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Life articles Monday, February 19, 2001
Accidental AutobiographyShould you keep five year-old email messages? I’m currently tidying up the contents of various hard drives and floppy disks (remember them?) to prepare for the arrival of a new machine. But how much to throw out is proving a difficult question. Saturday, September 09, 2000
Sick BoyThere’s something entertaining about being mildly ill. As I sit here writing this, it’s almost the first time I’ve been partly vertical all day. A sore throat, fatigue and high temperature has me confined to barracks, but since I know this will pass, I just have to let the illness have its way with me. Sunday, March 19, 2000
Under Construction - raising a tipiLast weekend I helped raise a tipi with some friends near Santa Fe, New Mexico. On a flat step above a bend in a river we camped out the previous night, sitting round the campfire making s’mores and drinking wine from mugs. The stars were out above us, and as the moon set behind the hill opposite we picked our way down the steep path to the river. Saturday, June 19, 1999
Cabin FeverIn the last 15 months I’ve been on over 70 aeroplanes. Since this January, from my base in Kansas, the list of cities I’ve been in seems ridiculous - Atlanta, DC, Chicago, Dallas, Tucson, San Francisco (twice), Dublin (twice), Galway, Cincinnati, Denver, Santa Fe (three times). You can spin this unlikely itinerary in a number of ways. Either it’s a fact of modern day business life, and something that an increasing number of people do all the time. Friday, March 19, 1999
Natural TechnologyOver the weekend, while snow fell outside, I made a unilatleral decision that it was spring, and went shopping online for outdoors stuff. The technology was a great help. I trawled through reviews from people who already had the gear I was looking at, and discussion board questions from people going through the same process as me (incidentally, if anyone here has anything good or bad to say about the Specialized Stumpjumper or the Gary Fisher Ziggurat, drop me a line). Sunday, November 08, 1998
Essential Ephemera - should you keep old emails?As I write, John Glenn and his fellow astronauts are getting used to gravity again with the completion of their Shuttle mission. Amidst the discussion of Glenn’s return to space - take your pick: heroic adventure, science experiment or publicity stunt - a small detail caught my eye. It seems that Glenn was keeping in touch with his wife by email. On the one hand this shows how pervasive a form of communication email has become (forget ‘Houston, we have a problem,’ now it’s ‘Fwd: Top Ten things we want Samuel Jackson to say as a Jedi Knight’). Thursday, May 28, 1998
To David, with fear and loathingNot so long ago, I went to a public reading given by Hunter Thompson and Johnny Depp, promoting the new film of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The whole thing was a surreal experience - a hero of the counter-culture appearing at a media event in the Virgin Megastore in Times Square, New York - but one of the strangest parts about it was the realisation that the audience weren’t really there to see either Hunter or Johnny. They were there to get their books signed. Thursday, December 04, 1997
Advent adventuresWhen I was very young my sister and I would both have advent calendars on the mantelpiece. The idea of sharing one was unthinkable, and so every December morning between the toast and Marmite, the tea and the Today programme on Radio 4, we’d dash into the living room and each open another window. Some years we’d re-use them from the previous year, and so when we opened the doors, we’d have to be careful not to tear them off, as other more reckless friends did. That way, we could push them all flat again for next year. Thursday, November 13, 1997
Postcards from the edgeAs attentive readers will recall, I’ve just taken a holiday, and as I sat in the Broome St Bar in New York City one evening I was moved to ponder the future of postcards. It’s become an obligation to devote some of your time while away to writing two paragraphs of banality on the back of a cheesy picture of the area’s most famous landmark, and then mail it home. You will, of course, arrive back before the card. Thursday, October 23, 1997
The High Life - what’s wrong with flyingMuch of contemporary life would be hard to explain to earlier generations (it’s hard enough explaining what I do to my parents), but air travel is so spectacular that sometimes it’s difficult even for us to cope with. You get on a metal tube in London, sit down, have something to eat, maybe watch a movie, snooze for a while, and then when you wake up you’re in (say) Tokyo. In the face of this miracle, we have become so blas? about things that all we do is moan about the plastic food and the lack of leg room. Thursday, September 11, 1997
Camomile Tea vs Motorbikes‘Those who go through life prepared for every eventuality do so at the expense of much joy’, runs the (half-forgotten) quote. Camomile tea has with it the air of preparedness. For some (few), there’s an immediate attraction in the taste, and for most, a welcoming calming effect, but it still smacks of being over-cautious. You’re not living in a great big way drinking the stuff - it’s not shots of frozen vodka or even a good nerve-tingling espresso. Wednesday, June 04, 1997
The Empire Strikes Back vs The BibleYour modest proposer is not normally given to self-revelation, but this week we come to a topic that warrants some autobiography. When I was ten years old my older sister and I went to see The Empire Strikes Back. I enjoyed the film in a ten year-old way and spent the whole summer playing with an imaginary light sabre (not the dodgy plastic ones you could buy in the shops - they were bobbins). It was not until I saw the film again earlier this year that I was suddenly struck by the scary thought that my moral view of the world might have been shaped by a 3-foot high muppet with a croaky voice. Thursday, April 17, 1997
Pringles vs PlaystationAn intelligent young man sits in front of the TV, clutching a PlayStation controller and screaming in horror as his alter ego crashes to his death off a pixellated cliff. He bitterly shakes his head and mumbles, ‘just one more go’. He doesn’t want another go. He knows he should be doing creative and positive things, but instead he feels about nine years old, and part of him wants his Mum to come in and tell him to get up those stairs and tidy his room.
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