It’s Not Just A Game
During a trip in 2018 by Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, to Iran, 35 women were arrested for trying to enter a stadium for a match between Persepolis and Esteghlal. Julia Pilkington I only started playing a year ago but I really love it. I feel like learning and falling on my arse and m
Unity in the Face of Imminent Climate Collapse
Roger Hallam is a wiry man – slim but tough. He has dark eyebrows, eyes sunk deep in their sockets, and wisps of hair either side of his face. He’s married, a father. What stands out the most though, when he starts to speak, is that somewhere – not too far beneath the surface – […]
Soulmate
Soulmate makes me think of dover sole these days. Happily Ever After has gone stale One and Only, Forever and Ever — they smell foul, smug, over-fed, their appeal expired. Instead, my mind is reeling with threads they tell me must be cut clean one day. You say they have to snap and strain but
Chloe in August
We wake together, downy arms interwoven over warm summer stomachs. She rises first, slips from bed to bask at the window’s shrine to midday sun. Wayward strands of butterscotch hair glare blonder still in the wake of sun’s flooding. She sheds a skin of cotton vest, shorts, steps into last
Recentring Death
“It is hard to have patience with people who say, ‘There is no death’ or ‘Death doesn’t matter.’ There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn’t matter.” ― C.S
Sri Lanka Needs a Prayer – But it Also Needs a Revolution
Ten years after the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war, terror has returned to plague our country once more. Police reported 250 deaths and over 500 people injured during a series of eight bomb blasts on Easter Sunday. The attacks took place across a number of locations, including three churches and thr
The Magic Act
Hold me close and I disappear! It’s my most famous trick. My thin lips grin at their gasps and their cries as I vanish from your arms. There you are, as the night begins, wrapped up in show-girl spangles, and I’m pulling flowers from my wrist, a rabbit from a hat, tricks crafted [&
He Cried (Story)
I always have more to say to my friend when I’m not talking to him. He’s been having a really hard time. Today was a special case, an Essex blizzard scuffing muddy patches up hillsides. Today he hid his face in my side so he could cry: a quiet upheaval in the thick [&hellip
When we leave we need to pass this on
When we leave we need to pass this on To hop the twig with two handfuls, Head bent to follow the echo Whether an other’s or our own. When you’ve got this, then we’ll go Wading the tough river with its noise Underfoot, clay between toes Toward the jutted bank, the hang-tooth of s