bicycle, went to a piss-up in a brewery which was really well organised, wore some big jumpers, and got to know the best coffee roasting establishments... Continue Reading →
Winning Scotland Young Thinker of the Year 2014
Ah, the comfort zone. It is such a snuggly place to be. Things that are in my comfort zone: People I love Places I know Nice, familiar feelings, like Friday Happiness, and Cheese-on-Toast Rapture. Things that are not in my comfort zone: Plane travel Public speaking Rollercoasters* Sadly, the comfort zone is easily squished. Bad... Continue Reading →
Let’s Look at 1963: Glamour, Beauty, Housework, Chevrolets
I get all excited about Christmas. I start making plans around August. Oh, the snowball cocktails; the consensual glitterfication. I’ve been contemplating layering. How much merino is too much merino? Do patterns clash if there’s nobody there to see them? While I wait for everyone else to get interested, I went out today and found... Continue Reading →