A few years ago I was living in Berlin and it felt indefinite. I had not made plans to stay and felt unable to leave. I felt homesick and unsure and one day I asked on facebook if anybody felt like sending me a postcard through the mail. I just love postcards. Occasionally I send […]
My date took me to a bar that was open late. We sat round a splendid banquette like pashas. At the table one tier down, a girl sitting with her friends unfurled a really strange laugh. It was high and sort of squeaky-grunty, very loud: within moments she had drained the whole place of its […]
Last year and the year before that and four years ago too we went down on the train to West Germany, to a tiny village lying under the skirts of the old woods. This is where my sweetheart was born. His father was born in the same house and to me the village, the house, […]
Christmas edition of the local paper, West Germany. Four pages of articles welcoming the first couple of hundred asylum seekers into the area. Photos of Syrian and Pakistani families lugging their suitcases off the bus and of all the local dignitaries who turned out to smilingly shake their hands and welcome them; photos of the […]
It fascinates me how people invariably preface racist statements with the words, “I’m not a racist or anything, but: [other people are inferior or flawed].” As they say, you have to ignore everything that comes before the “but.” The thorough-going unseen privilege of those who feel most entitled to thus pronounce on other people’s worth […]
A man on the street broke my heart open and I can’t stop thinking about him. We had turned a corner heading for my friend’s atelier to surprise-visit her, when out from behind a parked car bounced this large, bounding, fierce-looking black dog. We both stood in front of our much smaller dog and got […]
Some delightful person left a little note in our letterbox this week, thanking us for something we had not done. It is wrapped in a glossy little gift box hot pink with white polka dots, which folds open like a Chinese takeaway. There’s something so satisfying about those boxes. Inside is a mess of silver […]