Writing
Filter writing: Sidelines (blog) • Newsletters • Reviews
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What I did on my holidays
An Anglesey timelapse video.
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Book review: ‘Improbable Destinies’ by Jonathan Losos
How predictable is evolution?
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Newsletter No. 8: ‘But is it Art?’
iPads • S-Town • Babylonian astronomy • Patti Smith • James Kelman • star-stuff • golden age of photography • conveying life’s wonders • horses • bees • organ donations • and more…
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Grandma’s organ donation
On the mysterious arrival, and equally mysterious disappearance, of a Wurlitzer organ.
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Newsletter No. 7: ‘Hacked and hurt by time’
John Tyndall • Galápagos cormorants • why English is so odd • Thoreau & Darwin • anthropological discoveries • mass-extinction hyperbole • W.G. Sebald • yellow rattle • Inigo Thomas • Mars exploration • and more…
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Orion’s belt-buckle
In celebration of my adopted star.
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Newsletter No. 6: ‘A borrowed dog’
Woodpeckers • ambrotype portraits • W.G. Sebald • a deserted hamlet • mission creep • prime meridians • W.H. Hudson • podcasts • street photography • bonkers • tapirs • coiners • and more…
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Book review: ‘The Gallows Pole’ by Benjamin Myers
18th-century Yorkshire meets the Sopranos: intrigue, betrayal, murder, and revenge in the Calder Valley.
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Newsletter No. 5: ‘Incongruous owl’
Dawn chorus • Simon Armitage • the invention of the telescope • huge, sprawling collaborations • Withnail & I • book smells • re-assembling Darwin’s research notes • converting walks into words • Daniel Dennett • writing letters • humanist politics • dentistry with stone tools • analysing penguin poo • Melissa Harrison • Robert…
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‘Spiritual’ won’t do
In which I seek a better word to describe a profoundly uplifting sensation.
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Book review: ‘Built on Bones’ by Brenna Hassett
15,000 years of urban life and death.
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Book review: ‘Pilgrim at Tinker Creek’ by Annie Dillard
Pulitzer-Prize-winning ruminations on the natural world.