A year ago I welcomed 2014, with a mix of hope and trepidation, at our home in Glasgow. We had returned the day before from spending Christmas in Norfolk with my parents and our attention now turned to our prospects for the impending year. On Hogmanay a young couple came to view our house, which … Continue reading Retrospective
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Coping
My doctor asks if I’m coping. I say yes but I don’t really know. I get up in the morning, take the kids to school on time, keep myself fed and watered, drink in moderation and go running a couple of times a week. None of it feels arduous or overbearing. But Magteld’s absence envelops … Continue reading Coping
Ambitions
Magteld had ambitions right until the end. On a shelf in my living room is a double box set of the last series of Breaking Bad, still wrapped in its cellophane. I’d ordered it on the final Friday, blissfully unaware her life had just over 72 hours left to run, and looked forward to watching … Continue reading Ambitions
Aftermath
It’s just over a month now since Magteld went away. Thirty-eight days that have gone by in such a haze that I often suspect time has gone haywire. The house that the boys and I moved in to nine weeks ago is already packed with history: the two weeks we spent going back and forth … Continue reading Aftermath
Magteld Darroch-Jansen (1976-2014)
My beautiful, dearly beloved wife passed away on Monday, less than two years after being diagnosed with breast cancer and eight weeks after our family moved to her native Netherlands. This is an edited version of the eulogy I delivered at her cremation yesterday, May 31, in The Hague, with an English translation below. Bijzondere mensen … Continue reading Magteld Darroch-Jansen (1976-2014)
Alpha Papa: Norwich sticks it in the back of the net
For a native of Norwich, one of the secret joys of watching Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa was seeing how my home city looked on the big screen. More specifically, I grew up in the North Norfolk hinterland which Alan has called home ever since his primetime career exploded in the moment it took to punch … Continue reading Alpha Papa: Norwich sticks it in the back of the net
How I found the Olympic spirit in Santo Domingo
I’ve been enjoying the London Olympics far more than I expected to. Before the Games started I’d feared, like many people, that the commercialisation of sport had got out of hand, that the traffic was going to be a nightmare, that anyone without a Visa card would be effectively banned from spending money, or that … Continue reading How I found the Olympic spirit in Santo Domingo
Twitter, eh? Bloody hell
When I first started out on Twitter I was obsessed with the retweet button. I looked enviously upon people whose tweets were constantly reposted and fantasised that one day I would compose a 140-character message loaded with so much semantic gunpowder that it would fly around the world and light up computer screens from Inverness … Continue reading Twitter, eh? Bloody hell
(Almost) the last post
I'm delighted to have a story in this year's Federation of Writers (Scotland) anthology, Tracks in the Sand. As well as being a tapestry of good writing from these parts, it's put together by people who evidently care about what gets shoved between the covers. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence around that the quality … Continue reading (Almost) the last post
Liquid accelerant: a #londonriots multimedia experience in four hundred words
Fuck the police #londonriots mindless senseless violence this is not a protest this is burglary and looting where are the police watch the bbc now there’s buildings in flames a powder keg waiting for a spark so sad disenfranchised young people of Britain where is Boris Johnson huge big awesome flames leaping up in the … Continue reading Liquid accelerant: a #londonriots multimedia experience in four hundred words