The Jolly Pilgrim, Part 7, musings 32

This excerpt deals with the fact that our historical context, and our brains’ internal hardwiring, leads us to think about the world in a certain way. Climate change is used as an example.

Every night on my way up the east coast I was pouring out my heart into the weather-beaten and black gaffer-tape-reinforced notebook I carried. Since visiting India, I’d stopped writing poetry.

By this point I was on a mission. The notion I’d absorbed during my travels was that there’s an approach to thinking about the world – a modern approach – which is ready to be synthesised by someone with the interest, time and head space. So that’s what I’d do.  Read more »

11 August 2012

Since moving to Manor Park, five-minutes by train from the Olympic site, in 2008, I’ve watched the stadium rise from the wasteland north of Stratford during daily commutes to the City.

Beyond that physical manifestation of their approach, for most of the past four years the Olympic Games only impinged upon my consciousness to the extent of the predictable rows over their budget, occasional stories about Team GB and the reshaping of local land prices and transport connections. All that changed at the end of last year when a friend suggested I apply to be a volunteer cast member in the closing ceremony. Read more »

I’m appearing at the Secret Garden Party festival, in Cambridgeshire, at 17.00, this Sunday 22^nd July 2012, in the Forum tent. My talk will be about: Read more »

A blow-by-blow, first-hand account of writing and publishing the travel and philosophy book, The Jolly Pilgrim, is now live on this website.

The sales documents used to represent the book to agents and publishers are also online, as a free PDF download (both here and on page six, linked below). Writers and aspiring writers should feel free to use these documents for ideas, inspiration, or as an example of how to sell work. Read more »

The Jolly Pilgrim, Part 1, musings 6

This is an excerpt from the book, to add content for the ‘Religious Architecture’ section. The excerpt was mainly written in the Croatain infection hospital, in Zagred, where I read the second half of the Bible, a bit before starting the Qur’an. 

To claim that a book was directly, deliberately and uniquely inspired by God, that God is perfect and can do anything and that the book in question contains His complete and eternal message for humanity is a very big set of claims. One would expect such a book to be – at the very least – comprehensively spectacular and overflowing with transcendent wisdom. Read more »