All memory is worked upon backwards – they are private sculptures that are never completed. Today when I think back to spring/summer 1997 the ambient backdrop is the b-sides from Radiohead’s OK Computer, which I didn’t actually hear until the 2000s. I heard bits of OK Computer and The Prodigy’s The Fat of the LandContinue reading “Pressing the 1997 button”
Category Archives: Writing
First protest vote as tragedy, the second as farce.
‘Sleepy John’ has had his eyes off the ball. I’m not as sharp as I was in the 2010s (although, who is?) Wounded and winded by the personal and political over the last 5 years, improvements to my general quality of life as I entered middle age became the only real priority. The mental gymnasticsContinue reading “First protest vote as tragedy, the second as farce.”
The General Election looms and I feel worryingly depoliticised
(Image of Ossett town centre, June 2017). There’s clearly so much at stake. During the last 14 years we have experienced a horror show, and despite the potential epochal collapse of the Conservative Party, the path before us is far from reassuring. But I just cannot find something that pushed me forwards for so long:Continue reading “The General Election looms and I feel worryingly depoliticised”
Good news and bummer news.
I’ve finally got a studio space. It’s in Wakefield, the next town down the road. It’s a little more than I was wishing to spend, but after a series of difficult years that have forged a kind of internal inquisition into my devotion to my work, I now feel like I’ve got a concrete commitmentContinue reading “Good news and bummer news.”
I can’t recall early childhood crushes, but I distinctly remember one from the spring of 1996 when I was 12 years old. It was the kind of Spring that lived up to its name. I was in the first year of secondary school, and after a first term of hurtful bullying I undertook a lotContinue reading
Stay away from Farage and his Vampire’s Vortex
I didn’t intend to stay away from Farage and his Vampire’s Vortex as it swirled through my home town today, I just had no idea it was happening. I feel the rush of excitement to see my home town on the front pages, and the grip of Fomo as I’m sat in the distant exoticContinue reading “Stay away from Farage and his Vampire’s Vortex”
Lashing out in the void
What if a heart is turned to stone before it’s had the chance to be broken? Slow trauma. Fast trauma. What’s the difference in the end? You pour over maps, with the longing to finally get on the right track. Maps are both an aspect of our alienation and a comfort from it. Whatever thisContinue reading “Lashing out in the void”
Keeping a blog for 17 years
I started keeping my blog 17 years ago. I had just finished my Bachelors degree in Art and Design at the local university centre in my home town, and all I knew is that I wanted to progress and get more exposure as an artist. That summer was messy. My entire social world in myContinue reading “Keeping a blog for 17 years”
List three books that have had an impact on you. Why? Three books that have had an impact on me. 1. FEED – M.T Anderson. For me, this partly satirical novel from our near-past (2002) painted one of the most prophetic visions of what would come to be. FEED’s target audience was a teenage/young adultContinue reading
Spectres of Hitler
In the wake of the collapse of ‘really existing’ socialism, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and then the greater Soviet Union between the late 80’s and early 90’s, a state of triumphalism emanated from the Western nations who had been locked in an ideological battle with the aforementioned for almost the best partContinue reading “Spectres of Hitler”
John B Ledger 