Late November 2003 I’m losing weight again. I’m ‘winning’ though, I tell myself. I’m successfully skirting the impurity of life. Regulating food intake, regulating exercise, regulated hard work and regulated social interactions. “Never get too close” from where the flesh would expose its foolish core, and be tainted in another’s eyes in tones one doesn’tContinue reading “I stare at bus stops, and it brings me home.”
Category Archives: Writing
Uncountable train journeys to Nowhere
The existential predicament of trying to get somewhere but never getting anywhere defines my adult life, but, by extension, my inability to actually arrive in adulthood. It’s a small story, based on a small measure of freedom to act in ways that I deemed would get me there, against a background of big big stories;Continue reading “Uncountable train journeys to Nowhere”
My last day in Dufton
I’m back in Barnsley now… Leaving Dufton, and back into Darton. Back on the heel of the hills I have spent six months in. Well, not quite. This area of the North Pennines is its own place, not really comparable even to other parts of the so-called ‘backbone of England’. I find it hard toContinue reading “My last day in Dufton”
What to do? In this city, in this world
Edited version of text originally posted in Autumn 2016. I got the express train across the pennines. I’ve always wanted to reach the Metropolis on the other side, only to repeatedly realise it’s no lost world, no place where things are done differently, after all. “What spurs me on to travel to other towns andContinue reading “What to do? In this city, in this world”
What I could have been doing right now.
As of 13 October 2023, I should have been just starting a PHD – right now. In Autumn 2022 was just in the final stages of submitting the proposal to the University of Leeds. The proposal would be unconditionally accepted, but the idea began to fall apart in early 2023, when I was trying toContinue reading “What I could have been doing right now.”
December 2003
“You wanna go home”; a stirring moment in a song by Pulp defines my wish as I hover around a confectionary store between my train connections. But home has long since merely been an idea, indefinitely dislocated by the dread and anxiety that pursues me. I gave in, badly today. Binge eaten on Flapjack, aboutContinue reading “December 2003”
I hate to say I told me so
To relapse into my pre-2015 premonitions. The rise of what felt like a workable hope in-between 2015 and 2019, now mysteriously absent. But the way things are accelerating at the moment it feels like it has been wiped from history altogether and we are at the the other end of line of reality stitched backContinue reading “I hate to say I told me so”
My imaginary past as a ‘noughties’ indie star
(Part of a series of ‘Noughties’ excavations that will eventually be worked into a much larger project). I’ve been a doing a lot of ‘unearthing’ of late, most likely because I turn 40 in around 3 months. I’ve been trying to do a bit of excavation and salvaging of works and creative former selves, thatContinue reading “My imaginary past as a ‘noughties’ indie star”
October 1999 ( my first Great resignation)
I walk down Eastgate, and cross Regents Street, towards the back road down to the bus station. It’s a grey October, and I’m porous to this greyness. Any deeper colours are reserved to the warm cosy culture of comedown 90s TV. It’s like the decade has put its winter coat and gloves on – takingContinue reading “October 1999 ( my first Great resignation)”
The Return of the 00s
“The turn that events took had all the look of some kind of ritual assassination. The killing not of a body – the body was already dead – but of a name.” – Mark Fisher, ‘The Return of the 70’s’ from Ghosts of my Life. The turn of events Mark Fisher was referring to inContinue reading “The Return of the 00s”
John B Ledger 