LEARNING THE ART OF LIVING WELL
Three things have been been fighting for my attention this week: The Morning Show (Apple TV’s compelling drama about the #MeToo movement), a diagnosis of superior limbic keratoconjunctivitis (a longstanding eye issue that has made me look like I’ve just been dug up) and Coronavirus. Yesterday, all three of these things, incongruously, came together. Before […]
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I used to love reading the poem ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas when I was child. The idea that ‘not a creature was stirring’ in my house made the idea of Father Christmas’s arrival even more exciting. I would stare out of my bedroom window and convince myself that he had magically turned the sky […]
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This is a preview of the foreword of Lost for Words, a new book created by the Life Matters task force – a coalition calling for better support for bereaved families – to mark Children’s Grief Awareness Week 2019. The book is made up of advice and insights by children across the UK, bereaved from […]
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My late wife, Desreen, was very funny. She had a completely different take on the world to anyone else I’ve ever met. For instance, after she’d given birth to our son she never really spoke negatively about wanting to lose weight or build back the stomach muscles that were cut open during her emergency caesarean. […]
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Growing up in a predominantly white, middle class town in the north of England, I never really spent much time – aside from my own childhood insecurities – thinking about how it must feel to be ‘other’. That changed nine years ago when my mixed race son was born. In the early months and years, […]
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It would have been my late wife’s 40th birthday today. Last night I shared a post about her on Instagram, based loosely on the eulogy I gave at her funeral almost seven years ago. The message was simple: remember her this weekend by doing something she would have done (even if you never had the […]
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I spent the day with one of my best friends at his new house in Cheshire on Saturday. We first met at high school and have since been through pretty much every high and low in life together. When we get together we can – and we do – talk for hours and hours. It’s […]
Read MoreWell that was my thirties. Beautiful, fun, life-changing, hideous, painful, purposeful and completely unexpected in almost every way imaginable. I document things so that I don’t forget, so that my son might understand things for himself one day, and perhaps because I regret not preserving more of what we had together when we started our […]
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I’ve been putting off watching Aquaman. Actually, that’s not quite true – I’ve been avoiding it. I don’t watch that many movies, I only binge on television every so often, and I usually decide that superhero films are bullshit before I give them a chance (save Batman, obviously). Also, after watching every single episode of […]
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Do you ever get to the end of a day and wonder how on earth you did it? If so then congratulations, because I think it may be a sign of a much happier state of mind than if you find yourself asking why you even bothered. Today has been one of those days for […]
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I get distracted easily. Actually, that’s not strictly true; I tend to get intensely busy with several things at the same time easily. When I’m doing a chore, such as cleaning the dishes, I’ll remember that I need to hang out the washing and I’ll start doing that as well so that I don’t forget. […]
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Before I got married in 2011, my wife-to-be and I braved a really intense detoxifying programme called ‘Clean’. At the time, she read the words of Gwyneth Paltrow as gospel. This saw me – the one who did all the cooking in our home – up early making my own almond milk (literally) and packing […]
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MAN ALIVE 