I refuse to pay £12 a night for a room in India. It sounds ridiculous but it would be nearly twice the highest amount I’ve paid since arriving and I am a tight-arse. I am fully aware that at £12, the room I am in is by...
I am in an episode of Scooby Doo. It is evening. I am stood knee-deep in undergrowth, peering through chained railings. The gates that block my way are covered with rusty Keep Out signs. I am looking for a creepy gatekeeper to...
There is a child carrying a baby. The child cannot be more than five years old; the baby in her arms is not yet two. She asks me for money. Then she is running after me with the baby heavy and awkward in her arms, shouting:...
They Sell Sanctuary – Record Shopping in Delhi I have flicked with all the rhythmical fluency of a well-oiled machine through records right across the world. My fingers have shunted back and forth, part flick, part pull...
Words Tom Spooner An abridged version of this Crystal Antlers interview appeared in Spindle Magazine. It’s not easy being a band nowadays. The extravagant budgets and glamorous excesses of the 1970s are a distant memory as...
Drawn to the flap and free-fall of brightly coloured diamonds, I have wandered to the heart of the Old City on the day of the annual Jaipur Kite Festival. I have escaped a rooftop of drunken men who tugged violently at string...
I can smell the bootleg liquor on his breath, feel its effect on his hand that holds mine firmly but with fingers that push between my knuckles and dance up towards my wrist. He is dragging me across a sandy courtyard, surrounded...
Forget cheeky, monkeys in India are utter bastards. Plain and simple. On the Indian subcontinent, a constant battle wages between man and monkey. Neither man nor monkey appears particularly unhappy about the situation. It is...
In India cricket is a religion and children are its devout, slightly deranged, disciples. There is no space too small, no obstacle too big, no setting too inappropriate, no equipment too rudimentary – the game, as...
I love shirts. They are not just clothes to me. They are far more than a covering for my tin-ribs and sporadic chest hair. They exist way beyond the limits of cotton, buttons, and stitching in the very fabric of my soul. There...