Writing on the wall
I have mixed feelings about graffiti. Sometimes it can be quite clever (though rarely as clever as it thinks it is), sometimes it can be quite beautiful, and sometimes it…
Sunday afternoon freelancing
It’s always nice to have some company.
Pitta pocket pizzas
My latest cookstrip is out, once again drawn from a recipe by the jerky king, Derek Wright. And as a bonus, Leona Smith at The Scout Association has made it…
Emerging from the tunnels
Eleven years in London, and it never loses its potential to surprise me. Last Saturday, I was returning mid-afternoon from a conference at the Gatwick Hilton. I had singularly failed…
Esio Trot
This summer, I bade farewell to my twenties. They were largely squandered, but I think I enjoyed the squandered bits more than the rest, so maybe I ought to re-evaluate…
Sensitive cover design
The other week I was reading My Friend the Mercenary by James Brabazon. It’s actually a very well-written and intelligent book about the practical and moral complexities of war reportage…
Knivsmed
I made a knife the other day. Speaking as a man who spends most of his life cranking out words, pictures, spreadsheets and diagrams that exist mostly on screens, it’s…
Modest beginnings of urban orchards
Sitting in my back yard on Sunday afternoon, engrossed in some freelance proofreading and wrapped up in a jerkin against the incipient autumnal weather, I heard a loud thump. I…
Le Mans and the Nuit des Chimères
I spent the most recent bank holiday weekend in France. My old mate C was getting hitched in a fairytale castle in Pays de la Loire on the Friday, so…
Wingshooters
I’ve never really been a ‘gear’ sort of person. Generally when it comes to outdoorsy apparatus I tend to get something decent then use it year after year until it’s…
