Short stories
June 19 Dear Diarrhoea, I know you must be fed up of me going on about how death is catching up with me but I’m pretty sure I don’t have long left now. Well I know I don’t. I’m just trying to squeeze the last bit of life from this withered old body before it conks out on me. Since I arrived here in China...
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Reviews
The Orielles- live for the Flying Vinyl Festival at Shapes Warehouse, Hackney, April 2016 The Orielles from Halifax have single-handedly demolished the dark, satanic mills, and the grim, urban landscape of their home town. In its place they have built a virtual paradise resort in sun-soaked Californifax, where growing audiences check in for an idyllic break. Like Viola Beach, tragically killed in Sweden in February, and who were...
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Reviews
Live in Southend, April 8th, 2016 Expectations have reached almost fever pitch and a palpable tension holds you at knife-point. It is so close you can almost touch it and so far away that you stricken with grief. Fans of the lids are like rabid alligators biting their tails off to get their claws on their second album. Teasers of each song leaked online have...
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Reviews
Black Honey: Sweet Dreams or a Beautiful Nightmare? It probably takes less than a minute to get hooked on Black Honey. They are pure class A, producing fully-fledged addicts, who crave the next chemical fix released by their powerful, dreamy, other worldly music. This addict started listening to them a couple of months ago because they are on the Festevol bill in Liverpool over the...
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Reviews
This was always going to be a fine balancing act. How do you remember the most unspeakable tragedy of five young lives cut short in their prime and yet still celebrate their talents and achievements? How do you balance joy and tragedy? It has been done before, at Live Aid for example, or in that exquisitely crafted episode of the Royle Family where nana, played...
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Reviews
Picture the scene. You walk through Liverpool One shopping centre. You are heading for Jamaica Street in the Baltic Quarter. You have forgotten to bring your umbrella and the heavy rain has drenched the place your hair used to adorn. Drops of spring rain run in rivulets over your brow and onto your nose. But then you step inside Unit 51 Café and enter another...
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Reviews
Just pause for a moment. Picture that well known image of a snowball being pushed off the top of a hill. It’s gaining momentum. It rolls on down, faster and faster, gathering more and more snow to itself. Finally it knocks everything out of its path as it goes hurtling on and on into the distance. The Blossoms journey is that snowball. The snow is...
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Poems
A very short poem about “gardening” to celebrate the start of Spring. Brown eyes call me, the gardener, To step upon the soft rose petal carpet of your soul, Through gently opening doors, A slow descent, your watering hole Sprinklers rejuvenating foliage, ferns, Intoxicating perfume of your inner world Charms my soul’s depths within me As your love unfurls. Your rich resin, destiny’s...
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