EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS

It’s become clear to me as I slip towards The Big Birthday that nothing is more important than the pursuit and discovery of joy. Even in the simplest of moments, I find myself aware of how every moment holds the capability to bring a tiny glimmer of wonder.

With that intention at the forefront of my mind, joy seems to present itself more easily. Like when you’re buying a car and suddenly you see the make and model you want on every turning. Finding joy can easily be like that. Seeing the way sunlight kindles the inner glow of a flower. The scent of woodsmoke or charcoal when you light a barbecue. Even the tapping of a keyboard on a bright April morning, with the sun just above my eye line.

Yeah, I know, all a bit woo, but I never said I didn’t have hippie tendencies.

Yesterday brought us to Oxford, to a joyous union with friends old and new, under dreaming spires and a flawless blue sky. It was a moment which could have been tinged with sadness, but instead was an utterly beautiful day. A celebration, an affirmation of life’s endless capacity for delight.

This chapter of The Swipe is dedicated to Kate and Bryan. Onwards and upwards, my darlings. Joy awaits.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you find joy, welcome to The Swipe.

Continue reading The Swipe Volume 4 Chapter 15

It’s early. House Beast Millie was not taking no for an answer when it came to rousing one of us to get her breakfast—at 5am she was stomping up and down the bed, shoving her nose in our faces. I tried a bait-and-switch, getting up so she’d rush out of the bedroom giving me a moment to shut the door behind her. By then, of course, I’m just awake enough to make any attempt at renewed slumber a doomed exercise. So I’m up, dang it. Millie has eaten her pouch of Bozita, a posh Swedish cat food which she absolutely does not deserve and is now sitting on the desk next to me in the office, purring her face off, waiting for an opportunity to zip onto the chair she feels is hers by right while head-butting the iPad.

With all these distractions, it’s amazing I manage to get any Swipery out to you at all.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

Continue reading The Swipe Volume 4 Chapter 14

A strange week in the news cycle. On one loop, the crazy king of Orangetown brought us to within 90 minutes of Armageddon before realizing it was Taco Tuesday and perhaps declaring global thermonuclear war wasn’t the best way to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Meanwhile, mankind’s greatest endeavor went off without a hitch as a diverse and skillful group of our finest went further into the cosmos than ever before. On the way they showed us the wonders of our translunar backyard, gave us a moment of beauty and sorrow as the mission commander named a bright crater after his wife and hell, generally made space travel cool again. I know I’ve dunked on the notion of humanity’s exploits in the void recently—it’s no secret that everything outside our fragile atmosphere is lethal. But I couldn’t help but get a joyful chill at some the images Artemis sent back, and felt I could allow myself to dream again.

With all the crap going on down here, perhaps it’s better to look to the stars again.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

Continue reading The Swipe Volume 4 Chapter 13

I ascribe to no religion, have no faith other than the sure and certain belief in the essential goodness of humanity—yes, even in the face of all evidence to the contrary. However, I’ll embrace a religious holiday like Easter with cheer and jollity. No honking about the separation of church and state in these quarters. As long as I’m not expected to actually attend a mass then hey, screw it, four days off is good for me.

There’s precedent for building your own celebration. You don’t have to stick to the state-approved baseline. Most of the western world’s modern religious festivals are closely tied to pagan calendar markers for the change in season, pre-Christian celebrations of rebirth and fertility, pledging fealty to the goddess Eostre. Go nuts with the symbolism. Praise the egg-laying bunnies of yore. Cook how you want, eat how you choose, be with the people you love. Or spend some quiet time alone if you’d rather, welcoming the new season with a smile.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you celebrate, welcome to The Swipe.

Continue reading The Swipe Volume 4 Chapter 12

We’ve turned a corner, Readership. The Spring Equinox was on the 20th, while the 25th was Lady Day, in old calendars the starting point of the New Year. Our windowsills are filled with seed trays, with a cluster of Cosmos already poking snouts above the surface. The cherry tree’s in bud, and our Geum Totally Tangerine is already popping up bright and cheery. Easter’s round the corner, so the garden furniture is getting a dust-off and airing. It’s quite likely the first barbecue of the year will happen next weekend, too. I love this time of year, full of promise and portent. There’s a lot of stupidity and venal bullshit floating around right now. In a spring garden, you can at least get a moment of respite and just—breathe.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

Continue reading The Swipe Volume 4 Chapter 11

It feels like everywhere you turn, service providers are jamming AI into your crevices and expecting you to be happy about it. Grammarly were caught in shenanigans this week with the whole author mimicry clusterfukc — a move which led me to finally delete the preachy, unadventurous spell-checking app off my writing vectors.

Meanwhile WordPress.com has introduced machine learning into their hosted services—somewhat annoying as that’s how I get Excuses And Half Truths out to you every week. I’m happy to report that the agentic side is switched off by default. For me, and more crucially for you, that’s how it’ll stay. Anything you read here is handcrafted, the product of one slightly skew-whiff human mind. It may be a bit awkward, subject to weird swerves in tone and mood, but I like to think—to hope—the material herein is reflective of the fella what wrote it.

For honesty’s sake, I admit to poking around with some AI requests out of idle curiosity. I don’t want to come across as a knee-jerk reactionary who won’t use a car when a horse is available. Every single time I’ve pointed a task at ChatGPT or Gemini, the result has needed extensive rewrites and fact checks. Machine learning continues to add time and effort to my work. Why on earth would I embrace that?

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

Continue reading The Swipe Volume 4 Chapter 10

Things are starting to move. Gradually, blinking in the low watery sunlight like a couple of bears emerging from hibernation, C and I are returning to the world. She’s leading the vanguard in the grounds, pruning, clearing and tidying. I’m under starters orders to retask our home office/crafting room into something more fit for purpose. Which means I get to play with power tools and pointy potentially dangerous objects today. Wish me luck. The endgame is a room we can both use for our creative endeavours when C is not in there bringing in the big bucks.

Progress, of sorts, which has been a long time coming. I can’t wait to get started.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

Continue reading The Swipe Volume 4 Chapter 9

Great news for all readers! I have finally got my sorry ass in gear and stuck some new writing up in place where you lucky sorts can read it. Poems For Monoliths is a novelette comprising six interlinked short stories which, when read as a whole, tell a tale of interconnection and communication between the most unlikely of characters. I’m quite proud of it, and hope you’ll enjoy. Usual rules apply—if you do like Poems, please drop me a review and some stars. It really does make a difference.

Thank you.

Poems For Monoliths

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

Continue reading The Swipe Volume 4 Chapter 8

Busy old week for the religious calendar. Tuesday marked the Lunar New Year and Shrove Tuesday, better known to food fans as an excuse to hoover up all the duck pancakes they can. It was also the start of Ramadan, which meant those who observed had to wait until sundown to get their fix. Pancake day also presaged the first day of Lent, so on the whole it was a giddy mix of feast and fast.

Going back to the Lunar New Year, the advent of The Year Of The Fire Horse holds special significance for me. It’s the first time in 60 years that both my animal and elemental Chinese zodiac signs have aligned. Not that I’m observant of such things, but the conjunction feels somehow pleasing. Here’s a little overview of what I should be able to expect.

On fire!

And as a final note on a wild week, kudos to the patient folks in charge of Bedford Borough Council’s social media accounts. They really aren’t paid enough.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, whatever sign you are, welcome to The Swipe.

Continue reading The Swipe Volume 4 Chapter 7