The Trouble With Grammar
There’s a war raging in my office. The rules are few, the casualties many, and the only thing certain is that my sentences will never...
Archives
2025
Plain Spaces
Here’s a photo that is possibly boring because it shows the scene how it is. Which makes it not boring at all. Confused? Fear not....
Watching The Yachtists Race
It’s the Round The Island yachtist race at the Isle of Wight today. I’m not a sailorist, boatist or yachtist. So, events like this are...
Clarence Pier: Now With Added Grey
This is Clarence Pier. Nobody knows why. It opened in 1961 and hasn’t changed expression since. The top floor is used for secret meetings of...
Don’t Mess With The Ballads
There was a ballad who knew things, Things that made it quite wise, It knew that the truth often stings, That many things are lies,...
How To Make a Blog Post Fail
Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and witness the marvel of modern mediocrity: the failed blog post! Yes, you too can create a digital disaster,...
Things That Make a Blog Post Work
Let us begin, readers, with the most important thing a blog post needs: words. Without words, a blog post is just a blank page, and...
Blogging Like The 90’s
Here’s how the Chambers English dictionary defines a blog… “A document containing personal observations, often in the form of a journal, that is published to...
New Topographics
This is a photo of nowhere in particular in St Ives, Cornwall. Which is the point. In the 1970s, a bunch of American photographers got...
The Photography Thing
Welcome, readers, to the pixelated playground of my photography! Here, I point my camera at places and spaces—sometimes empty, sometimes full, but always suspiciously standing...
Five Writing Tips That Are Snacks in Disguise
Here’s five reasons to eat snacks while writing… The Biscuit Break Brainstorm Before you write a single word, fetch a biscuit. Not just any biscuit—a...
The Troll on the Trail
Somewhere between Newport and Sandown, soaked to the skin and starting to squelch due to the persistent rain, I found myself on a footbridge. Naturally,...
A Brief Collapse Over Chips
Yesterday, I walked 12.5 miles in the sun. And the wind. It was the kind of wind that undoes your thoughts mid-sentence and tries to...
The Expert On The Bus
We were sitting quietly on a bus to Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, when he got on. The Expert. He took the seat behind us and...
My Brain Has a Jammed Caps Lock
DEAR READER, I AM WRITING THIS IN THE HOPES THAT YOU WILL UNDERSTAND THE PLIGHT OF A MAN WHOSE BRAIN HAS, QUITE LITERALLY, JAMMED ITS...
Seen on Homepage
Dear First Draft: We Need to Talk
Dear First Draft, It’s not you, it’s me. Well, actually, it’s mostly you. Let’s be honest — you’re a bit of a mess. You turn...
The Old Guy And His Stories
We were strolling between Sandown and Shanklin on the Isle of Wight. The weather was glorious — sunny, warm, with a coastal breeze just strong...
Movies In My Head
Lots of people have dreams. And plenty have nightmares. Nothing unusual there. I have nightmares. Loud, visually vivid devils that leave me feeling displaced when...
The Biscuit Detector
Reg’s Time Machine was a bit flawed, But he had a new plan, Because he was a little bit bored, And his wife Pam made...
How to Write Without Strangling the Sentences
Let us begin with a confession: I have strangled sentences. Yes, I have throttled them, twisted them, and left them gasping for breath on the...
