I was just chatting to my good friend, Paul Darling online. Darling by name, Darling by nature we were together marshalling our strength to kiss goodbye to this grubby, sad and disappointing 2016 and to make sure that 2017 would be Glorious! I mentioned together, his friends and ours, would be unstoppable in this task. We’ve all seen the movies – the good guys always win in the end despite all the odds stacked against them. Then I got nervous and pointed out that I was af

In the year Britain voted for Brexit and the day after Trump won the election, Leonard Cohen bailed out on us. I spewed out this: Everybody knows that the dice are loaded Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed Everybody knows the war is over Everybody knows the good guys lost Everybody knows the fight was fixed The poor stay poor, the rich get rich That's how it goes Everybody knows Everybody Knows Leonard Cohen 1934-2016 I didn’t. I didn’t know. Stupid, naïve, g

This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilisations heal. – Toni Morrison I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the term systemic racism. I think we all have. 2016 has been a brutal year. But now that the election is over – and it is finally over - I am thinking about something else that this election highlighted to me. I c

Note: the week before Trump won the election, Susan Sarandon and Vivienne Westwood were publicly encouraging people to vote third party Dear Susan Sarandon Fuck you. Fuck your smug, self-righteous “I can’t bring myself to vote for Hilary” privileged elitism. Fuck you for encouraging ‘people of conscience (aka white people with enough privilege to live on that comfortable moral high ground) to vote third party. If everyone who voted third party (and yes I know that include