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Mar 23, 2012 • Girl Power Originally published in the Sunday Telegraph, photography by Spencer Murphy We’ve been speaking barely ten minutes when Sarah Bridges shifts her enormous upper body in the dollhouse dimensions of her chair and clocks a young man, kit bag in hand, framed in the doorway of the Dartford pub she runs with her husband...
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Feb 25, 2012 • Congregation Originally published in Quart, photography by Edgar Martins I had no idea how they had arrived, or how long they had been there, but they ranged around that icy plain in pairs and small parties, the snow-shrouded mountains rising dramatically on all sides. Some carried drinks, though I saw no waiters in attendance; some...
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Feb 23, 2012 • Operational Bass Originally published in the Stool Pigeon There’s an uneasy moment following my interview with Kode9 and the Spaceape when I realise I’ve left my dictaphone running on the mixing desk of the former’s south London studio. I return to his front door to find him standing there grinning, said apparatus in hand. “I...
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Jan 16, 2012 • The Good, The Bad And The Multiplex by Mark Kermode Originally published in the Navidson Record I once almost got into a punch-up at a press screening. I’d turned up less than a minute into the Mexican football comedy Rudo y Cursi and been pushed by a panicky usher into the diminutive theatre, which was...
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Jan 5, 2012 • Back To The Future Originally published in the Stool Pigeon There comes a point in any first airing of Kuedo’s debut Severant when the word ‘different’ becomes an inevitable descriptive crutch. Not different in the way you might condescendingly flatter your housemate’s curry omelettes, but different in the way literature students might refer to dislocated...
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Jan 2, 2012 • The Entertainer Originally published in the Stool Pigeon As first Glastonburys go, DJ Shadow’s appearance at Worthy Farm last month didn’t have the most auspicious build up. Not only was he performing at a John Peel stage ankle deep in the worst kind of slop – not only did his headline slot coincide with Friday...
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Jan 2, 2012 • Breaking Bangladesh Originally published in Huck At 4pm on my second day in Bangladesh I wake from a jet-lag slumber in a paint-peeling, fly-infested hotel room in Cox’s Bazar. I flip on export strength Indian MTV as I dress, marvelling at its garish adoption of western norms – the ads for skin-lightening creams, the reality...
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Jan 2, 2012 • Riders On The Red Sea Originally published in Time Out There’s something appropriate about our kiteboarding instructor’s nickname being Goose. It’s more than a mere facial resemblance – his beady eyes and broom moustache certainly recall Maverick’s dapper but ultimately doomed wingman in Top Gun, but it’s the tongue-in-cheek way he runs his watersports centre...
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Jan 1, 2012 • Nursery Rhyme Originally published in Hotshoe, photography by Vincent Fournier I’d been sorting through my parents’ loft for less than an hour when I stumbled on our old NannyBot nestled between a chest of Christmas decorations and a teetering pile of board games. I was there to shift boxes of legal documents belonging to my...
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Jan 1, 2012 • Pot Shots Originally published in the Stool Pigeon Like most habitual dope smokers, the only party I can recall from the last twenty years is the one at which I puffed my first ever joint. Even then the details are hazy: I remember the host, Jim Walsh, arm-wrestling his pretty blonde girlfriend over a surfboard....
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Cyrus
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Jan 1, 2012 • Last Days Originally published in Huck I’m supposed to be thinking about global warming, but right now all I’m seeing is her reflection in the full-length mirror, standing in her underwear and hooking a pair of earrings on for work, smiling back at me as I bury myself further beneath her covers. I’m supposed to...
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Jan 1, 2012 • Monolith Originally published in Hotshoe, photography by Antti Karvinen The online forecasts had steeled me for the lack of snow in the hills above Chamonix that winter; what I wasn’t prepared for was the sight of Holly Fox standing over the stove, sipping wine and stirring pots as I humped my bags into my friend...
