Posts by tag
opinion
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.
Goodbye yellow brick road
Frank Sonderborg goes back to 1973 and the dawn of Ireland in the E.U. An opportunity to work, drink, screw and smoke abroad proves a great draw in Europe.
Nursing: It’s not a vocation if you hate it
The endless cycle of work and hate and the world of nursing is revealed by a desperately exhausted Caitriona Murphy.
Cultural appropriation
Jeff Nazzaro talks culture on the LA subway system on his daily commute to and from work.
Sluggies: Hostel to the stars
Frank Sonderborg reflects on his son’s tricky ascent into the world of I.T. Featuring tramps, drugs, a low-cost hostel and a disgruntled Dane.
The Grudge Elephant
Sarah and Michaels lives are becoming a misery. So they buy an elephant to take away the pain.
If we build it : the reality of being homeless
The reality of being homeless exposed by those currently living it.
An evening among the condos
Pursuing potential sexual relations in the vast suburban sprawl of middle America is far from easy as our hero gets lost amongst the condos.
