clinging to the wreckage

  Walking through downtown Dallas, the light is a strange autumnal twilight, even at midday. It makes me feel pings of nostalgia and loneliness. My father, so many thousands of miles away, alone, struggles with admin (banking and medical documents and dealings). I speak to him daily and connect to do his banking and help with everything, but I sensed today a tremendous distance and silence. That autumn light and reflections from windows of an old man sauntering by really killed me. Once young and hopeful and a part of everything, suddenly older and greyer and apart from everything.                     Reading the news as I rest… they voted not to impeach Hegseth… they are obsessed with Stephen Miller. A French voice using French English grammar pops into my mind; ‘How can be?’ How is it possible that civilised adults voted against impeaching Hegseth? How is it possible that anyone in 2026 agre...

  A few nights before the election, I placed a ‘Gina for Texas’ sign out in the flower bed facing the street. It was removed that very same night. And that makes me even more happy, and more proud, that Texas turned blue in this election. America is finally choosing love, tolerance, education, and peace over hate and revenge and stupidity. I became an American citizen in 2024 and voted… but it was lost in the wash of billionaire money and influence. This moment feels really powerful. MAGA is more worried about NVIDIA stock than they are about peace. And they are so happy to see the stock market take a dive because they would rather be poor than be on the losing side or admit that they are wrong.                     When I moved from Cambridge, Massachusetts to Dallas, Texas, I often wondered what the hell I was doing. I traded Harvard University and MIT for people in MAGA hats drinking whiskey...

  Monday morning brings a heavy silence. The cold weather has set in, and most are draining every last drop of warmth in bed that they possibly can before rising to begin another day of often pointless toil. Another day of mails exchanged, meetings requested and held, all to try to show concern over a topic that no one really should be concerned with. Another day of someone sending a mail and then immediately sending a message to tell you that they just sent a mail, then asking you if you have time for a call to discuss the mail that they just messaged you about.                     In between, I devour the pages of Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red . I purchased it because Carson recently won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and I had not read any of her work. This book, I must say, is really spectacular. It’s a mix of Greek Mythology and modern fiction. It simply refuses to remain within boun...

  A cold grey day for a change, it is beautiful. It makes me feel, for a moment, that I am back in England. I ventured out for a walk through the little woods nearby, came home, showered, and got back into bed. Glorious.                     And it stands to reason… those of us who love the literary life, the punk rock life, the artistic life, a life of creativity… we live shorter lives. Because it is not a life of complete and utter boredom, it is not one of marriage and children and sipping health drinks while eating kale salad. We taste pain, we feel sorrow, we drown it with poisons and challenge the world in a creative rage borne of pain. Anything that has been achieved in human history is thanks to those who are trying to push boundaries, to speak freely, to create openly, and to take risks to express a feeling that is often common but which most people are afraid to break their silence fo...

 Between 2am and 4am they arrive home or they leave to go home, passing through the corridor lined with doors, they shout and talk and laugh and then slam the door as they go out or come in. It does not occur to them, or if it does, they don’t care, that the wall of doors they passed are family homes in which people are asleep. In the same way, it doesn’t occur to people who are terrified of spending a cent on health care for all that they spend a lot more money on the president playing golf or dropping bombs in illegal wars. I once asked someone ‘why are you so against healthcare for all?’ He replied, ‘because I am not lazy, I have a job, I have health care.’ I asked, ‘what if you get seriously sick or injured, what will happen?’ Again they replied, ‘I have a job, it includes health care, I am covered.’ Finally, I said, ‘what if you are sick or injured for a long time and you lose your job with no ability to get a new one?’ The lights went on behind the eyes and the answer was in ...

  It feels like a miracle. To see Texas turn blue. To see so many places turn blue. It still seems incredible to see people upset about it. My only thought is that they are not used to anything being unifying, they don’t like unity. They only know war and fighting and competition. They want to win and, more importantly, they want to see people lose. So, when love wins, they are lost. When they only know TV adverts that say ‘liberal crime agenda’, they believe there is a criminal agenda, they don’t go and research what those crimes may be and discover that, in fact, there are none at all.                     I took the day off in expectation of misery or a hangover from celebration. Thankfully, it is a hangover from celebration. I went book shopping, purchased Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere and then went to a bar for beer and pizza. The only way to deal with a hangover. I miss Cambridge,...

  It would be a lie to say that I am not terrified by the dawning of another election. I remember the positivity and hope of the last one… only to be crushed at the last moment. I was in India on a business trip, spent all night watching the results roll in, and spent the next day lying in bed in a state of anger, misery, depression, shock, and disbelief. Today, people see the disaster… but they are just too afraid to vote against it, and they seem to be more afraid of the LGBTQ+ community than they are of endless reckless wars that will have consequences for years to come. For so long we were ‘spoiled’, we became too content, we were simply allowed to live our lives without constant fear and terror and nonsense. We had leaders who were leading and trying to make our lives peaceful. It still truly astonishes me, two years later, that people voted for this guy in the first place, it is even more astonishing that many of them still support him to this day.      ...

  After the death of one’s mother, the world seems cloaked in death. A blood red cloak of unrelenting night. We want to be seen and loved, but all slips away into the darkness, and all we can do is cling to those who remain, hoping for as much time as possible. Before her death, people came into my life needing light, but I was too deeply buried in my own shelter, afraid of having my individuality taken away. That caused hurt to others. After her death, although I had family and friends around the world to talk to, there was only one person who was physically here. She too had lost her mother as well as her father and her husband. Nine months after my mother’s death, this friend died, too, while I was travelling around Europe, drunk with friends. This often haunts me. She deserved more.   As a youngster, secure in my family home, I was able to watch and read anything. I loved horror, in fact, and read a lot of difficult novels about hardship that made me grateful for my parent...

  Awake again… 03:48. Thoughts ripple through the silence and then a solitary voice calls out in the distance. What are the others doing at this time? Are they sleepless, too, or are they arriving home from a party? Are they waking up to travel somewhere or to take care of a restless child? Of course, the clocks changed, we went one hour back, ‘an extra hour in bed’. That doesn’t really apply when one has been awake since a few minutes after 2am.                         I think of the scientist… how I gave so much love, and more, until she left to find more… to find younger, stronger, faster, richer. I think of decades earlier, the sportswoman, how I left because I was merely there to fill a gap but ridiculed by her rich circle of friends because I was not that… they were ‘adults’ buying homes, getting married, having children… I was in a punk rock band, spending my days with skateboarders and artists. I thi...

  A sunset walk, a book, the lake, the silver light shimmering on the water as the sinks under a blanket of night and leaves us until tomorrow. People are calm and smiling, saying hello, and I feel grateful because the book that I am reading is disturbing. It is Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng, and it is essential for us to know because so many were or are unaware of the suffering that minorities feel at the hands of a ‘patriotic’ mass at times. The book takes place in an imaginary post-crisis dystopia, but it is remarkably similar to the events that occurred during covid, whereby a government trying to ramp up anti-immigrant war fever kept repeating ‘China’ and blaming them for everything from the virus to the economic downturn of the US economy. It resulted in a wave of anger, hatred, and attacks against the Asian community. Hateful leadership leading hateful people to do hateful things.   Finally, I go to bed and fall into a sleep of dreams. In one of those dreams, I was ...

  Part I   My fear, as the week hurtles towards an end, is that we may see some really desperate attempt to create a dramatic global event from the leader losing health, losing power, losing credibility, losing legally, losing romantically. So, we drift in some form of hope, some form of fear, of doubt, of concern. Some people think they will receive money if they vote a certain way. Some people are simply terrified of betraying the father figure. The rising number of people who simply want common decency, the rising number of educated people in critical areas, give me hope. But that hope is a sceptical hope when I know that it goes up against the money of insane billionaires and the corruption of lost leaders with nothing to lose.     Part II                   As a European, I always heard stories like ‘Americans know nothing outside of America.’ As a European who is now also an Ame...

  Another horrific train crash near Madrid, the high-speed trains I have taken so many times, and I think of the horror of the loss for those families impacted. I think of the extremely excited children I’d see onboard, fascinated by the train and the adventure. It’s almost too much to bear.                      We go through our days troubled by tiny matters like a conversation that went badly at work, a sports teams losing, a friend getting upset, someone making a decision to distance themselves from us… then there is the cold harsh reality of 64 people losing their lives instantly in a crash of this magnitude, not to mentioned those who will be injured, disfigured, disabled forever.                     During my years living in Madrid I was always amazed by how loving and peaceful the people were. So, tonight, saddened, I drif...

  It is a shame that they do not read, they do not research. They don’t understand that being taught or told lies about the past, about the bad things that a country has done, doesn’t make one unpatriotic, it makes us more aware of our mistakes and, hopefully, able to avoid them. The British Empire’s activities are not taught as glorious, and books written by global writers capture tales from different colonies. If those books were all removed, along with history books and teachings, and suddenly we were told only that Great Britain’s history was magnificent, it would be a tragedy. Likewise, Germany’s history and, in particular, the events around World War II. Sadly, we see it in real time where people are upset at the suggestion that going to war is not a show of strength and power, and that it is a catastrophic event resulting in the loss of lives, dignity, respect, and long-term hopes of peace. Doing horrific things at the border to innocent people merely searching for hope for ...

 The  day in Frisco to watch FC Dallas was fantastic. Overall, it gave me a feeling of warmth, even love, for people. I arrived at 3pm to check in to my hotel and explore the area for a while before the game. My goal was to have a few drinks and dinner before going to the stadium.                     Setting off from the hotel I walked towards a British pub called The Derbyshire, walking around the stadium on the way. The stadium was starting to fill with staff, some of whom were already preparing things for the evening’s event. The weather being beautiful, my spirits being high, I waved and said hello to everyone I passed. I crossed the road and discovered a little Halloween market and festival where families were playing games and enjoying various rides and activities dressed in costumes. Around the corner I found The Derbyshire, in a very West London looking building. I stopped outside...

  Words at play on a page have always been my paint on a blank white canvas. Words paint pain… and pleasure, but even the pleasure is often born of pain. Afterall, when it comes to art or literature, one of the facets that fascinates me the most is the context… the life and mind of the artist as well as their environment. My context is that, beyond words, I am not comfortable with much. For instance, when people ask me to take care of a baby animal, I get nervous these days. If someone asks me to work with physical equipment, I feel uncertain, only comfortable in solitude, writing or reading.                     06:30am and I tune to the soccer match of my hometown team, Wigan Athletic. Today they are playing away in Huddersfield. I remember, many years ago, when I was married and my mother was alive, I drove from Wigan to Huddersfield with my mother and wife in the car. I dropped them both at...

  Each day I awake and I strive for positivity. I find it in many things because I am very fortunate, I live in a beautiful place, I have a good job with a good team, and it is flexible. I find joy in researching new topics such as places of interest, people of interest (writers and musicians) and I plan little trips. I read books and listen to music, or I do an online course in history, government, security, technology, communication, etc. I create via blogs, podcasts and videos… but this is sometimes where I am simply unable to control myself. If I witness an injustice, I feel the need to speak about it. If I feel that rights are being taken away or life is being made worse, more difficult, for no reason, I rally against the sheer ignorance or greed that leads to such things. That in turn brings me down because I want to be constructive and lead through light rather than darkness, but sometimes we have no choice other than to resist.         ...

  Many people have claimed that life changed in 2020.   Here is my opinion…                   In 2020 we were served a warning by nature. A warning that was also an opportunity. It said, ‘slow down, find some balance, spend time doing what matters, be with friends and family, spend time with your pets.’ By 2021 and 2022 it felt like we had started to form a better version of life, a more balanced existence, less commuting, less time sitting at a desk staring at a screen, more flexibility to visit family or to go to the doctor or to do some chores during breaks rather than have to do them all in the nighttime, exhausted after a commute home from work.                     2024 rolled around and the alpha males were getting restless… they didn’t want to be locked up at home with their wives, they didn’t want...

  The beauty of the sunrise walk is astounding. The silver light causes the unique cloud pattern to reflect upon the water and create a mythical image. The reflection represents my tumultuous thoughts of a former lover, a Russian with an Asian appearance. I loved her and still do… but it is never that simple, and so there is another empty silence soaring into a sensual sunrise. A voice, a scent, a secret kiss over a span of 6 years… America to France and back again. It’s always pain with a vibrant memory. Is the story over?                     And so, I set out for another lengthy walk around the lake that takes me to the local bar once more. I’m tired of politics, of sport, of people trapped by tradition, and the boredom of the status quo. It’s a day that I long for England and Spain, my European life. As I enter the area of the bar, I discover that there’s a classic car show and a market tak...

  They get married, buy a house, have children, and call everyone sheep.   They all refuse to get vaccinated because social media told them they shouldn’t get vaccinated… all together they fight vaccination, and they call everyone sheep.   They wake up at 6am and get into their cars to drive to the office because it is what they are told they should do, it is what they have always done, it is what should always be done, and they call everyone sheep.   They hate immigration, they believe that illegal immigrants are getting free health care and being housed in New York Penthouses, they do no research of their own, they form no opinions of their own, and they call everyone sheep.   And maybe I am wrong, or blind, maybe it is wise to make friends with Russia and North Korea and to make enemies of Canada and Europe… I know they were all against war, terrified of war, determined Harris would start war… now they support the war and they call everyone sheep.   Bide...