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
Alone
Grief is cyclical, I keep reading. The first year is the worst, a succession of broken milestones – the first birthday without her, the first anniversary without her, the first Christmas… and so on. But it doesn’t come in cycles so much as waves, building up on the horizon before crashing and surging towards you, … Continue reading Alone
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
Flag days
For a nation that’s supposed to have raised itself above petty nationalist sentiment, the Dutch have a curious affinity for flying the flag. Since moving to The Hague less than two months ago I’ve lived through four official flag days and a host of unofficial ones. Red, white and blue flags flutter from balconies, from … Continue reading Flag days
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
Politics, an unavoidably twisted affair
One of Copenhagen’s most famous landmarks is the tower of the Church of Our Saviour with its external helter-skelter staircase. The church itself is a Renaissance colossus, an elegant brute in the Dutch baroque style with Greek and Italian inflections, and it boasts northern Europe’s largest carillon, but it is the tower specifically that captures … Continue reading Politics, an unavoidably twisted affair
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
On slow writing
My New Year's resolution to write every day is currently working out at somewhere between five and six days a week. Not an unqualified success, but a great improvement on last year, when I could go months without writing a word and didn't start a single new piece of work. The rule I created for … Continue reading On slow writing
Chippings from the quarry 3: The last-chance saloon (A day at Glasgow Drugs Court)
I originally wrote this for the Open Justice UK blog, set up in February 2012 to revive the dwindling art of court reporting. It's an excellent initiative, please go and look at it. In a windowless, low-ceilinged courtroom in the basement of Glasgow Sheriff Court, a quiet experiment in justice is taking place. The drugs … Continue reading Chippings from the quarry 3: The last-chance saloon (A day at Glasgow Drugs Court)