Remembering that YouTube has only been around four years is really strange for me. When I’m sitting at a desk it is my escape into the outside world. I can live vicariously as a Russian teeny-bopper through Svetlana Loboda videos, learn about Korean narrative by watching epic fifteen minute romantic videos, or catch up on the latest episodes of German entertainment staple Verboten Liebe. But, what has held my attention most recently is Jerkin’. Regularly I visit the affluent black suburbs of LA. Via the YouTube screen, I am transported to parking lots and basketball courts where the kids are jerkin’. Read more ⇒

Summer is nearly here! It’s time to take up smoking again and sit on benches drinking cider, watching improbably thin shirtless idiots parade around with their crap friends and occasionally eat salad. In fact, I often find the summer so innocuous that I long for everyone wrap themselves up in scarves and return to the grey genderless days of winter when it’s easier to concentrate on things other than people’s arses and weird tan lines. At least it gives me some time to escape the country and head to northern Europe where people don’t suddenly turn into complete idiots when the temperature gets above 15 degrees.

I often think back to my childhood summers when we hardly ever went abroad. I was dragged from pub to pub by my parents being forced to stay up late listening to loud repetitive music, often spending weeks on the road whilst their friends fed me far too much beer for a ten-year-old. Having spent most of my teenage years hiding the photographs whenever my friends came to visit, I will now admit proudly that I was a Morris dancer, my summers spent at folk festivals with men with beards. Read more ⇒