On getting close but no cigar
The ball has become the brownest brown it is currently capable of becoming. It will not get any browner, no matter how much more pummelling it receives.
On being too busy writing to write
Out of courageousness, folly or perversity — and I'll let you decide which — I'm cracking on with my writing.
On a craft book that’s actually worth reading
"Then somebody takes it out of my hands and describes it to me. An astonishing feeling. Now it exists."
On solitude, phones, and the garden of the mind
How awful it is when people talk about spending so much time on their phones and using AI so much, as if these were things to be proud of.
On a trip to the zoo
I'd be fascinated, in this new era of extreme prudishness and extreme permissiveness, to watch visitors react to animals having sex.
On the unimprovable
A word which has never, I expect, been said to us, or used to describe anything we did, anything we made, anything we laboured over.
On the value of multiple touch points
I'm noticing more and more that devotees of AI, or AI apologists, as I prefer to think of them, are much more focused on product than process.
On having a King Canute moment
Writing has been how I rediscovered and retained my dignity during this weird, liberating, insecure, rewarding, exposing time in my life.
On marshmallows, binge-watching and delayed……………………………………………..gratification
My educational attainment is pretty good. My BMI, less so. I doubt my parents would describe me as "competent" at anything.
On the utter waffling bollocks either side of ad breaks on Sky Arts’ Portrait Artist of the Year
I honestly think the note of letting self-doubt fuel you is entirely unplayable, entirely unusable, in any creative context.
