Michelle Barker

10:57pm

2026-05-11T00:00:00Z

I don’t usually walk this way late at night. If I’m heading home late at all (a rarity when you have primary-school age children) it’s usually on my bike, whizzing down quiet roads bathed in the orange glow of street lamps, rarely taking the time to observe my surroundings closely. So walking home in the dark is something of a novelty. The night is cool and the sky is clear, a sprinkling of stars glimmering overhead like glitter strewn carelessly. There is a sharpness to the air. The waxing moon hangs low and heavy, not quite full. Venus and Jupiter shine bright, their trajectories familiar by now, like old friends.

The area I live in is quite safe, a comfortable, family-friendly suburb, although of course, as a woman walking home after dark, there’s an ever-present awareness of the possibility of danger. We are taught to fear the night, not enjoy it. The luxury of being able to walk at night without this sense of apprehension is one I envy. But really, who has this luxury? In the dark, we are all seen as predators or prey.

Most families are tucked up indoors this time of night, and so as I turn off the school road and onto the path that in the daytime is usually a busy thoroughfare for parents and children, all is quiet. So it is with a certain alertness that I continue carefully.

I know the badgers live here. Occasionally I see them, a fleeting glimpse of their silver coats in my bicycle headlights before they scurry into the undergrowth. I’m picking my way slowly and deliberately down the steep, treacherous path now. Several of the street lamps are out and haven’t been repaired in years. But this, the darkest corner, is also the safest for those who don’t want to be seen.

As I approach, I spot him. The glow of a striped face staring out of the darkness, illuminated by moonlight. He makes no sound. We are both motionless. This time, he doesn’t run. Something passes between us. An understanding. He inches forward cautiously, eyes on me the whole time. There is a wariness in his stance — after all, strangers aren’t to be trusted — but no fear. After dark, all this belongs to him and his kind, and I am the visitor.

I take a few small, slow steps forward, giving him a wide berth, letting him know that I mean no harm. It’s only then that he turns and ambles slowly back into the bushes.

The Watcher

2026-05-10T00:00:00Z

Spring.

The sun’s delicate rays are beginning to warm the spot by the window. The spot where she likes to sit, a watchful sentinel on patrol. A plump pigeon struts, proudly, pompously on the tarmac. Doesn’t it know all this is hers? A soft breeze ruffles its feathers and her ears twitch at the rustling of the hawthorn and elder and dog rose, which are only just in leaf. A sudden high-pitched wail startles her and she turns instinctively towards the sound. A child with a grazed knee. A harried parent, torn between exasperation and sympathy. Sympathy wins this time, as she envelopes the child in a hug.

The rumbling of a car’s engine as he leaves for work, as he does every day. She knows it will soon be followed by the sound of the door opening, as mother and child depart, laden with bags, always in a hurry, a flurry of activity for a few brief minutes before all is quiet again. The mother will be back soon, but the house will be quiet until much later. She wonders what goes on in there.

The sparrows are fledging. They flitter about like little paper aeroplanes, barely visible, hard to focus on any single one. She knows catching them is impossible from this side of the glass, and yet she hunkers down, mesmerised, some instinct inside her still hoping for a chance.

The sound of the car door slamming sends them scattering, startling her too out of her reverie. He’s leaving early this time. The curtains in the house are still drawn. Much later, out come the mother and daughter. They look more flustered than usual, in more of a hurry. The mother is red-cheeked, her tone clipped. The daughter’s hair is unbrushed.

Summer.

She yawns and stretches, her fur glossy and shining in the warm sun. This is the perfect time for dozing here, curled up, listening to the sounds of the humans as they bustle around getting ready for the day. Blackbirds chirrup their morning song. Doors slam and car engines stutter. Footsteps crunch on gravel path. The sky is blue and cloudless.

The girl is walking with her friends. Their laughter reaches her ears and she stretches slowly, arching her back, as cheerful “goodbye”s are called and the front door opens. He isn’t home yet. Later he arrives, carrying an enormous bunch of flowers. All the windows are open to the world and the happy sounds of families chatting and cooking together with distant music playing drift on the breeze.

Later, much later, as the sky begins to turn pink and gold, the mother steps out onto the doorstep, glass in hand. She looks tired.

Autumn.

Leaves of red and gold skitter mesmerisingly in the wind. There’s a chill in the air, but the spot by the window is still cosy for now. The crunch of leaves as small children run and jump delightedly. He leaves in his car as usual today. This time he doesn’t return until late evening.

The girl walks alone today. Her friends have already been passed, their usual chatter nothing out of the ordinary. But the girl walks with her head down, shoulders hunched against the wind. When she reaches the house, she doesn’t go in. She sits on the doorstep, scratching at the dirt with a small stick. After a few minutes she stands up, takes a deep breath and opens the front door.

His voices rouses her from her slumber. He’s outside, on his mobile phone. Daylight is fading. It’s almost dark when he goes in. Raised voices from inside the house.

Winter.

She is curled up snuggly, her blanket of fur a blessing against the cold. The trees are leafless now. Fewer birds flutter, but the squirrels are active, gathering the last of the food for their stores before the long, cold nights draw in.

His car leaves earlier and comes back later these days. She’s become more accustomed to the sound of his voice talking on his phone outside the house, despite the cold. The front door opens and the girl leaves for school. She walks alone now, independent, self-sufficient. After a kiss goodbye, the mother turns back towards the house, and she can see her eyes are red-rimmed.

She wakes up to the low, guttural grumble of a van by the side of the road. He is there with another man. Loud voices calling to one another as together they move objects from inside the house, loading up the van. The mother is nowhere to be seen.

Sometime later, the sound of doors slamming. The mother emerges, a warm cardigan wrapped around her against the chill, slippers on her feet. They stand apart, not touching one another. They both look sad. They talk in low voices. Somehow she can sense this is the last time she will see them together. The engine starts up again with cough and a splutter. A mournful, steady sleet starts to fall as the van departs.

Spring again.

Fresh flowers are planted in the window boxes. The sun is finally beginning to lend its golden warmth to the front garden, and life is beginning again. The girl is taller now, and walks with her head held high. She yells “goodbye” to her mother, and races to meet her friends down the road.

A man comes to erect a long wooden post with a corrugated sign on top. Later, a young couple come to the house, accompanied by an official-looking woman with a clipboard. Smiles are exchanged. They look around appraisingly. Half an hour later they leave, looking happy and excited.

The pigeon is back again, gathering odds and ends for its nest. A pair of goldfinches too, making a rare appearance, flashes of colour among the branches that are already beginning to green. She yawns, stretches and curls up contentedly in the sun.

Perception of time

2026-05-09T00:00:00Z

Most of us experience the phenomenon of time seeming to speed up as we get older. When you’re young the days seem to stretch out forever. I can still recall endless summers spent exploring the fields and woodland out the back of our house growing up, or holidays at the beach, a constant source of excitement and adventure. These days, by comparison, it can feel like a year passes in the blink of an eye.

A recent podcast I listened to explained scientists’ current understanding of this phenomenon: when we’re young, our lives are full of novel experiences. We’re constantly doing things for the first time, so our experience of time becomes marked by these occasions. When we’re doing all these new things, time seems to go by quickly, but when we look back on it it feels like a long, significant period. But as we age, we have fewer and fewer of these waypoints by which to mark the passing of time and so when we look back at the past few years they seem to blend together. It’s one reason why Covid seemed at the time like an interminable age, but when we look back on it can have the feeling of a distant dream. Don’t get me wrong, this is not to trivialise the experiences of those who suffered badly or lost loved ones. But for many of us lucky enough to pass the period relatively uneventfully, although not without its challenges, there were far fewer shared experiences to reminisce about.

I’m no scientist, and this probably isn’t the best or most accurate summary. But it’s an idea that has stayed with me. I often worry I’m not making the most of my finite time on this planet and go through phases of booking various events to try and fill my time with memorable experiences: family trips, gigs, cultural experiences and such. But constantly seeking novelty isn’t a sustainable way to live. I have a theory that memorable experiences can also come from looking at the world in a different way. Observing what’s around us and tying to see it from a different perspective. Letting new ideas in and giving them the room to grow. Being fully present in the moment. Music, art, writing or simply talking with friends (especially ones whose lives are different from ours) can all help us see the world anew, as can learning. Walking down the same street is a new experience when you learn its history. The same woodland becomes a new place when you learn about the native birds that reside there. Opening our hearts and minds doesn’t halt the ticking of the clock, but it means we can look back on time spent knowing that we really experienced it.

Making a mark

2026-05-08T00:00:00Z

Mark making with indian ink and brushes by my son and I

Every mark you make is different from any that’s ever been made before.

You can never draw the same line twice. You could draw a thousand lines and each one would be unique. A million variables — the grain of the paper, the way the bristles of the brush soak up the ink, the tilt of the pen nib — all of these add up to a moment that is unique, never repeated. All the atoms in the universe wouldn’t be enough to count the number of possible variations. Another person could never replicate it faithfully, nor could a robot — nor could you yourself, no matter how hard you tried. This mark could only be made right now, in this moment, by you.

The you of this moment is different from the you of yesterday. Of ten minutes ago. Of 30 seconds. The next one will be different again, and the next, and the next. The lead in a pencil is worn down a little further. The memory of the previous mark can’t help but inform the next one.

A mark might be correct, or it might be imperfect, but it is inescapably of the moment. It might be trivial, or hugely significant. Dashed off freely, or agonised over. Only ever yours.

A kind of journey

2026-05-07T00:00:00Z

Being on a train was something John Thurlow could get on board with, so to speak. As a native of Ontario, back home he didn’t catch the train much. In Canada, if you wanted to get the train somewhere, you usually had to drive a good few hundred miles to the nearest station, and even then you’d be lucky to find one that’d take you where you want to go. But here in the UK, pretty much everywhere had a railway station. Even some of the tiny little hamlets that had no business calling themselves a town. You could spend days hopping from one train to another, and that’s what John Thurlow did. He didn’t get why British people complained about it so much.

He liked being back here. After he and his wife separated some years ago, John Thurlow had been in something of a funk. You might even say he had become depressed, not that he liked to dwell on such things. John Thurlow’s grown-up children had long-since left home and started their own families and had busy lives. Like many middle-aged men he’d let friendships slide, wrongly believing they’d always be there, and that the security of his work and family was all he needed. Now he’d belatedly realised friendships needed tending, like a garden, otherwise they’d get overrun by weeds and when you finally picked up your trowel to plant something there’d be nothing much left. John Thurlow didn’t want to get into that situation again.

It was on online community that first got John Thurlow out of his funk. He’d been a prison officer for 30 years, and was two years away from retirement. He looked forward to this with mixed emotions. John Thurlow was well-respected at work. He was what you’d call a burly man. Tall, well-built, reasonably fit for his age, silver-haired, with a thick, bristly moustache in the old style, he was a serious-looking fellow. He didn’t smile much, but that didn’t mean he was never amused. He just had that kind of face. When a joke really tickled him it would manifest as a slight twinkle in his eye, a small smirk concealed beneath his bushy moustache. He wasn’t a laugh-out-loud kind of guy.

The prisoners liked John Thurlow because he commanded respect. He wasn’t the sort to bully anyone, nor did he try to be all pally with the prisoners, not like some of the youngsters that come in these days. Or else they’re all wide-eyed and timid, too afraid to instil some discipline when it was needed. Those sorts didn’t last long. He was well-regarded by his colleagues too, his decades of experience lending a calming presence that helped diffuse any tense situation. John Thurlow didn’t mind his job, although he was always glad to head home at the end of the day. What really interested him was the psychology of it all. He’d taken some Open University courses a while back when he’d seen the same offenders coming through the prison system again and again. He’d got pretty curious about what drove people to reoffend.

It was this curiosity that eventually led him to the paranormal community. He’d always been a little intrigued by the occult. He and his wife used to jokingly read their horoscopes in the paper over breakfast, neither of them actually believing them, of course. But watching shows like Most Haunted made his hair stand on end. He liked the idea that their were some mysteries just beyond our grasp, waiting to be unravelled. So when he came across a Facebook group that organised visits to so-called haunted houses, he thought “Why not?” Now he’d been visiting sites with paranormal goings on for years, even organising a few himself. He loved researching the history of the places, reading about their legends and past unexplained sightings. That’s what brought him to the UK. There was so much history here, so many places to visit. He’d arranged to meet up with a few folks from the paranormal community in Derby, after spending a few days visiting extended family down south, hence the train journey.

John Thurlow really couldn’t be happier to be on a train travelling through the beautiful English countryside. Looking out the window at the cloudless blue sky, he couldn’t resist sighing aloud “What a beautiful day!” The young woman furiously typing on her laptop beside him looked up reflexively. (Well, he supposed she wasn’t that young, but everyone looked young to him these days.) “Oh!”, she exclaimed delightedly as a flash of bright purple caught her eye. “A lavender field!” A small smile escaped John Thurlow at that. It really was far too lovely a day to waste on work, and he was pleased to have distracted this woman’s attention for a moment. She looked like she was only too happy to be distracted too. They got to chatting a little bit. “So what brings you to the UK?”, she asked, detecting his Canadian accent and obvious enthusiasm for British life that, somehow, the British people he met never seemed to share. “Well...”, he paused, not knowing quite how to put it. In his experience, there were two kinds of people when it came to his talking about his paranormal investigations: the ones who couldn’t wait to confess their own experiences with the occult, and the ones who looked like they couldn’t wait to get away from you. It was why John Thurlow rarely brought up his hobby at family gatherings. He was a little afraid of being carted off far too early to the nearest nursing home. From this woman’s slightly raised eyebrows, he suspected she might be in the latter camp.

“To tell you the truth,” she responded cautiously, after he explained the reason for his journey. (John Thurlow wasn’t one for evasiveness.) “I’m a bit of a skeptic”. John Thurlow took a breath before answering. “To tell you the truth,” he confessed, “I am too”. It was something he’d never really admitted to his friends in the paranormal community. “What I really love,” he continued, “is talking to people. Hearing their stories. What they’ve seen, or what they think they’ve seen. Oftentimes there’s some kind of explanation for why they’ve seen or heard a certain thing. People are suggestible, you know?” The woman nodded. “In fact,” he went on, “in the roughly hundreds of paranormal cases I’ve investigated, there’s only ever been two I couldn’t explain. Mostly when people hear weird sounds in an old house, it’s something wrong with the plumbing. Or sometimes there’s some deeper psychological cause that you learn just by talking to people, finding out about their history. A lot of women who’ve suffered traumatic childhoods, domestic abuse, that kind of thing, have the propensity to believe in that kind of stuff. It’s an outlet I guess. Seeking some kind of explanation for a world that’s treated them really badly.”

“Wow, really?” the woman said, eyes wide. He could tell she’d never thought about it that way. He supposed few people had. Being a little kinder and more understanding to people who appeared to believe some pretty crazy stuff was probably a good idea, in his view.

“What about the other two cases?”, the woman asked after a moment. “The ones that couldn’t be explained?” John Thurlow’s eyes twinkled. “Well, life wouldn’t be half the fun if everything could be explained, now would it?” he remarked. “I’m quite happy to let some mysteries go unsolved.” The woman grinned.

“Well, this is my stop”, said John Thurlow, standing up to collect his luggage. “You travel safe now.”

“You too,” replied the woman. “Have a wonderful adventure!” John Thurlow smiled to himself. He certainly would.

Sunrise over Sellafield

2026-05-06T00:00:00Z

Decaying, great, grey husks of concrete loom over faceless, corrugated metal boxes and prefabricated cabins, with smokeless chimneys towering over all. Imposing chainlink fences topped with razor wire separate the outside world from this metropolis, only accessible through fierce steel turnstiles and layers of security. It is truly the city that never sleeps: after all, the flow of nuclear waste never stops.

Night-shift workers in high-vis emerge from windowless rooms into the early morning air and file out through the barriers, another set arriving to take their place. It’s remarkably quiet. There are no bustling cafés on site to grab coffee and stop for a chat. No parks to gather and spread a picnic blanket. Only rugged hills and wide, open, blue sky to greet you, and a long trek home.

Here, at the end of the world, one of the most hazardous places on earth is surprisingly calm. Perched as it is at the edge of a vast expanse of sea and sand and sky, wildlife can thrive here undisturbed. Sunshine yellow gorse grows abundantly. Swallows swoop and gulls soar over the dunes by the tiny railway station, whose trains take you on a meandering route along the coast, past tiny villages and endless beaches.

To a visitor, getting anywhere feels like an age. ID must be verified, documents checked and photographs taken, then passes must be issued — your ticket through the turnstiles, as long as you’re escorted at all times. After a bus ride, it’s a mile-long walk past nameless rectangular buildings with designations like ‘B7125’ and ‘D4711’. Pipes high above channel liquid waste, encase in several feet of concrete. Steam hisses from vents in pipes below ground level. Tall cranes begin the slow process of carefully dismantling crumbing structures. The ancient dome of the old reactor sits silent, a reminder of the site’s past. An illuminated sign declares the last environmental incident occurred 347 days ago. I don’t know whether that’s reassuring or not.

Access to the High Level Waste Plant, the most secure area of the site, requires yet more security procedures. Personnel in this area require dosemeters to monitor exposure to radiation. Still further in, shoes and socks must be exchanged for the ones issued by plant workers, belongings must be left behind in a locker and protective gear donned. Inside, glass panels six feet thick offer a glimpse of the vitrification process. It’s sobering knowing a human on the other side of that glass would be dead within seconds. Only robots can work here, behind the glass. Robotic arms must repair other robots, their discarded parts left piled up at one end of the room. Nothing is ever getting out of here. What will become of this room when it finally reaches the end of its useful life, many, many years into the future? Someone, somewhere will be responsible for ensuring no one can ever set foot here.

The control room is the beating heart, where technology of a past age must deal with the challenges of today. Where humans navigate the tension between the monotony of the everyday and the possibility of catastrophe. Where the consequences of a procedure incorrectly followed may be disastrous, but there is also camaraderie. These workers won’t see the sun for another twelve hours.

In the vitrification plant, highly active liquor is processed into stable glass, which is buried deep and plugged with 20 feet of concrete to be cooled and stored. The smooth concrete floor is warm to the touch. Far into the future, long after we’re gone, people will still need to manage this waste, to make it safe. How many generations of grandchildren will watch over this facility? Maybe one day all this work will be done by robots, only a skeleton crew of humans remaining to monitor them. And then one day far into the future, maybe in a few hundred years, maybe more, there will be nothing left for humans here. Communities will disappear as their livelihoods vanish. And perhaps in a few thousand years from now, a mere blink of an eye on the cosmic scale, this land will finally be reclaimed by plants and animals, and a unique ecosystem will thrive. Nature will heal over this scar.

Labour of love

2026-05-05T00:00:00Z

One of my favourite parts of the creative process is the bit after the ideas have crystallised and you just have to knuckle down and do the work. I remembered this after seeing an artwork that involved lots and lots of straight lines drawn on a wall in interesting geometric patterns. Once the artist had come up with the idea and refined the design, well, someone had to get on with the business of making it a reality. Plenty of successful artists employ people to do this work for them, being far less interested in the execution than the idea itself. I used to help out with exhibition installs when I worked in a gallery years ago. One artwork involved bending hundreds of stainless steel nails in half with a pair of pliers, before they were hammered into a wall. Sitting for hours alongside other members of the team repetitively bending nails left my hands covered in blisters. But the feeling of being part of a piece of art as it came together was gratifying. Don’t get me wrong, spending day-in day-out doing this in a factory would be unbearable. It’s the end result that makes the labour satisfying.

It’s the same feeling painting a wall or sanding down a piece of furniture. I guess it’s why people like colouring books too. For me it’s a sort of meditation. The knowledge that a monotonous task will end with something better than before. That’s what separates it from drudgery. There’s the excitement of anticipation: you can visualise the result, but you can’t really know how it’s going to turn out until you get there. But the work can’t be rushed, it must be done at a steady pace.

With art, there are often creative choices to make along the way but they’re smaller, less significant choices. While the early ideas phase of an artwork can be exciting, it’s the space after that when I feel the most calm. In a piece of writing, it’s when the words flow easily because I already know what I want to say. It’s the feeling that I’m channelling something beyond my usual mundane self, and part of the creative process that I wouldn’t want to skip over.

I’ve never seen Star Wars

2026-05-04T00:00:00Z

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a planet called Ewokland, home to (you guessed it) the Ewoks. They were a fierce and proud people, but also incredibly cute. This cuteness caused many foes to underestimate them, and meet their gruesome fate in the tangled forests of Ewokland, where no one can hear you scream. But little did they know, on some other planet, a dastardly villain was hatching a plan to conquer Ewokland, ostensibly for its rich oil reserves, but mainly just for kicks. In fact, no one really know why he wanted to invade Ewokland, as the economics just didn’t make sense, not to mention it was just plain barbaric and violated interplanetary law. But everyone was scared of this bad dude, whose name was Darth Vader, because he was a bit unhinged and had his finger on the Death Star’s nuclear button. Also, he was somebody’s father or something, so it was quite important to appease him, although no one really knew why. Everyone kept saying to “take him seriously but not literally”, until he literally blew up a planet and they all belatedly realised he was quite serious indeed.

Oh, I’ve just been informed the Ewok’s home world was called Endor. So, anyway, Darth Vader was hatching his plan and amassing vast forces of storm troopers and whatever the evil equivalent of X-wing pilots are called. First he reached out to the president of the Ewoks and offered to broker a trade deal, taking the Ewok’s oil reserves off their hands in exchange for “protection”, but the Ewoks, suspecting foul play, rebuffed him. This made Darth Vader very angry. He did not like it when things didn’t go his way. The Ewoks, in turn, taunted him with memes that made him look very stupid, and if there was one thing Darth Vader hated it was looking stupid. Like all dastardly supervillains, he was very thin-skinned. So Darth Vader began gathering his forces in earnest, in preparation for a full-scale invasion. The economy was so tanked on the Death Star thanks to Darth Vader’s terrible monetary policies, that most of its inhabitants had no choice but to enlist in the storm trooper army in order to feed their families.

Meanwhile, some good guys, led by a plucky young upstart called Luke Skywalker, got wind of this evil plot. Mainly because it was all over the front pages of the galaxy’s newspapers. Nobody really needed military intelligence anymore, because the evil guy always just came out and said exactly what he was thinking.

The good guys were none too happy about Darth Vader’s plot, partly because they knew that once Darth Vader had Endor under his control, they would be in the firing line next. So they gathered a meeting of the leaders of all the space faring nations to discuss a response. Han Solo was all gung-ho about sending troops to invade the Death Star and capture Darth Vader, until Princess Leia pointed out that Darth Vader would nuke them all faster than you could say “Jabba the Hut”. Chewy said something very wise and important that no one took any notice of because it just sounded like garbled nonsense.

In the end, the team hashed out a package of very reasonable-sounding economic sanctions that they put to Darth Vader with the view to dissuading him from his evil course of action. That’s when Darth Vader threatened to cut off all their communications. Oh yeah, it turned out that all the good guys’ nations were entirely dependent on the Death Star’s communications network, with no one thinking to question this technological dominance until it was far too late. Without a comms network, the good guys would just be floating impotently in the darkness of space for all eternity. That seemed like a pretty bad outcome to the good guys, so after a bit more hand-wringing they all decided that they would politely ignore the threats coming from the Death Star, and instead sent their supreme leader (not sure of their name) on a state visit there.

The state visit went as well as can be hoped. The supreme leader bit back their disdain and attempted to use their “soft power” to wield influence. No one had to seriously get their lightsabers out. In the end, Darth Vader got distracted by some shiny humanoid robots presented to him by the supreme leader and decided not to launch a full-scale invasion of Endor for now. He sent a small exploratory band of storm troopers down to the planet, and these were swiftly and brutally dispatched by the ferocious Ewok army. Nobody minded much. The good guys all breathed a sigh of relief. The destruction of the universe could wait until another day.

Happy Star Wars Day, everyone!

Art

2026-05-03T00:00:00Z

The other day I was invited by a friend to the opening evening of Spike Island Open Studios, an event where artists would literally open up their studios to show a curated selection of work, or sometimes their work-in-progress. It made me realise I hadn’t gone to a place with the specific goal of looking at art in years. It’s something I used to do a lot of, particularly during my university days and in the years after. I’d book trips to London to meet up with friends and see exhibitions, sometimes spending the whole day traipsing round various galleries, catching up over coffee in the cafes afterwards. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when I stopped, but the end of a long relationship in my late 20s may have had something to do with it. I felt it wasn’t my world anymore.

Art show openings are a weird thing because you’re ostensibly there to look at art, but really everyone is there to get drunk and soak up the vibes. Because of the crowds it’s hard to stand back, take your time over a piece and let the work speak for itself. Your attention depends on whether something grabs you in the first few seconds — or, sometimes, whether the artist is on hand to “sell” you their vision. And there’s a lot of art I just don’t get. But that’s ok, not all art resonates with everyone all the time. Sometimes it snags on something in your brain in a specific time and place, in a specific set of circumstances, but sometimes it never does. Sometimes it’s just for the artist. Even the stuff I don’t get is fascinating in many ways, as it’s a little window into someone’s head, someone who thinks entirely differently to you. Sometimes you can see the questions they’ve turned over in their head, the journey they’ve been on, what moments have clicked for them. I used to think art has to have some kind of message, but really art doesn’t have to have any purpose other than to express some part of someone, and it doesn’t have the responsibility to do it articulately.

Where money becomes involved with art it gets a little murkier. Artists have to make a living, after all. Does art have more responsibility to be “crowd pleasing” when it’s receiving public funding, for instance? I applaud any artist who can truly maintain their integrity in the face of financial hardship, or commercial success.

Art requires work on the part of the viewer, but in a world where we rarely stop and think, putting in that work can feel like a luxury that many people don’t have. I understand how art gets a reputation for being elitist. It sometimes demands you educate yourself before you can appreciate it. But occasionally a work of art grabs you out of nowhere, rings pitch-perfect against the tuning fork of your soul, and penetrates layers deep within you. That’s when you feel a moment of connection to another human being, one perhaps you’ve never met, but you’re suddenly seeing the world through the same eyes.

A few people inspired this post:

Ana Rodrigues, whose recommendation of The Creative Act by Rick Rubin has sent me on a path back to creativity, and whose blog is always an inspiration.
Jessica Bartlett, the artist and good friend who invited me to the open studios, and who inspired me to join her in the month-long writing challenge.
Hidde de Vries whose talk Creativity Cannot Be Computed helped me clarify my thinking around AI and gave me hope for humans.
Max Naylor whose beautiful paintings spoke to something in me that I couldn’t put into words.

Postcard of a painting by Max Naylor

These are my thoughts. Tell me yours

2026-05-02T00:00:00Z

I woke up early this morning, my head fizzing with ideas. This is not a day for writers’ block. It’s been some time since I published any writing, and longer still since I’ve felt excited about writing. But I’ve loved writing ever since I can remember. I used to love writing on my web development blog, but the tech world has become so tarnished for me that I can no longer muster up the energy to write about it.

But, you know what? Screw it. I don’t have to write about technology. I can write about hating the tech industry that I (stupidly, naively) built my identity around, only to have it shattered. In fact, I can write about any of the millions of other things I’m interested in that have nothing to do with the tech industry. I can write about things that aren’t real, and I can write about things that are all too real. I can write about writing, like I’m doing now. It’s my blog, and you don’t have to read it if you don’t want to.

A friend of mine told me that she was planning to try and write something every day in the month of May, and that’s what I’m trying too. Maybe some days all I’ll manage is a few lines, but the fact that someone else is sharing the challenge makes a difference, I think. Making a connection to others by writing something that might help someone else is what I used to love about web development blogging. I’m realising that connection is what I crave in everything I do.

So this is a new, blank page, a fresh chapter. And with this blog comes a stripped back, minimalist redesign of my website, because I want to be able to write and think without clutter. The world is all ready too full of it.

I don’t expect many people to read this, and I’m fine with that. I don’t want to hear what you think of my writing. I want to read what’s in your head. What’s made you laugh, what’s made you cry, and everything in between. I want to hear what you make of this strange and beautiful world that is our only home for such a brief time. The mundanity of everyday existence, and the events that had such a profound impact that they transformed your outlook forever. I want to look into the space in your head and see the world through your eyes expressed in your words, that are only yours and no one else’s. Because you are not a machine. Maybe this is the start of a conversation.

These are my thoughts. Tell me yours.

Talking About Writing

2026-05-01T00:00:00Z

At a crowded art show, my friend and I found ourselves sitting at a table at the end of the evening talking about writing. Somehow, separately, we had both landed upon the resolution to explore our writing practice. Neither of us is what we think of as a “writer”. But what is a writer, except someone who writes? And whatever your reason for writing, if you write, aren’t you therefore a writer?

Why we write is more complicated. Does writing have to be read? Are you a writer if you’re writing only for yourself? I think I’m writing for myself, but why? Because I have something in my head that needs to come out. Because writing is the way I make sense of my thoughts, of the world. The same reason artists make art, I guess, but I never felt important enough to label myself an artist. I was happy enough to be “creative”.

Do I want someone to read what I write? Is it vanity to want that? After all, wouldn’t it be nice for someone to (metaphorically) pat you on the back and say “aren’t you a great writer”? But, to me, it depends on whether you can sufficiently detach yourself from your work and release it into the wild. I think when you do that, the work is no longer your own. It becomes something for someone else to read and interpret and, just maybe, find their own meaning in. Those are the magical moment that make writing, and publishing, something worth taking a risk on.