Newcomer

From a book I’m currently reading:
“Initially the community may welcome us warmly - even overwhelmingly. But in every culture the newcomer is still exactly that - and newcomers by definition don’t fit in yet. Our basic position in the new community is one of statuslessness. We carry knowledge from past experiences - often including special [...]

It must have been something I ate

Spring, 2000. A bedsit in Dublin. Paola was out at her wine tasting course. I was sat at home alone, reading. I started to feel a little queasy. Thinking back over what I had eaten that day, I remembered the pineapple chutney I had used in my sandwich at lunchtime. We had bought a jar [...]

The thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to

I can’t remember the last time I physically injured myself. I’m not talking about breaking a nail or banging my head - I mean something that resulted in real bleeding, a large bruise, a break.
As a child I never needed to go to hospital - I’ve never broken a bone (although I did manage to [...]

Kamisa’s story

Sorry for the downer, but this is the saddest thing I’ve read in a long time. Can you imagine having to decide which of your children to save?

8 ball

For my sins (which are many and various) I have been tagged, so here goes.Eight random things about me:
1. I count stairs. I can tell you exactly how many stairs there are on each flight in my house (12, then 6, then 10, then 7. There are 13 down to the basement). This comes in handy [...]

Kill me now

That moment when you just want the earth to open up and swallow you: I’m lucky not to have had too many of those in my life so far (is that a good thing or not?), but one small example springs to mind.
I was working as a camera trainee on a TV drama series in [...]

In dreams

A post on another blog got me thinking about nightmares.
I don’t often have nightmares these days. I did when I was a child, but they were bizarrely abstract and didn’t feature anything that could be thought of as conventionally scary. I wish I could convey to you the sheer terror induced by the wobbling parallel [...]

Anal

I find, somewhat to my relief, that I’m chilling out as I get older. I never considered myself to be stressed, over-excitable or nervous, but I was certainly anal retentive about many things. I guess I still am to a certain extent, but it’s easing off. For example, I still keep books and cds in [...]

Fear itself

Have you ever been a victim of crime? Do you know anyone who has? Do you worry about this kind of thing a lot?
Take a look at this graph from the Human Security Report.
Now compare it with this one.
Why do people worry so much about something that will in all likelihood never happen to them? And, [...]

Suffer the little children

“Something’s going on, change is taking place
Children smiling in the street have gone without a trace
This street used to be full, it used to make me smile
And now it seems that everyone is walking single file
And many bow their heads in shame
That used to hold them high
And those that used to say hello
Simply pass you by
Think [...]