I know it’s been a while since I published a new writing post but with the next trilogy of Star Wars movies just around the corner and news that Harrison “Han Solo” Ford recently broke his ankle on set at Pinewood Studios in the UK, I couldn’t resist having a spot of fun with some…
The Enda Kenny Mask
I’m getting quite comfortable with Photoshop and Illustrator CS6, so I decided to get a bit satirical and political with it. Enda Kenny is an Irish Fine Gael politician, and has been the Taoiseach (Irish Prime-Minister) since March 2011. Fine Gael are a rather conservative group and are seen by many as being out-of-touch with…
Recent adventures with Adobe Illustrator
I recently started working with Adobe Illustrator and here’s my first attempt at image creating. I hope to get more adept with it in the future. It’s a massive amount of fun.
Une Generation Perdue
The house on Gunnersbury Park was the first place I lived in London and it was one of the filthiest and most unfortunate grub holes in the whole city. For a start, it was much too small for purpose. There were over 25 bodies under that roof and we only had 8 rooms between us – and that’s not…
50 word story – Untitled
And that time she fell, the care they took to get her up again. Those old bones are softer than chalk, they said, but they had held through harder times. With what that man had put her through, at least we were gentle when we lowered her into the ground.
Giving life the runaround
Of all the tortures to which an otherwise sane person could willingly submit themselves, there are few activities I dread and despise more than jogging. Everything about this most sadistic of ventures fills me with equal measures of distain and revulsion. And yet, as soon as I arrive home from work, I waste no time in…
Baked Beans
I just had one of my tweets featured on The Guardian’s Life & Style page, offering my own modest contribution to the otherwise rather unassuming business of cooking baked beans. Let me just say, straight off the bat, I love baked beans and I’m not alone; around 2.3 million tins of those beauties are consumed…
Karma For a Lapsed Veggie
Here’s the story. For the last several months, I have been eating a vegetarian diet, due in part to ethical interests (as I have outlined before), but also because I was looking for a challenge. With the exception of needing a few food supplements to replace the loss of certain minerals in my day-to-day food…
Don’t Grow Up
For the past few weeks, the weather in London has been – what the Irish would describe as – “desperate.” Making my way to the work, a few soggy mornings ago, I caught glance of this shop front and despite the soaked and depressing concrete grays of the city at this time of year, it…
Harry Potter, Famous Dads and Stoke Newington
After two-and-just-under-a-quarter years, I have finally bid farewell to my pokey box room flat in Acton, West London, and moved into an altogether different pokey box room in the bohemian neighbourhood of Stoke Newington, North East London. The move coincides with my recent finishing of David Foster Wallace’s magnum opus Infinite Jest (a book that has single…
Why Even Bother
Without trying to come across as too pompous – yet doing just that – I would like to share a section from the introduction to a “Condensation of Animal Farm” published by World Digest in January 1946 and in reference to the writings of George Orwell. It goes a little like this: (Mr Orwell) does not hesitate to criticize…
The Best Book I Never Read
Killing time while waiting for a friend the other day, I saw this book on sale in a West London charity shop. Though on sale at a bargain £1, I didn’t pick it up. Something I may regret for years to come. I did, however, take a snap of the front cover because it is…
A Bit of Political Rap
It’s no secret that I hold George Orwell’s writing in the highest of regard (this blog is named after a column that he wrote between 1943 and 1947 for the British left-wing newspaper Tribune). Over the last 2 years, I have read just about every word the man ever put to paper – as to be…
Chupa Chups
I just found out that the logo for Chupa Chups lollies was designed by Salvador Dali. I’m not sure exactly what can be done with this information but I had to share it.