Place, Parallax, and a Sense of Community | Article

In June 2022 the fountains in Nottingham’s Old Market Square were turned off after water was discovered leaking into an electrical control area below the mechanism. The water features were a draw for children and their families during hot weather, with youngsters playing in the pools and beneath the jets as shoppers trundled past. In December 2023, and with Nottingham City Council having effectively declared bankruptcy, the local authority confirmed that the features would be switched off permanently in an effort to save £30,000 per year. When I went to the city last year this was indeed the case; Nottingham Council House looked on sternly as the attractive stonework stayed bone-dry. The early morning square was desolate save for pigeons and shop workers walking to their places of employment.

Financial issues affecting town and city centre aesthetics is not unique to Nottingham. In July 2024 the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce said that the city centre was in need of ‘fresh life’, whilst Birmingham City Council’s bankruptcy has resulted in dirtier streets and threats to cultural heritage in England’s second city. In straightened financial times it is easy to understand why local authorities choose to cut seemingly frivolous spending first; after all, shouldn’t we prioritise services like social care and education over the maintenance of water features or ensuring that the facades of historic buildings are scrubbed clean?

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Excessive Dislike of Extraneous Noise | Article

After a long dalliance with the idea, I recently bought myself an antique typewriter on Ebay – a 1935 Remington Model 1. The purchase was somewhere between a harmless indulgence (my perspective) and a desperate reach for a threadbare writing stereotype (also my perspective). I will admit to daydreams of tinkering with the type mechanism, of slowly bringing the antique machinery to life, of clacking out short stories and articles a la Hemingway, freed from the tyrannical leash of internet-enabled smartphone or laptop.

The Remington duly arrived, all black and silver keys, pockmarked chrome, and decayed rubber – a true relic of pre-war administration. My nascent dreams of amateur tinkering were however soon under threat from a formidable supporting literature discussing carriage returns, ribbon spools, and platen knobs. I began to understand that this was a precision instrument, built in an era where precision, craftsmanship, and longevity mattered; it was not long before I concluded that the Remington Model 1 was far beyond my technical nous.

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The Scramble for Stories | Article

Everyone loves a good mystery. Where we used to gather around campfires, now we cluster around flatscreen televisions or curl up with our Kindles. Stories are how we approach liminal spaces within our psyches, with conjecture, narrative, and counter-narrative serving to titillate and inform.

Society’s appetite for stories is so overwhelming that we forget that their retelling is sometimes invasive. During the disappearance of Nicola Bulley near the River Wyre in January 2023, people flocked to the area to take selfies and to carry out their own investigations. Sky and ITV approached Bulley’s family after a body was found, despite their express wish for privacy[1].

It is tempting to link such exploitative behaviour and the prioritisation of story over protagonist to modern mediums such as TikTok and YouTube. However, long before electronic media made communicating a matter of moving our thumbs across mobile phones, stories were shared via word of mouth, over wirelesses, and in print.

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Writing Idiosyncrasies | Opinion

I’ve been rather scatter-gun with my blog posts of late. I’ve had to rearrange some ballast on deck, with more attention paid to my doctoral literature review (finally completed) and work. This temporary realignment has reminded me of how much I miss blogging. I’ve certainly engaged with the writing community, but it never feels quite the same when you’re not posting your own content – the only person circling at a party with nothing interesting to say. Continue reading “Writing Idiosyncrasies | Opinion” →

N33DL3SS THING5

As I get older and more curmudgeonly, I find that my list of things that unaccountably irritate me is growing. As such, I find it useful to explore these newfound prejudices. Why is it that the postman leaving rubber bands by my front door induces such apoplexy? Where has my teenage nonchalance gone when it comes to double parking or cold calling from PPI companies?

Today it is the turn of private registration plates. Why should the fact that someone wish to change an identification number on their car irritate me? Is it because I can’t justify the expense of changing my own VRM? Perhaps it is a sense of unworthiness; should I be offering to take the keys of the drivers of such vehicles? Running a shammy over the bonnet before handing it back to a tuxedo-clad punter after they’ve spent an evening at the craps table?

It occurs to me that there are four reasons one might choose to have a personalised number plate. These are listed below in decreasing order of acceptability to my prematurely-aged brain. Continue reading “N33DL3SS THING5” →

A Matter of National Insecurity

Recently there has been a furore over a scene, or more accurately lack of a scene, in the Neil Armstrong biopic ‘First Man’. Despite the American flag being shown on the surface of the moon, there is not (brace yourself here) a shot of the flag actually being planted into the lunar soil (I told you it was bad). Cue much gnashing of teeth on social media and spluttering indignation from several U.S. politicians. ‘…A terrible thing…’ bemoaned President Trump, whilst Senator Marco Rubio described the editing decision as ‘…total lunacy…’. It was an easy win for both men; they hoovered up votes on the right of their party, whilst offending a Hollywood which was overwhelmingly blue in the last election. Not being from that side of the pond, I decided to search for some controversy myself. I was unsuccessful. Continue reading “A Matter of National Insecurity” →

Why not? I’ll tell you why…

A little op-ed piece this morning…

It can be easy to become numb to the wackiness of the internet. Today, an unscientific trawl from my laptop reveals that not only has a widow been brought to tears after opening an envelope left by her late husband, but that someone started a rumour that Cardi B’s real name is “Cardigan Backyardigan”. Leaving aside the unsustainable level of background knowledge I would need for either of these stories to matter to me, I can think of no circumstances which would prompt me to snap at this click-bait. Continue reading “Why not? I’ll tell you why…” →