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Ah, England…

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Friday night
Saturday morning

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Don’t ask why, after two months of revising for exams, my first Saturday night of freedom ended up in front of an oversized television watching the results of the Eurovision Song Contest come in. For those of you who missed it (and honestly, I only saw the last half hour), the highlights include:

Blind-making amounts of […]

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I staple my documents together I get out my notepad I hang up my washing I complain about the train being delayed I make myself coffee I start my revision I worry about my exams I hear the traffic and I see the people walking past in the sun.
But like MD’s photo, there is a […]

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Just to get us ready for Bucharest, this the beautiful voice of Gabi Lunca, a Roma gypsy/folk singer. She sings songs such as ”Omul Bun n-are noroc” (The good have no luck) and “Superata sint pe lume” (I am sad in this world), though in the tradition of sorrowful female singers there’s something very distinctive about the soul […]

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Yesterday I heard a report on the radio that stopped me completely in my tracks.
The report details the violence continuing in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo, despite a recent ceasefire, and in contrast to plans for the UN to reduce their peace-keeping forces in the country. It focuses specifically on violence against […]

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Things I have done today to avoid doing work:
1. Introduced myself for the first time to the downstairs-flat neighbour, in an attempt to find out why the hell the water was turned off and our shower refused to shower anything but a useless dribble of cold water;

2. Made myself not one but three cups of […]

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In Bejaia, Algeria, and visiting the market…
Et ce que je cherche au marché, c’est quelque chose ‘de la culture’, peut être un objet traditionnel Kabyle, peut être du bijou bien sûr, et je voudrais mon bijou Algérien, fait à la main, par une ancienne femme, dans un village des montagnes… Comme ça, cela serait […]

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I’ve seen lots of things in Algeria this week – this goldfinch isn’t the most remarkable thing, as it’s a bird I see lots of at home in the garden. Something nice but disquieting about seeing it up close; something not-quite-right about seeing it caged.

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A film of walking in the North Yorkshire dales, right up in the North of England, in the snow. The films are silent, and I’ve put them alongside a poem by Ted Hughes (1930 - 1998), a prolific English poet who was born in Yorkshire - much of his work says something about the rawness […]

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