Shoes, Books & Cynicism
Kate Stone Matheson
The Wax That Melts Our Wings

I’d say it’s what separates us, not from the beasts, but the bestial. Creating the future, renewing a learned past - these are reasons to strive. Writing for and with love, taking and framing an image, stretching new melodic skins onto old skeletons of song… it’s how we manage to fly. It’s how we stay you and me, not us and them.

The Wax That Melts Our Wings
Shoes, Books & Cynicism
Kate Stone Matheson
The Lady Jellypants Guide to Grace and Poise

Unlike Osk, who seemed to establish his own tactical task force wherever we lived, scooping up neighbourhood feline troublemakers as sidekicks (including the memorable ginger behemoth Watson, with whom he used to scope the street from the safety of the shed roof), Jelly has the intelligence gathering skills of a sponge cake.

The Lady Jellypants Guide to Grace and Poise
Shoes, Books & Cynicism
Kate Stone Matheson
Love Me Tender

Anyway, somewhere in between my 'and then you should've done this' and 'why didn't you say x and y, rather than z', and 'for the love of monkeys and the general public's eyesight, you didn't honestly wear that heinous shirt did you', something he was saying about the dating extravaganza we were picking to pieces finally penetrated my cloud of self-congratulatory cumulo-waffle. 

"Most people don't talk about how dates are progressing as a tender process, do they?" he asked. 

"What?"

"She said I was 'part way through the tender process' and that she was judging me on my submission. I'd like to think there was irony involved, and I think at the time I may have given an admittedly weak "haha, yesssss, quite". Looking back, I'd have to conclude, computer says no on the presence of Fabulon or other aids to achieving crisply pressed linen."

Love Me Tender

Terrorism

The Shadowlands

The Shadowlands

How many times did you say as a child "I hate you!" and feel sick to the stomach afterwards because you'd used the word 'hate'? Maybe it was just me, but I doubt it. Now think about how often you use it. "I hate that idea." "God, I hate this, it's vile." "I hate him so much, I hope he rots in hell."

I use it all the time. I use it about Donald Trump on a daily basis. And I can feel the shadow creeping in on me, because I have forgotten how wrong it is to say it, and by saying it, to put thought into practice.

World War Free

World War Free

One hundred years ago, both France and Belgium were battlefields. Names like Passchendaele, Mons, Neuve Chapelle, Armentières, Ypres, Vimy Ridge - they stopped being 'foreign', and were suddenly a part of everyday conversation.

Now - we have new names.

Baquba. Lahore. Varanasi. Baghdad. Jalalabad. Domodedovo Airport. Alexandria. Kabul. Faisalabad. Al Hillah. Zvornik. Benghazi. Maiduguri. Mogadishu. Chad. Moscow. Anbar. Diyarbakır. Jerusalem. Palestine. Al-Shabaab. Suruç. Ankara. The Sinai. Jakarta.

Paris. Brussels.