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A Xmas Message

  Hi. Merry Christmas and all that. I like Christmas. It means different things to different people. To some, a religious festival I think it’d be sacrilege to suggest otherwise ( ‘er, yes, Joe, darling, it was an angel …’ said The Virgin Mary.) To others, like me – it’s a celebration of winter, and times gone by. I believe that now – and I’ll tread carefully around this (sorry ‘m a wheelchair user, wheel … skirt?) but in a UK where we have … people who own all night shops and money laundering barbers, and park on the pavement. ( NB To not come across as a Daily Mail writer my gran is Jamaican – and for the sake of argument had a job and didn’t sit watching Real Housewives of New Jersey yet somehow can’t say ‘hello, how are you?’) For new readers, I’m not normally this political but, hear me out. Christmas has lost it’s religious meaning. (Look ‘pon Mariah, would she be allowed in for Midnight Mass like that?) I’d say Christmas is a time for family. For some that’s a granni...
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Past Encounters

  Past Encounters         Hi.   I visited my old school the other day. My old stomping ground. My college were taking us for a coffee morning. A friend of mine told me. My reaction was this: ‘no-no-nuh-no-no! not going back there – woah!’ or words to that effect. I wasn’t bullied. I wasn’t given six-of-the-best with a belt. I wasn’t given a dunce hat and forced to sing ‘I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General’ or anything. This was because my school had been a part of my life for (pulls up calculator – not even a joke – I think it’s called dyscalculia) fifteen years. Because of that I’d put a line under it … it was the end of that chapter. However, as soon as I stepped into the Primary Hall, the grudge feeling melted. I was particularly in a docile mood that day because it marked six years since I fell in love (I keep   a diary, ok? she wouldn’t date me because I was a wheelchair user and I ended up gay anyway so…) I saw old...
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Birthday Blues

  Birthday Blues       Hi. Sorry I’ve took a few months off, I have this thing called a life. So how are you? Good. Good. Hmm. Right. So yeah, it was my birthday at the beginning of this month. A few days before we went down to Whitby (me and my family) and came back the night before my 20 th – stopping off at an aunty’s birthday dinner at a posh restaurant. Whether it was the four hour drive, or the beef (it was so pink I asked for a defibrillator) I don’t know, but I … er, saw it again in the carpark on the way out. Proper projectile stuff. In true me fashion I just sat in my vest on the drive home, saying ‘the sticky toffee pudding was rock hard … no, Mum obviously I never ate it, they’re meant to be soft.’ Then I was sick again once home. Proper everything. Just everything. Exorcist looked like CBeebies. I craved water but couldn't drink it. It was a hang over without the alcohol. Four times from four in the evening ‘til eight on the morning of m...
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In Love (With a Game)

 Hi. I’m gay, and I like gaming. But I’m not a gaymer. Gaymers give the impression you’re chained to the chair — blue hair, an uncomfortable obsession with anthropomorphic cartoon animals. Those in the know will know exactly what I mean. I’m not one — if I was, this’d be littered with ‘uwus’ and ‘<3’s. So — I fell in love. With a game. I played it first in 2018, on release day — October 26, 2018. Red Dead Redemption II. I was thirteen, yes. But I was five when the first game came out — and I played it (with the volume down — like shooting a load of outlaws was still okay for a child). Red Dead Redemption II is a prequel. It takes place in 1899 at the tail end of the Wild West — 14 years after a DeLorean fell off a bridge. It follows a fictional gang called the Van der Linde Gang — filled with feisty women, rowdy outlaws, and a tyrannical leader who made Rishi seem sane. It followed a hunky guy called Arthur Morgan. Hmm. Yes. Sorry — I was distracted. Arthur Morgan — in his...
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The Book I COULD Put Down.

  Hi. You know me now, and you know I read. I read like a chain-smoker rips their way through thirty or forty a day. Book-wise, I read two books a week. I don’t smoke. People say it’s all for the best — because smoking is bad for your chest. Dolly Parton and Victoria Coren Mitchell beg to differ. In the 0.001% chance the ladies are reading this — because nothing, contrary to GCSE Maths, is impossible — sorry. I was in Waterstones — like I always am when I want new reading material. People think I'm in there every Saturday, but I'm not. My reading alternates between Harry Potter, The Hobbit, and Dracula — and sometimes Roald Dahl if I’m depressed. Next time you see me — if you know me — look. I’m always reading those three. Anyway. The book I got was called The Anxious Generation. It gave the same vibe as the question: Without the use of a calculator, answer the first six digits of pi. It was the most mind-numbingly boring and stupid book in the world. It blamed the down...
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Obsessions

Hi, Everybody has obsessions. For some, it's a sexy celebrity who'll never know they exist, unrealistic comics about gay teen romance — or even, and this is a true one, collecting books they already own three or four sets of. It doesn't take Hercule Poirot to figure it out — I was talking about me. Declan McKenna (there’s a particular song that made fifteen-year-old me start to realize that my obsession with the music wasn’t entirely about the music, but I’ll let you decide for yourself), Heartstopper (warning: even the straightest, butchest bloke will start crying — just ask anyone who’s seen it on Netflix ), and my favorite book series, Harry Potter . Now, say what you want about J.K. Rowling — to quote The Simpsons , "knock her on the kisser or..." (my teachers read this), but she can write. And there’s something nice about those old-timey ‘90s - ‘00s covers. Whilst working at Cancer Research last term, I found three first-edition Harry Potter books — Book ...
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That Time I Loved a Book

Hi. It was 2022. I was a hormonal, undiagnosed-depressive teen. I had kept a diary for about fourteen months – and was sixteen – well into it, just tickling the surface of my GCSEs. For the few adults reading this who have socks older than me, it was the year you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing the opening drumbeat to Running Up That Hill. I was sat in the dining bay, and I was thinking about some straight guy I had a crush on. Another straight guy, who I had liked the previous year – but now was slowly becoming insufferable, said: ‘Oi – you seen Heartstopper ?’ I said, ‘No.’ He smiled, Mr. Insufferable did, so the dot-to-dot spots on his face went missing in the creases of his cheeks. ‘I would’ve thought you had, considering...’ Tired of the (insert name of animal and name of brown stuff), I said, ‘Considering what, Sufferable?’ ‘You’re gay.’ I just left it. In hindsight, I should have given him a round of  b... applause, and wiped the floor with him. But hey-ho (as...
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