It's been a month or so since I updated my blog. It felt like a good time to go for it as I have been bitten once more by the writing bug. For April 2021, I will be attempting something stupid, a 90,000 word first draft of a novel that I am currently calling Death …
How Do You Feel?
Today is my birthday. For months, in lockdown, I've been working on an album, my fourth, and it seemed like today was as good a day as any to allow it to see the light of day. How Do You Feel? comprises of ten songs written over the last fifteen years. It's entirely possible that …
Feelgood, Inc.
This week, Mark Kermode covered feel-good films on his podcast. It got me thinking about the films that I turn to when the world is a little consistently too much. If you need an example of a time when that might have been the case, now would be a good time. I read elsewhere that …
Thank you, entertainment
It will come as no surprise that in the last ten months, I have been absorbing a lot of "media". I've taken not just to reading but also to listening to audiobooks through BorrowBox. I've got access to many streaming platforms. My Spotify Wrapped 2020 was an ungodly number of hours of podcasts and songs …
7 ways to leave your Shudder
This week, desperate to see the Zoom-based British horror film, Host, I took out a free seven day subscription for Shudder, Amazon Prime’s horror extension. Having already completed Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime in lockdown, I figured it would be a good idea to ween maximum content from the subscription before I cancelled so here …
A break from social media
Every January, I take a well deserved break from Twitter, Instagram and the housewives’ favourite, Facebook. I find I am compelled to take such a break because of how much of my time I spend (or waste) on there. I know I’ve been doing this for at least five years because the closest I’ve come …
My Music Jar 2020
As we hit the end of the year and try to work out how much better 2021 is going to be, I thought it would be a good opportunity to dwell some more on what happened last year. I undertook a project to listen to 52 artists that I hadn't taken the time with before. …
Music Jar – week 52
In this, the final week of the year, I have taken the final piece of paper from the pickle jar and have been joyfully listening to Childish Gambino, the performing name of Lando Calrissian Donald Glover. What I Knew BeforeIt's impossible not to know of Donald Glover, he's one of those incredible talents who transcends …
Music Jar – week 51
Each week, I take a name from a jar and listen to that artist, someone that I wasn't really into before but maybe should know more about. This week was a real Sophie's Choice, as I was down to my final two. It is time. Charli XCX, I choose you. What I Knew BeforeI had …
Music Jar – week 50
Each week, during this hell of a year, I take the name of an artist from a pickle jar on my bar caddy and try to ignore the different ways the world is falling apart and listen to their back catalog. This week was the turn of London-born singer-songwriter Anna Calvi. What I Knew BeforeI …
