WRITER | DINOSAUR | LOON
Last week I wrangled some volunteer hack work with the Flaneur Art Blog for this year’s Edinburgh Festival. They said there was no need to wait until the festival itself started and mentioned, among other things, a desire for people to write for a new food section; the words ‘whisky reviews’ were used – well okay then. Continue reading “Review but Not Really: Whyte & Mackay Special Blend”
I remain connected to my Teesside classmates through Facebook and Twitter. It’s fun to see the relationships between them growing; strangers becoming buddies, flirts becoming fucks – all that dirty romance. Continue reading “Please Ensure That You Write at Least 200 Words per Box.”
DISCLAIMER: The following post took place over the course of several days of teeth gnashing. Its contents are intended for my own amusement only. Any medical advice adhered to that results in your own suicide and/or the murders of your loved ones in the most bloodthirsty and inhumane way conceivable is neither my responsibility nor anyone else’s, you fiend.
If you get treated like a patient, you’re apt to act like one.
– Frances Farmer
So I made up my mind and will not be going back to Teesside, nor will I complete the year. From here on in, this guff comes straight from the heart.
I’m going to mention mental health now but I promise I will touch upon it as briefly as I’m able; then we can get back to talking zoo animals, gig reviews and reasons why the white man will be the death of us all. Continue reading “Safe. Secure. Reasonable. Informed: Coming off Sertraline”
Back in December, along with several billion pushchairs, I visited Edinburgh’s pandas. Four months later and one mating season already given up on, I decided I didn’t care what everybody’s favourite asexual bamboo aficionados were up to; instead I wondered how all the other animals were feeling.
1. Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes)
7PM Monday 16th April 2012.
Graham Coxon hasn’t had a drink in ten years; I’m itchy and twitching after ten minutes stood in the queue outside the Liquid Room; waiting for the purple doors to open; wishing I new someone, anyone in this town that could sell me drugs.
He’s in town to promote his new album, A+E; here’s me from the future – as far as this tale is concerned – with a few words about it:
Continue reading “Graham Coxon at the Liquid Room, Edinburgh.”
So it turns out that the squirrels that scamper around the bounding bunnies to the refrain of robins and mischievous magpies (sorry) are the descendants of the very rodents my great grandmother enjoyed watching before she died.
Yep, call it coincidence or providence, but this old hospital I’ve moved into is where my mother’s nan spent her final months. She passed away metres from where I type these words. Continue reading “A Haunted House and Falling off the Danish Bandwagon”
Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.
– William Gibson
It’s good that, isn’t it; I love that sentiment. Saw it on a t-shirt the other week and looked it up. Not familiar with William Gibson, but from scanning his wikipedia entry he sounds interesting. I think Rickerby told me about him, back in the day.
Anyway, it was with this thought in mind that I decided to radically cut down on the little white pills proffered by a long line of GPs with an angle on going straight. None of them have ever been able to adequately explain what is ‘wrong’ with me anyway; and, oddly, most seem to lambaste my desire to find a label, calling them ‘unhelpful’. Continue reading “Lukewarm Turkey and an Ode to the Single-Bed”
A girl I developed a debilitating and unrequited crush on once called me a drifter down her perfect nose. We’d met at a staff party; I’d been drinking warm beer in a friend’s apartment, watching England lose to Germany with the sound off, A-ha on repeat and bag of something expensive went up my nose before I could leave the house.
I’d just broken up with my girlfriend and everything was a mess, then this divinely sculpted creature asked me to dance. I took offence at the drifter tag, but then again I was younger and stupider back then – now it seems to fit.
This week marks the 11th time in seven years that I’ve bundled my life into a van and driven off at speed. I moved to Middlesbrough from Glasgow six months ago on an awkward and ill-planned mission to grab a bachelor degree by the balls before the price went up; I seemed to be doing quite well but somehow it didn’t seem to fit. Continue reading “My Return to University and Another Death in the Family”
Middlesbrough town centre’s future as a shopping destination has received an eleventh-hour reprieve in the form of two exciting initiatives.
The projects come at a time when the town’s failure to secure city status in its recent bid has disappointed many locals; the first is a ‘Portas Pilot’ town bid and the second, a proposal to introduce a Business Improvement District (BID). Continue reading “The Future’s Bright – The Future’s Dinosaurs”
CHRIS PARLETT 