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My Notebook

Subscribe now It’s been hard to write recently. Not because I have no inspiration but because I have so, so much of it and acting as an irritating barrier to that inspiration are some ongoing difficulties with my publisher, who - as some of you will no doubt now

What I Talk About When I Talk About Things I've Talked To Books About

Friendship in the post-pandemic era, writing, reading, social sacrifice and interesting chats with living and dead people I've never met

SOME INTERDIMENSIONAL PORTALS I HAVE COME ACROSS DURING WALKS IN THE BRITISH COUNTRYSIDE

When I was dragged (not as reluctantly as I pretended) on walks as a child by my parents, I often amused myself by going off into my own fantasy world: I'd look at derelict buildings and imagine the banshees and spectres who lived in there, wander off into

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The Most Unsettling Walk I've Ever Taken

This is a piece I wrote when I was very first using Substack. Most of you won’t have seen it so I wanted to make it free to read, once again. Subscribe now What is more remarkable: our capacity to forget suffering and darkness, or our capacity to remember

A Slightly Different End-Of-Year Top Five

I noticed a few people have been marking the year’s conclusion by reposting their most-read pieces on Substack. I debated doing the same thing, then, in customarily contrary fashion, decided I’d post my least-read pieces instead. But I thought about it a bit more and remembered one of

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The Cat: A Folk Tale For Midwinter

Subscribe now Once upon a time, a man, a woman and a cat were walking through a deep forest. All three had walked for what felt like a thousand miles and all but the smallest member of the party balanced precariously on blistered, swollen feet. Night had fallen only an

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A Newsletter Where I Write In A Fairly Chaotic Way About Several Ostensibly Unrelated Things, Some Of Which Are Depressing And Worrying, Some Of Which Are Thankfully Not

As (to say the least) an unfestive sort of person, who would ideally prefer to be temporarily deactivated, C-3PO-style, during this darkest, most spiteful chunk of winter, I place what might seen as a curious amount of importance on New Year’s resolutions. December might be my least favourite month,

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The Don't Mind Me Decade

Subscribe now My granddad died when I was four. There are a couple of photos of him holding me, plus a few others; one of us, probably taken by my mum, sitting together on a wall near the sea at Skegness with my nan and my aunt Sarah and my