To Chelsea
Clinton. If the name stings, will you wear the veil while tending the bees? When the dynasty burns, will you carry the water jug or the torch? Did you envy the man with the face tattoo? Avoid strangers who claimed they knew you? I do. It’s only a story, says Chelsea. Today it’s me, tomorrow [&he
Glassy-Eyed: A polemic against glass buildings
The vogue for christening new additions to the London skyline with cheerful nicknames began with the “Gherkin” in 1999. Ever since, architectural practices seem to have taken these nicknames as an affirmation of their work, or rather a tool to secure affirmation. A panoply of skyscrapers with eq
Out of Thin Air: MH370, Flight 8501 and vanishing aircraft
There’s something undeniably alarming about flying. It’s with a certain relief that even the most seasoned air traveller feels the thud of the plane’s wheels touching the ground. Despite the oft-used statistic that flying is safer than car travel, it is, for want of a better phrase, a bit scar
The ISIS Short Essay Competition: ‘Is it possible to dress rationally?’
Self-Fashioning If I were to dress rationally, I might wear beige. But beige is an ugly word and an uglier colour. If I were to dress rationally, I might do so in the wartime way. But I am as happy to ration my fashion as I am to don beige – that is, not at […]
The Bell Tower
At dusk comes a tipping of the scales— the steady thrum of insects fading into heart-beat silence. Growing shadows feel no absence, but a slipping, and a spreading. A subtler world awakes. I climbed the bell tower where the air is close, anticipatory, penetrating the depths of dusk, which is tight
Thoughts on the Death of my Father
(Nappies aren’t supposed to be for grown-ups. Grief, not crusts, whips hair into curls. He does his dying, is gone; still the nurse’s day […]
The Spider: Is the internet becoming conscious?
Originally conceived between the 1960s and ’80s as a communications network for the disparate US defence agencies, the internet was later turned into a limited scheme for research institutes to communicate and collaborate with one another. Gradually, the TCP/IP protocol was developed and prolifera
The Alpha Course: Orange squash with Oxford’s evangelists
Got questions about life? #tryalpha #htbchurch “Christianity is cool!” retweets @alphacourse, the twitter account for the evangelistic course which has allegedly ‘saved’ the Church of England. On their Instagram, you can find a stream of attractive men in their early 20s with man-buns and Ca
The ISIS Short Essay Competition: “O tell me the truth about love” (W.H. Auden).
Picture a café on the High Street. A little place that serves coffee, loved by its owners, who bought the shop in 1985 having retired from their high-paid jobs in the city, because it’s what they always wanted to do, really, low income be damned. A couple sits in the corner; students, who met at