Temporalities
i. The Louvre, Paris and we are gilded spires opaque pearlescent rounds smooth skimmed surfaces you could hold under your tongue set into a crown and call jewels. a feeling of falling mid-breath, a hazy periphery and a spotlight. we are tilting, scintillating in light slowed in mind’s
Sconfinata
When I was fourteen, I found a woman in my house. She was father’s secretary, with luminous black hair and a string of pearls around her neck. The tender remembrance of a distant beauty, coupled with an unwavering faith in the grandeur of life, she consumed the better part of my consciousness th
Oxford, the Foundation Year, and the Possibility of Access
In the popular imagination, Oxford University remains the preserve of the elite – the ultimate ivory tower. The university prides itself on providing excellence in education. Such a claim demands a hierarchy of (less excellent) institutions, and (less excellent) resources. In other words, elit
Growing Into Childishness
MY DEAR LUCY, I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realised that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will […]
Undertow
I, clinging, algae-strung, to the borders of you in this subterranean room, green wallpaper, mulching the curtain-washed light, dissolving clear morning in acid and spleen. your left hand gloomy in the dark, its moss-blotch stain of pencil l
Filthy: Oxford’s Bathing River
The UK’s rivers act as a dumping ground for excess sewage in times of high water, and Oxford’s rivers have been no exception. When students finish their examinations, they traditionally jump into the river to celebrate. Now it seems they may have been diving into raw sewage. In 2020, water compa
The Nordic Hut
Leaving you, I longed for one lone hut, red against the vast grey sea. Longed to sink my boots into the snow, to seek to spread the net of my spirit. To be more than a sister, a friend, a partner, when that cold courage blustered through me. I have now forgotten your name—or is […]
The Angler
The angler, taken in isolation, waits in preparatory study, his rod cast out and off the edge of the tall tide, which nearly banks the sky. The brown of the grass seems to climb station and cloaks his closed frame in an ascending glow of rust. The scene is not new. The […
In Conversation with Henry Dimbleby
What would it look like if you got fast food in heaven? What if food was not only accessible and affordable, but also really good for you and really good? This was the drive behind Leon, Henry Dimbleby’s restaurant chain, beloved by the British public. Now, Dimbleby is taking his ambitions for an