Growing up we never celebrated Halloween. As an Australian family in the 1970s, this was not all that unusual. Halloween was then still a distant American tradition. Later, though, I would learn that the 31st of October was a day that held great significance for my mother: the day she went into hospital for cancer-related surgery. I was two at the time, my mother, thirty-three..... [more]
Read MoreAs children we're taught that there are some words that we shouldn't say. Nice children say "yes", "please" and "thank you". Only in very rare circumstances is a polite refusal allowed.
In improv theatre, the utmost holy mantra is the concept of "yes, and...". Every improv game move is an offer to be embraced and built upon. Refusing someone's idea is a metaphoric slap in the face that will get you chased out of improv-town..... [more]
Read MoreFour years ago, I was sitting in a small café on a small street in a small town in Bulgaria when a thought popped into my head. I was nearing the end stretch of a two-month holiday, which I’d taken in the middle of a year-long University exchange to Germany. It had been filled with experiences that had taught me a reasonable amount about myself, other countries, my friends, and when not to trust a Hungarian bartender who reckons that “the vodka isn’t THAT strong”. As I sat, overlooking the River Yantra, I had this odd thought..... [more]
Read MoreAct I
I felt a hand pull me out of the cold water. I gasped for air. The salt water burned my throat as it fought with the encroaching air for space. I collapsed on the beach. Tiny hot granules of sand burned my face. I liked it. I loved it. To me it was a welcome reminder that I was still living..... [more]
Read MoreThe Smiths wrote a book entitled The Songs That Saved Your Life. Well, the Smiths didn't write it. Simon Goddard did. But it was about the Smiths.
The book covered each of their songs with fanboy levels of intimate detail. It's a perfect piece of fan-porn, full with recording notes, backstage gossip and lyrics interpretations..... [more]
Read MoreThe following extract is something I stumbled across quite by accident while browsing the book heaps at Voltaire and Rousseau, a second hand bookshop in Glasgow's West End. I found it scrawled on a sheet of yellowed paper that fell from the pages of Mao's biography. I present to you the document in its entirety. It reads..... [more]
Read MoreAround 1.41 a.m. on Sunday morning I had an epiphany. I was at a Belgian wedding, shaking moves to Euro-trance music on the dancefloor beside an assortment of European mongrels. An assortment of characters with birthplaces spanning Spain, the UK, Belgium, France and Germany.
And my thought was: .....[more]
Read MoreFull disclosure: I’m a marketer. I don’t just appear on the marketing spectrum, I identify as a fully fledged marketer.
One thing that never ceases to shock me is the reaction I get from some people when I tell them I’m a marketer..... [more]
Read MoreThree things your doctor needn't say:
1. "Your test results came back. They are the worst I have ever seen."
2. "So, you've been feeling a bit down..... [more]
Read MoreThere is a post that I had put off writing. That post, is this post. It's the last post written before Basho begins his journey around Japan. And it's also the last post before we get a few guest writers in to kick-off the Big Morbidity Project (BMP).
But it is more than that..... [more]
Read MoreWhen is a terrorist not a terrorist? When they are white? Or just when we share a certain amount of cultural ancestry?
A lot remains unanswered about the murder of the British parliamentarian Jo Cox last Wednesday. And it's far too easy..... [more]
Read MoreThe European Championships (football) kicked-off on Friday. I, like always, have so far seen about 37 minutes of the 990 minutes on offer. The familiar rush of excitement in the weeks preluding the first game; the sudden apathy as soon as the tournament actually begins. Maybe apathy is a strong word. I still check the results on the BBC. So... distractibility. Or rather, always finding something "more important" to do..... [more]
Read MoreNo creative work is delivered in a ready-to-eat, fully-formed manner. Revision and the slow chipping away of the creative marble is the less-sexy truth behind most creative endeavours. Ok, maybe not if you're Kerouac. But I'm not American. Or dead..... [more]
Read MoreSo, here it is. Our little baby. Dirtied and bloodied. And so much smaller than we’d expected.
What was supposed to be a “back of the envelope” musing to be launched all the way back..... [more]
Read Morea softer world - buttercup festival - xkcd - dinosaur comics - scary go round - raven & zombie
Ross Findlay and Mark "Fitts" Fittock ©2016
