Category Archives: Journalism

Lionheart Magazine #14, the Joy issue, published May 2022. In the water, in my body I started swimming by chance. It was a warm day in early summer by the seaside, and I was charmed by an inviting tidal pool and decided to go for a swim for the first time in many years. TheContinue reading “In the water, in my body”

Published in Lionheart Magazine issue 13, the “Magic” edition, August 2021. Normally I’d say that I rarely get bored – only boring people are bored! – but the pandemic really knocked me down a peg. I was bored like only a five year old can be, lolling around and moping about it. I’ve forgot aContinue reading “The year spent inside our minds”

Published in The Simple Things, August 2021 issue. (PFD here.) You must remember this: How to make better memories  A rush of memories can overwhelm you, but you have more control over how and what you remember than you might think. Because the brain is constantly changing our memories, your recollections are constantly up forContinue reading “Memory games”

Published by October by Pitchfork, in December 2020. At the pub in lockdown London “I can’t order at the bar! They say it’s table service only!” My friend Ben is an experienced pub-goer, but the government’s new coronavirus rules, which had gotten stricter back in September, had him shook. We found ourselves a table andContinue reading “At the pub in lockdown London”

The Simple Things, March 2021. Every year I have a moment, usually around this time, where I start to genuinely despair: will winter never end? It’s been cold and dark and wet for what seems like forever, and those summer clothes in the back of the wardrobe seem to be mocking us. But just asContinue reading “Hope springs”

White Noise, 2018. The most unexpected things can be reinvented and with that, they take on new meanings. Young men are smoking pipes, young women are dyeing their hair grey, everyone is wearing Adidas Originals and eating tuck shop sweets. A trend can act as a powerful signal of belonging, or, for someone who’s beenContinue reading “This old thing: On fashion lost in translation”

Published in The Wick newspaper, November 2020. (Online version.) Rapid gentrification has caused extreme changes to the artist community of Hackney Wick & Fish Island. But coronavirus has brought about a new focus on collaboration and with it, a new optimism.  Stour Road Bridge is finished, now taking pedestrians across the water from Fish IslandContinue reading “Future of the Wick: “Most people do want to embrace change, but they want to be part of it.””

Learning that you have a genetic predisposition to cancer can save your life. But the knowledge may be a double-edged sword, as it turns you into a lifetime patient of a disease you may never get. Rachel Topping and her sister Julie were on holiday in Morocco when they discovered they were more alike thanContinue reading “Maybe, someday: Living with a disease you may never get”

A brief history of women’s hair, and the hairbands that set you free. Is there a hair tie around your wrist? If you’re a long-haired person like me, I’ll bet there is — unless it’s already in your hair. Right now I’ve got a messy bun on the top of my head, absent-mindedly assembled forContinue reading “That hair tie on your wrist is such a hard worker”

Published in Lionheart Magazine #12, the Grow + Thrive issue, August 2020.  Pour me Drink the most expensive one first – that’s the rule for red wine, assuming you’re going to be having more than one and let’s face it, you are. When my friend Chris and I go to our favourite wine place, weContinue reading “Pour me”