Posted in Shutterbug on Monday February 6, 2012.

On slow weekend mornings, I like to collect photographs that others, much better at photography than I, have taken. I hope you enjoy exploring these photos of people, deserts, words and oceans as much as I enjoyed finding them.

Posted in Shutterbug on Saturday April 16, 2011.

“It says three times.”
“All the way to the boil?”
“Yeah, do I whisk it still? It’s bubbling, look”

The pot stacked with molinillos sits by the window, where it always has, and they quietly gather dust. One day we will pull them down, clean them, and set them to work. Today, we use a simple metal whisk for the rapidly thickening liquid. The smell of burnt cinnamon fills the kitchen. I grin. The smells of a childhood, half a world away, issue from that pot on the stove, and memories dance along the boundary of remembrance.

We are in a jeep, blue, with a ragged canvas back, and I hold tight onto the steel cross bar as we bump through the jungle. My mother holds me tight, and there is a picture of a tiny red man, leaping from a sea-side cliff, that moves across my father’s chest as he changes gears. Everything smells of bananas, and dirt, and sweat, and the light is golden against the deep green of the canopy. My hair is in my eyes. And then I smell the chocolate.

Posted in Shutterbug on Sunday June 27, 2010.

I’m in the hole
Three thousand days
A buried soul
They live the dream
In terminal
No war too mean

I know the drill
Got cells to burn
I’m dressed to kill
A mortal coil
And time is still
On secret soil

Yeah pay the bills
Cells to burn
Mouths to fill
On Boeing jets
In the sunset make glowing threats

- Robert Del Naja
(Closing track on the stunning Heligoland)

Posted in Flatbeat on Sunday February 28, 2010.

We must blend into the choir
Sing as static with the whole
We must memorise nine numbers and deny we have a soul
And in this endless race for property and privilege to be won
We must run, we must run, we must run

We must hang up in the belfry
Where the bats and moonlight laugh
We must stare into a crystal ball and only see the past
And in the caverns of tomorrow
With just our flashlights and our love
We must plunge, we must plunge, we must plunge

- Oberst

Posted in Shutterbug on Tuesday January 26, 2010.

the pie crust of dark grey sand beneath your feet
and that moment of perfect equilibrium
at the edge of the water
between the waves

before the surface snaps
and you fall backwards
molten gold rushing between your toes
while a whisper quiet wave
wraps about your thigh
grasps and tugs
teases
sighs

and recedes from whence it came

Posted in Shutterbug on Thursday December 31, 2009.

Flickr asks, What’s your best shot of 2009? and, whilst I submitted this photo of some kids I met on the top of Roopmati’s pavillion, I’m also quite partial to leaves, courtyards and the sunset from Manuka.

Posted in Shutterbug on Tuesday December 1, 2009.

“I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I’ve still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you."

Posted in Shutterbug on Sunday November 29, 2009.

The sound of Gilberto from the balcony, and a view over the garden as the black cat stalks moths in the tall, browning grass. She ducks behind the pot plants, until all I can see is the tip of her tail flicking back and forth. I’m finishing a bottle of Cab Sav, and trying to ignore that it’s Sunday.

This week I’ve been living and breathing Blockhead’s latest, The Music Scene, as a soundtrack to petty internal politics and long days and nights. It’s wildly inconsistent, completely eclectic, and altogether wonderful.

Mr Simon can genre-jump with the best of them, and during the sixty minutes of the record, he lurches between downtempo hip-hop, expansive soundscapes, a bit of drum and bass, and even samples a couple screaming obscenities at each other as they claw their way through a domestic, backed by gravely jazz. That’s pretty much where my head has been the past couple of weeks, and I’m glad to have found a soundtrack for it.

Now, which one of you jerks drank my Arnold Palmer?

Posted in Shutterbug on Sunday November 15, 2009.

There is an evening coming in
Across the fields, one never seen before,
That lights no lamps.

Silken it seems at a distance, yet
When it is drawn up over the knees and breast
It brings no comfort.

Where has the tree gone, that locked
Earth to the sky? What is under my hands,
That I cannot feel?

What loads my hands down?

-Philip Larkin

Posted in Shutterbug on Sunday September 27, 2009.