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opinion
Testing, Testing
I knew I was an excellent candidate, as they cheerfully say in medical circles, for sudden death. Most everyone on both sides of the generation before mine had suddenly dropped dead before the age of 60. Some had lingered due to repetitive strokes. Fortunately, I had passed the age threshold, but I wondered how much longer I could defy the odds.
Back to the Football #2 UE Sants vs Granollers EC
One of the joys of this level of football, a joy that detracts somewhat from the actual football itself, is the rapture of proximity. Whatever trials and tribulations the working week throws at you, however painful the boredom of retirement or the frustration of youth, all the rage that you carry can be readily directed at an arbitrary arbiter, or whoever is playing on the wing next to the only stand.
My Travels with Christianity
God doesn’t mind if we lie, as long as our lies glorify Him. Women need to be quiet in church and cede control of their minds and bodies to men, who always know best. God is sad when we say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas.
The Beautiful Game
We stood on the terrace, a paltry sprinkling of crowd awaiting a corner. Those whom we had come to see stood at arms’ length, the accentuated shouts, the frenetic panting and the smell of turf and bloke as vivid in my mind now as it was a solid 20 years ago.
Zadusnice: The Serbian All Souls’ Day
There are four Zadusnice in a year, one for every season: summer, autumn, winter and spring, and they always fall on Saturday. Saturday is the day of week devoted to the dead in Serbian culture. And Serbs are funny people. They are outgoing and talkative, and they love to socialize with one another, laugh and make jokes anywhere, even in the cemetery.
Burden
I have killed her in my head more times than I can count. I have attended her funeral. I have wept on her grave. I have cried alone in a room littered with pill bottles and years of filth because I wasn’t there to save her. Every unknown number from Connecticut is her final plea for forgiveness before she swallows the pills or slices the blade across pale blue-veined wrists. I am a bad son. I let her do this. It is all my fault.
The Strange Case of Derick Johnson
For some reason, my first instinct was to assume that Derick Johnson was a figment of Nick’s imagination or a sort of creative in-joke between some of the players. The name, I observed, sounded like a character from Mad Men. I imagined a dapper fellow in his mid-thirties turning up to play, with a short glass of scotch on the rocks in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
Show Me Your Teeth
Mouth open as he presses cold metal against each tooth. Leaning over me, he recites codes I don’t understand to his assistant. When it’s over, he smiles and tells me, to my surprise, that I have good teeth. Good, straight teeth. It means more to me than it should. I tell myself he says that to all his patients. Within reason.
Masked Vigilante
I’d swoop down upon you each night and stand before you as a silhouette, as a shadow, as a black canvas upon which you paint the faces of all those you loath, as an embodiment of your fear—I’d force you to face your fear, which is at the root of all evil; afraid of change, afraid of difference, afraid of unanswerable questions you’ve held your tongue, spat your lies, chanted your curses, lifted your arm in the air.
Nobody’s Prerogative
No one ever plans to end up as a dancer on Bourbon Street. It’s an employment choice born of pure desperation. I worked at a unisex joint called Sweet Mama’s. After only two weeks on the job, I despised every minute of my interminable shifts. I lurched around the club in stilettos like an awkward stork, as songs like “Strokin’” and “My Prerogative” pounded in the background.
Language and Football
To me, both language and football can give sensory pleasure to the ears and eyes respectively. When I hear a well-composed sentence, it evokes an appreciation of something far beyond the successful exchange of information. Equally, for an impartial observer in football, a crisply struck shot finding the top corner is of far more sensory merit than a deflected, scrappy effort sliding its way into the net, though there is no difference in terms of reward.
A Happy Ending
The affair happened more than ten years ago. We worked together on a project with four other colleagues. She was married and had two small children. During the holidays, she texted me several times saying that she was thinking about me. The first two or three messages, I ignored. I erased them. I seriously thought she was a no-go. The fourth time, I wrote back: “You’re married.” I thought that would end it….
Love in the West Midlands
From 90s suburban Coventry, Holly Watson recalls stories from her childhood. This time she looks at a relationship between her Aunty Mandy and her husband SImon, a man so boring as to drive you to tears.
The Impossibility of Buying Light Bulbs
It used to be a very simple task to purchase a light bulb. Check the wattage on the dead bulb at home, go to the store and pick a similar one from the display shelf, take it home, remove the burned-out bulb from its socket, replace it with the new one, wrap the old bulb in some newspaper, and toss it in the trash.
A Kind of Vertigo
Viewing Renaissance art can be numbing. Let’s be honest, it can be boring. To some, it might even seem irrelevant. We’ve all taken some art history classes and/or sat through tiresome exams where we’ve crammed so many dates and names and mediums into our heads we’ve vomited oil on canvas for eight months straight.
Inherent Sexism in the Spanish Language
It might sound strange for a non-native speaker, especially for an English one, that in addition to the common classifications we all use to distinguish substantives such as singular/plural or concrete/abstract, the Spanish language has one particularly problematic noun class that involves genre.
Q&A with a Popular Tinder Blogger
We hear from the author of ‘My Tindertainment’ a popular online tinder blog detailing one girl’s sexual encounters in the tinderverse.
Tiki’s Surf Station
Laurence ends up in a surf town on the Pacific coast of Mexico where he quickly realises that he is not very cool. That, plus surfers are full of shit.
Tell me again how racism played no part in Brexit
I’ve just been verbally abused for being Jewish. I have never been targeted in this way before but my experience, it is quickly becoming apparent, is not an isolated one in post-Brexit Britain.
Under the Sounds of Bullets
Sara Swaidek travels back home to Tripoli, Libya. The hope of finding peace is far off as she tries to sleep under the sounds of bullets.
Fainting Distance
New in a foreign city, Carter Vance explores the modern way of meeting people. Everything is digital in our age and it doesn’t look like it will change soon.
Six feet deep
A beloved grandmother’s death sparks unbridled joy at the funeral from the unbelievably dysfunctional Ackerson family.
Mile End to Clydebank
In a heroic attempt to watch Scotland lose at football, Laurence visits an East-End boozer and encounters one of his Scottish compatriots.
Things I Haven’t Said
Michael Herrington recalls his childhood of growing up with a stutter. Commonly misunderstood, living with a speech impediment can affect you in many ways often invisible to the listener.
