Some of us knew why they were striking. It was never the actions of an over-entitled and power drunk union. It wasn’t money grabbing and it wasn’t one big fuck you to the people of the city. They were scared. And they were trying to protect us.

Three sites in Kent trying to hit 60 species

One, the book was large (though I was small), hardback and falling apart, even then. The thick card cover was an orange russet-red. It’s cover was a stylised representation of a serpent, wyvern, dragon, wyrm, etc. 

In the corner of the pub, a group of old men begin to play, folk music with a tinge of the sea shanty. I want to say the instrument one holds is an accordion – but is that right?

A walk around Orford, Suffolk

Paul Jenkins is one of the most overlooked of all the writers to have tackled the long running DC/Vertigo comic series Hellblazer. In my previous article looking at Jamie Delano’s run, we looked at the title’s deep ties with British sub-culture and mythology, focusing on how he weaved social commentary, underground movements, Police brutality, myth and folklore and a deep distrust of the Conservative government into a compelling horror/dark fantasy narrative.

Hellblazer, in case you hadn’t noticed, is one of the greatest long-running modern comics, an enduring account of the continuing adventures of mystic, ex-punk rocker and morally dubious confidence trickster, John Constantine. Initially published by DC, then subsequently by its Vertigo imprint since 1993, it has been published continuously since 1988, and is the only Vertigo title still going, which suggests a lot about the enduring popularity of the character.

I’ve stepped into one of the ghost stories I love so much. This is the kind of experience I secretly hope for, the world obscured in thick sea mist, all sound muffled, boats and rusted machinery the only landmarks on endless shingle. 

The day sea-mists, driving rain, closed roads, wrong turns and Dungeness itself defeated me, Gareth E. Rees and Hendrix.

This weekend I had the pleasure of visiting Bristol for the weekend, to perform a piece responding on the theme of ‘revolution and gender’ that had been published in the latest issue of Boscombe Reolution.

Here's the unedited interview I did with Jay Terrestrial from the folk band Firepit Collective (www.firepitcollective.co.uk), that features in  a recent piece for Unofficial Britain.

Reconaissance photos taken by one of the lonely living circling the city of the dead. Scouting the territory before delving into the Scrubs and beyond.

Some pictures from a walk I did with Gareth E.Rees on the Romney Marsh, tracking the Royal Military Canal from Ham Street to Appledore, and exploring the Isle of Oxney. Napoleonic defences, World War Two pillboxes, an altar to Mithras (possibility) stuck at the back of a church with a load of crap, chemical run-off, gorse, fungi and sheep.

Brancaster coast, north norfolk

From Rye to the Pett Level

With a Sunday to spare and inspired by two separate London books that I’d recently read, This Other London  by John Rogers and the anthology Mount London  (published by Penned in the Margins), I decided to take it upon myself to walk from my flat in Willesden Green to this place Horsenden Hill that I’d heard so much about recently. Stories of a fragment of wooded, heathy countryside not far from Wembley, peopled by cheetah people and Sylvester McCoy, were enough to tempt to me.