2014 has been a strange year for music. I can’t quite put my finger on what it was precisely about the last 12 months that I found strange. In the main, I struggled to connect with many of the albums. There...
Some time ago, I was in a different place, far away from where I am now. I was in the far North East of the High Tibetan plateau in the back of a jeep with two of my best friends, a monk and a driver who sang when his heart...
Thom Yorke – Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes Words Tom Spooner Thom Yorke has just released an album. By ‘just’ I mean within the last few hours. It is available here as a BitTorrent download and costs just £3.68. It...
I have several animals in my zoo. There are big animals like giraffes, tigers, and pandas but also more modest ones like dogs and sheep. It is first and foremost an inclusive zoo. In order for an animal to be admitted to my zoo...
Today, I spent the morning lazing around in something of a fug, feeling the Internet slowly chew away at the best of me. Everyone is busy today except for me. There is nothing to do. The last huffs and puffs of a hurricane are...
One of my oft repeated phrases now is ‘I’m so busy’, followed by some qualifier like ‘flat out’, ‘full on’. Even saying these words deprives me of a few seconds when I could consider...
When passing through a country for a month or two, it is impossible to grasp the nuances of the culture. You don’t even scratch the surface. Your eyes and senses see what they recognise and refract it through a prism of...
I am moving house. Again. It happens all too often. As soon as I start to feel settled in a place, I am either struck with a sudden urge to up-sticks and travel or I find myself forced to move house. There is a familiar routine...
Mrs R. Adams was married. She had no children. She had flat feet, a fondness for éclairs and a hurried excitable laugh that sounded like a wren’s warble. She also had a weight in her and longed for it to be lifted. It...
I watched the market from the first floor of an empty restaurant. I watched traders unpack their wares on the roadside, laying brightly coloured objects in the dirt. I watched as the first customers shuffled in. I watched as the...