Category: Features

A tribute to every writer's best friend first published in The Guardian to mark the closure of UK's last manufacturer of typewriters: They say if you gave an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters, one would eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare. If you gave those same monkeys a laptop you'd… Continue reading Typewriters: An Illustrated Guide and a Debt of Thanks →

The Sixties sink into the abyss in Scorsese’s seminal concert film: It’s a common refrain of the serial gig-goer, particularly among those who were around in the 1960s and 70s: ‘you had to be there, maaaaan.’ Although probably nothing could match the experience of having a ticket to the Band’s legendary farewell concert on Thanksgiving… Continue reading The Last Waltz →

  IGUANA The Iguana is a truly noble lizard. Only lizards are truly noble, just as only man is truly brave and just as the bravest men are bullfighters. Juanito Bonjela was a fine bullfighter and a fine man. He was entertaining me in the Cafe Royal after an afternoon with the bulls in Salamanca.… Continue reading Items I Have Pushed Up My Bum – by Ernest Hemingway →

It’s up for debate whether the internet has made dating more like applying for a job or applying for a job more like dating, but nowadays both involve seeing something you like, putting a lot of thought into an application and then not receiving any response. But relationships, like jobs, are a necessary evil, and… Continue reading The Pessimist’s Guide to Online Dating →

  Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time? Are they a girl or a boy? Is their face bovine? Disfigured? Imprinted by the creases of a lifetime's humiliation? Their mouth. Is it an organ of emission without intellect? And their eyes? Are their eyes filled with tears? Or do they look on.… Continue reading A Game of Guess Who? with Samuel Beckett →

The city of Kingston Upon Hull is famous for three things: pattie butties, white telephone boxes and derelict buildings that burn down in mysterious circumstances.   It’s also home to a dialect that’s unusual even for Yorkshire. If you’re planning a visit to last year’s City of Culture, or you’re about to be sent to… Continue reading Boaking Heads – The HULL: ENGLISH Dictionary A-C →

January 2018   The final major work of Hull’s year as City of Culture had been an epic light installation called WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? It involved monstrous spotlights – the machines themselves like robot aliens hunched in the streets – which each night would shine on the architectural icons of the city… Continue reading Nothing is Happening Number One – There is a Mag-Lite that Never Goes Out →