walking
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This is the Sound of the Suburbs
Home improvements / In our dream home / Home improvements / We’re never moving. – Straight Life, Black Box Recorder There is something about suburbia I’ve always been running from. It has therefore been instructive to spend Christmas in a semi-detached house on the edge of Luton. [1] I took a Boxing Day walk, on Read more
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From Round Hill to the Desolation of Hollingbury Asda
I was supposed to be seeing The Divine Comedy this past evening [1]. They are one of my favourite bands, but I couldn’t quite face it. The assorted gigs, shows and accompanying human interactions of the past week, joyous as they were, left me feeling like I needed to spend an evening somewhere other than Read more
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Amersham (4am Eternal)
I’m currently cat-sitting at the end of the Metropolitan Line, deep in John Betjamin’s Metro-land. O Metro-land! Is all still pleasant in this Tory suburban eternal? All early data points to no. Amersham-on-the-Hill is where the old Metropolitan Railway now ends, an almost-place with a little mock-Tudor high street, two vainglorious kebab shops, and a Read more
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The Portsmouth to Gosport Ferry
My mum moves out of Southsea tomorrow. She has been busy with the emotional task of chucking out what needs to be chucked out, and putting into storage what needs to be put into storage, as she continues to look for somewhere new to live in the old, familial lands of Nottingham. Last week I Read more
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Walking from Lewes to Rottingdean
On a windy, sunny Sunday afternoon, I got my butt out of my usual, sometimes self-defeating patterns of weekend behaviour and took myself up into the Downs. I’m very lucky to have the South Downs National Park on my doorstep, and I have been rationing bits of it out to myself slowly. My brain forever Read more
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A wander up Chanctonbury Ring
“Chanctonbury is a place where time slows” [1] The last time I made it up to Chanctonbury, the world was different. It was 2019, and I was walking the South Downs Way. I was lost, but not in a geographic sense, as it’s hard to lose one’s bearings when walking a giant ridge of chalk Read more
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Walking from London Road Brighton to Hassocks
A bright and cold January Friday with no work left to do, and a flat as frigid as a Carry On matron. There was only one thing to do: walk across the ridge of the Downs, and feel the reassuring crunch of snow beneath my feet. I live just off Ditchling Road, which as the Read more
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‘Inequality in our society still exists’: a dazed wander around Gunwharf Quay, Portsmouth
I get so bored when I’m ill. All of us internet users fall down terrible rabbit holes from time to time, and yesterday evening I found myself looking at terrible restaurants in rural Pakistan via google customer photographs. What’s the opposite of a roadside eaterie near the Kashmiri border? Land Securities Properties Ltd would like Read more
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You are now leaving the American Sector (aka: three nights in non-tourist Berlin)
Berlin was excellent. I continue to adore it, though I have no idea what it makes of me. I was there to catch up with wonderful Halie [1] rather than to do tourist things. We enjoyed many excellent conversations [2], catching up on love and life and academia. It had been a while: we last Read more
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Cheery marauding street dogs
I’m in Istanbul for a wedding. My friend has lived here for years and I’ve visited when I can, but this is my first time in summer for a while. The airport was pristine: a less honest gateway to a chaotic city than London’s claustrophobic Gatwick. We were picked up by a pimp-my-ride people carrier Read more
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