It is 2000, nine months into the new millennium, and he has lived in London for nearly three years. He rents a flat with his girlfriend, on the edge of Brixton, near the back entrance to Brockwell Park. When they first moved here, they would walk across the park some evenings, to a restaurant under … Continue reading Summer Reading: Goodbye Columbus by Philip Roth
Tag: Writing
Summer Reading: Last Evenings on Earth by Roberto Bolano
It is 2009, and the summer is a hot one at its best. Most days, he travels to London for work, heading out from the small town where he lives with his wife and daughter. The journey is long, but he has learned to make use of the time, reading, working on a novel, sedating … Continue reading Summer Reading: Last Evenings on Earth by Roberto Bolano
Beneath the Telescope
We drove to the coast. I like the feel of surf upon my chest. My eyes closed, my back against the sand. Sun a red blur through my eyelids, the universe calling. The pulse and froth of water, the beat of the moon. She called it work. I would never call it work. Red sun, … Continue reading Beneath the Telescope
Two Men
His train was due to leave at 16.35. It was 16.34 on the digital clock. Stephen started to run. Across the concourse, through the barriers, down the stairs, his trainers made a hard slapping sound upon the tiles. He passed adverts on the walls: for Venice, insurance, a play, a warning about salt, the London … Continue reading Two Men
In The Steam Kitchen
The best way to the restaurant is a long sloping cobbled street through an old part of the town, which has faded to resemble a derelict museum. No, it's the other way past the town quay. No, you reach here along the underpass, grimed by pigeon shit and imaginative graffiti. Actually, you head through a … Continue reading In The Steam Kitchen
Work
'The same people who are murdered slowly in the mechanized slaughterhouses of work are also arguing, singing, drinking, dancing, making love, taking to the streets, picking up weapons and inventing a new poetry.' Raoul Vaneigem Over the past few years, during the months of late summer, I walk through the campus of a London university, … Continue reading Work
Gardening Through the Apocalypse
About eighteen months ago, I went for a drink in the Arts Café in Islington. I was taken there by a woman I had only recently met. You reach the entrance down an unpromising side street off Essex Road, and climb the stairs where photocopied posters for small gigs or poetry readings are tacked to … Continue reading Gardening Through the Apocalypse
