Thought
Fresh takes on fringe thoughts and compelling contemplations
Rebel Yell! Are You Joining the Reader’s Resistance?
‘People are constantly returning to what’s handmade and hand-drawn. There’s an almost religious shame about being online all the time, and that sells books...’
Equine Therapy: Taking the Reins to Recovery
Placating groups of ‘the toughest gang leaders in the country’, some with up to 100 offences under their belts, is quite the task for two animals…
So, You Want A Face Tattoo? Under The Skin Of This Growing Trend
Since the 1880s, tattoo parlours have been operating in the capital. Notable patrons of the art form included members of the royal family…
The Quest for Open Access: Control in Public Institutions & Why It Matters
There are many treasures – both academic and artistic – kept well out of reach of the public, often for opaque reasons…
A Sense of Belonging: On Origin Stories, Memory, Identity
To what extent do we feel connected to our roots, our past, our lineage? As humans we crave context…
Rebel Yell! What If We Put More Clothes On?
Up and down on public escalators my eyes flicker over endlessly supine forms, repeated with the shoving insistence of propaganda…
Guest Stars: The Influence of Fleeting Friendship
Life seldom adheres to order, especially in the theatre…
Rebel Yell! What Are You Thinking?
Fast thinking Gets Things Done. But it is also the mental equivalent of jumping from cloud to cloud, going through never-ending levels of a video game that can only lead to the grave…
The Crafty Arts of Chromatic Selling & Subliminal Messaging
We see a multitude of cavalcading colour everywhere, and nobody knows how to use it better than marketing gurus...
Rebel Yell! What If We're Wrong About Progress?
Humans are untrustworthy, we’re told. Biased. Liars. Mistake-makers. But the answer is not better education. It’s ‘outsource to technology’…
Diary 2: Psychopaths, Closer Than You Think
The popular perception of a psychopath might still be the knife-wielding maniac, but Hare has challenged this view with his study of corporate psychopathy…
Face Off: The Invisible Enemy
London is the most surveilled city in the world after Beijing, and proportionally to population size, the UK has as many surveillance cameras as China…
A Brief History of Winter Festivity
Santa, in some form, does exist. Not quite the pot-bellied character of current; but actually a shamanic member of indigenous European people...
Diary 1: Youth Violence and Music in ‘The Nine’
While London gentrifies and bleaches the diasporic palate of the area, the East London drill scene is at the very least, transcribing our history...
IWD: The Meaning of Woman
Who are these women you speak of, who can walk 5 miles in 6 inch heels and hold 7 different things in one hand, yet couldn’t undo a jar of pickles if their lives depended on it?
The Sound of Secrecy: What's So Appealing about Vinyl?
Music is being exploited, used as a decoy to manipulate us. What becomes your ‘favourite’ song will be guided by tech giants if you let them...
Undressing the Mistress: On Other Women and Etymology
Humans are fallible, sometimes they cheat. And though they do a fair amount of cheating the mundane – taxes, say, or maths tests – they also cheat their partners…
Monstrous Sympathy: What Horror Films Say About Humans
We have always been fascinated by bodies that defy categorisation and the terrifying, unknown possibilities that these humanlike inhuman creatures present...
War & Alchemy: The Story of Prussian Blue
The blue shade was synthesized accidentally in German scientist Johann Dippel’s laboratory, after he failed to alchemize gold...
In Defence of the British Seaside
Cold legs. Cornettos. Peeing in the sea. Where else would you find such a bizarre but strangely charming concoction of experiences? The seaside holiday is a British institution, a repository of our cultural identity...