Category: Musing

He sold his soul to the devil for the Blues. Robert Johnson was born in Mississippi, in the Summer of 1911. After a tumultuous couple of years he ended up in Memphis where he learned maths, reading, and most importantly, music. A decade after this his family relocated to a plantation. He was a pretty…

And so closes another chapter in my book. My quaint novella is becoming a giant epic. Some of the chapters have stories that span years, decades even. Others are but a few pages. There’s a lot of interweaving narratives too which can make for a complex read, but the important bits happen sequentially so as…

My adopted gerbil Ben is weird. He was originally purchased with his brother Jerry and the family brought him back alone. Gerbils are supposed to live in pairs or groups so bringing one back should definitely be a crime but the shop has a policy to take all animals back. Then lockdown happened, and he…

The more I write, the more I find myself asking what the point of writing is. At the moment, I’m going absolutely mad every night smashing my keyboard getting whatever thoughts that are in my head down on paper (well, on screen). I can’t actually answer the question of why I’m doing this though. Deep…

I’m sitting in my office at home. This is where I work now. It’s a great room with everything I need to get by. Custom PC I built myself, large desk that I also built, high end speakers, dual monitors, mechanical keyboard, ergonomic chair – the works. I’m sat by a window overlooking trees and…

Being born isn’t really our choice, it’s just sort of thrust upon us. The beginning is so utterly shit; we don’t really remember most of it until a couple of years in. Then we just kind of do stuff until we die. However, that bit in the middle is weird and I’ve been thinking about…

I arrived at the Greyhound Bus depot in the late afternoon, having gone without sleep for near eighteen hours. I felt hungover even though I drank only two miniature bottles of whisky on the ten-hour flight from London. This was not a hangover. The lack of sleep, in combination with the stress of transatlantic travelling,…

The sun wakes me up early every day. At least it means I don’t need to set an alarm. The blinds in my room aren’t fitted correctly and they let the light creep in. My eyes are slow to open, and I wake slightly confused and not well rested. I sometimes dream, but more often…

John Henderson sold books just outside West Hampstead station. He was originally from Scotland, and as he would happily admit, he really liked to drink. He used to have a three legged bull terrier called Sugar, and she was the sweetest dog I’ve ever met. She died in 2016, and John died in 2019. I…