The summer had been full of dry heat, marking the fields with the brittle paleness of its passing. From the train windows, each county seemed more drained of vitality the […]

‘A bad winter. I couldn’t lay a hand on them, prevented as if by a charm. I huddled in my cave, grinding my teeth, beating my forehead with my fists […]

If you’ve ever questioned why, just at those moments when you are about to achieve something important, or about to have a great time – or are in the throes […]

‘My son, he reads Terry Pratchett. Have you read any Terry Pratchett? I couldn’t get on with it.”  I daren’t look round so I don’t know what she looks like, […]

The coffee machine needs coffee beans. This somehow becomes an incredible injustice, that I have to fill it up, have to attend to this chore when I should be writing. […]

Farewells in these times, much like everything else, are rather strange. They have been reduced to thin, insubstantial things, transmitted through a screen and the reedy sound of small speakers. […]

The queue for coffee comes and goes, there is no rhyme to it. Each time I look up it seems to have assumed a different form. Now it is loosely […]

There’s something rather squeamish about the phrase ‘having you in my ears each week’. I wince slightly when I hear it, my shoulders shrugging involuntarily as I cross the busy […]

This long-read felt surprisingly familiar in its suggestions, exploring ideas about the impact of video games, including online multiplayers, on how people approach their lives and how they may or […]