The Bookish Old Soul

Hi. So ends the month of January for this blog. That’s the bleak bit over and done with. Now it’s fun and sun (hopefully—it’s like walking through milk some days). I thought I’d give you something to chuckle at. A few weeks ago, I went to see Nosferatu . I know—I’m thinking the same thing: guy with cerebral palsy (in a wheelchair, jumps at small noises—though some of us can walk) watching a horror film. But that gave me something to think about while waiting in the cinema for the film to start. One… the concept is weird. People pay to sit in a dark room eating popcorn out of soggy cardboard boxes and watch some good-cheekboned guy run around in front of a green screen. Two… adverts are grim, aren’t they? The acting makes EastEnders look like Casablanca . The messages were grim too. One was an advert trying to get you to join the British Army. I can’t even say “army” without thinking of Gareth from The Office . Here’s the clip (starting at 1:21). That advert was ten times more patriot...

Hi. I’m a reader. I read like a hunter hunts. I read like a skier skis. I’ve read most things: Christie, Dahl, Dickens – you name it. Modern stuff too, like Alice Oseman and Richard Osman. But here’s the thing: all those dead writers? They’re… well, dead. The living ones? Mostly harmless—stories about gay schoolmates or little old ladies solving crimes. And then there are the controversial ones. The names that send the internet into meltdown. Writers whose books are discredited simply because of who wrote them. Take J.K. Rowling, for instance. She shared her opinions—bless her—and overnight, fans went from worshipping her words to blocking her on every platform and burning her books… kind of like how feminists burned bras in the ’70s. Now, I don’t have an issue with bra burning. I’m sure the women who did it found other ways to stop a cold on their chest. But book burning—what the (insert word here) is that about? It doesn’t accomplish anything. It just stinks up the place and leaves a...

  Hello.  A day in my life isn’t exactly Instagram-worthy. You know the ones—people with names like Mercedes or Thistle, waking up at sunrise to sip coffee blacker than ink, and stepping out the door in outfits that would make Julia Roberts blush. My life? A little different. I usually wake up from a nonsensical dream (often involving me dating Joe Locke—if only!) to my dad coming in, cheerfully reminding me it’s morning. I have Cerebral Palsy, which means I can’t walk and tend to jump at small noises. Dad helps me get dressed, then gives me what I call “five minutes to get my head together.” This is my half-asleep way of saying: let me wonder, in peace, what it’d be like to become unwakeable—like in The Boy Who Fell Asleep , a short story I read where a boy slept for two decades before waking up again. That story’s in Ten Sorry Tales by Mick Jackson. It’s on Amazon, by the way. I recommend it: Ten Sorry Tales on Amazon . Fun fact: my mum used to read me these stories when I ...

 Hello.  As you can tell from the title, I’m a Bookish Old Soul. In a nutshell, that means I read a lot and gravitate towards the old things that pop up in life. I mean, which nineteen-year-old has a CD player nowadays? The reason I still have one is because it connects us to something more personal. Radio chatter is comforting to me—the burble of a voice, followed by a song you rather like. If you hate it, just switch the station. I have three go-to stations: one filled with golden oldies, another that I’ve dubbed ‘Mum-music,’ and a third that thinks a ‘throwback’ is anything from 2021. I love that about radio. It’s spontaneous and real—you can have a laugh, even when you're on your own. Books are a huge part of who I am. I read a lot—mostly fiction. It’s my escape. I also write my own stuff. If that kind of thing interests you, then you’re halfway there. Just write. You can’t become a writer in my eyes; writers just are. You just need to put one word in front of the other—th...