London

The Incarnation of God Who DID Visit Weston-super-Mare

/ N. P. Ryan

While it’s safe to say Jesus Christ didn’t visit Weston-super-Mare, what about anyone else thought an incarnation of God by followers of a religion?

How about that incarnation of God also being someone once given weapons and ammunition by the Nazis with which to fight a war?

Or to up the ante more so, the person not only being black, but in the same year—2020—as the much covered throwing of Edward Colston’s statue into Bristol Harbour, one of this individual got smashed to bits in a London park with hardly a mention in the press?

Continue reading →

Girls Like Us: Bitter ‘Til The Bitter End; a review

/ N. P. Ryan

343967369_256723436738244_6031534892293599719_nGirls Like Us (GLU) released Bitter ‘Til The Bitter End the same weekend I caught the band live at the Chelsea Inn, Bristol.

It was a blistering set, part of another top night there (In With the Inn Crowd), during which I was about to turn to a mate and say, ‘killer bass line’ only for him to beat me to it with the exact same words.

The debut album certainly lives up to its name with lyrics plenty raw enough to suggest lived experience fuelling its theme of two-timing, dickhead boyfriends/blokes more often than not from entitled backgrounds. Continue reading →

Dark Face at the Door

/ N. P. Ryan

Watching TV with my mum over Christmas there was a programme on featuring some of the oldest buildings known in Scotland. Discussing them was Scottish comedian and historical tour guide Bruce Fummey, who is black; relevant, as when discussing old New Year traditions, he said he’d have been a very welcome visitor due to being so thanks to the tradition that the first person over the threshold once the New Year commenced should be of dark hue.

My grandfather—mum’s dad—was also from Scotland; my mum said she remembered this tradition from her childhood, which was in London (she being born there), predominately growing up in Dudley House, Paddington, the family having been lucky enough to be offered one of the council flats built in 1938. Continue reading →

Plans, Trains and Lovers in Turmoil: the story of two

/ N. P. Ryan

7 174055936_10217013696932974_6618515007772475858_nTwo lovers part on bad terms with an agreement to meet in a year to see if they have a future. Both travel to the meeting on the London Underground, but one is delayed without any way of letting the other know.

Failing to arrive in time could be plenty enough to seal their fate. Do they make it and what caused the rift to begin is told in a sequence of poems from the two perspectives.

The poems originally formed the main body of a review for Ian Arkley’s album ‘two’, the music inspiring a poetic narration rooted in my experience of using the Underground before leaving London at the end of the last century; the tracks remain available in this post, also providing the name for each verse. Continue reading →