Why I’m Not ‘Moving On’
- January 03, 2021
- by
- Matt
Many years ago back in 2003, the Dixie Chicks played in London on the eve of the Iraq War, and their vocalist Natalie Maines had the temerity to criticise the war, and George Bush, while introducing one of their finest songs Travellin’ Soldier. This statement dragged the group into a political storm. The Chicks, as...
2020: The Year that Wasn’t
- December 31, 2020
- by
- Matt
Of all the things I expected from 2020 last New Year’s Eve, I have to say I did not expect to be living under actual or semi quarantine for nine months in the middle of a pandemic. My wife was more prescient. As far back as last December she expressed concern that the virus in...
Have Yourselves a Kakistocratic Brexmas
- December 26, 2020
- by
- Matt
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when the long-awaited announcement was finally presented to the world, hastily wrapped in cheap PR wrapping paper and served up by the grifter-in-chief in his very own Santa’s grotto. Preceded by a hark-the-herald-angels fanfare from the government stenographers in the rightwing press, the Supreme Leader of Brexitania, Comrade John-Son-Un, announced...
The Country of the Blind
- December 12, 2020
- by
- Matt
I recently bought a copy of the official guide to the 1992 Seville Expo in connection with a novel that I’m currently working on. Most of it is written in the tourist-guide kitsch that you would expect to find from an exhibition that celebrated Columbus’s voyages as the beginning of an ‘age of discovery’ leading...
Project Fear: The Novel that Never Was
- July 13, 2020
- by
- Matt
All writers know that not all their ideas get off the ground. Sometimes you come up with an idea that you think has potential, but then your agent or publisher says no for all kinds of reasons that you don’t anticipate. So here’s what happened with a pitch that I failed to launch a while...
Let them eat Tim Tams
- June 19, 2020
- by
- Matt
FULL TEXT OF BORIS JOHNSON’S BIRTHDAY ADDRESS
Good afternoon folks. I know this pandemic thingie has been an unprecedented challenge for all of us, but I think we can all agree that my government has handled it remarkably well. The figures speak for themselves. Only 42,288 dead – 64,000 excess deaths if you believe the Office...
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