The Pessimism and Occasional Optimism of Juvenile Adulthood

There is something almost ludicrous about starting a travel review before having travelled, yet in the spirit of a vaguely gripping narrative arc, it feels worth setting the scene... It was the point in the semester where days begins to merge together, each drowning in a sort of mediocrity punctuated only by the occasional birthday party or sports society event. Essays creep ever closer, never suddenly but with just enough of a vague hint of menace, prowling your calendar in the knowledge that they could disrupt next year's plans in the faraway land Vic and Bob once titled 'abroad'. In this incredibly tepid scene comes a most delightfully vivid of eavesdrops. By which, a flatmate's friend was politely conversing with those of us with nowhere better to be on a Sunday night than in the kitchen on our phones. The newsflash was immediately eye-brow raising, heart fluttering, screen locking for it offered a respite, an escape from the blandness of library and lectures. Fligh...

This has been a strange week, one that echoes the privileged position I and so many others are in. As war in Europe continues to rain down on the people of Ukraine, we are lucky enough to be able to switch off and think about matters less existential. We can go out, meet people, greet people, witness love and marriage and all the things that don't constitute living but make up what we know as life. In this context, it feels slightly silly - almost meaningless - to be writing about a hill and a concert among other things, aware that far more pressing, urgent issues lie beyond the Edinburgh ring road. But I want to make a point, it's just one that will take a few paragraphs. I returned to Edinburgh on Tuesday, fresh from witnessing the certification of love into marriage, an archaic yet charmingly intense bond of commitment binding beloveds as tightly to each other as they wish to embrace. There was a somewhat surreal moment where, on the stag do before the wedding, fresh from an...

During the first lockdown, nearly two years ago now, I stumbled upon  an article  by the BBC’s then Arts Editor Will Gompertz which sung the praises of EM Forster’s 1909 short story ‘The Machine Stops’ and its immense prescience for our current predicament. Impressed by his review, I added it to my wish list and thought little else about it until this Christmas, when the least tech savvy of all my grandparents ordered it as a present for me. Suffice to say, I’d almost forgotten about it.  The story concerns a woman - Vashti - living in a never ending network of tunnels and pods below the Earth’s surface, not only disconnected from her home, but disconcertingly uninterested in it. Instead, to the disgust of her son Kuno, she begins to worship ‘The Machine’, seeing it as not just an omnipotent tool of God, but God itself, responsible for all the innovation and ‘advances’ humanity has seemingly made whilst trapped underground. Her son, in turn, is restless with this imprison...

The similarly named article I wrote around this time last year was intended as a standalone piece, a snapshot of my experiences and thoughts about my world at the time. It is something of a coincidence therefore, that the pattern of events today has inspired me to return to the theme just over 12 months later. Without reading last year's article, the themes which I remember touching on include purpose and routine (or lack thereof - a surprisingly common theme among my introspective writings), and my self-aggravated stresses about work patterns. Some of these ideas are back for this hit sequel, though they have by no means dominated my time back in Edinburgh thus far. But since I'm currently in a reading week, and morale today has swung back and forth, they seem to be the emotions which most provoke my imagination. Today began, as it often does, with badminton, my game continuing to improve albeit at a steadily diminishing rate. Pectoral stiffness never helps anyone however. B...

Being a student in a city, my thirst for absorbing culture and the arts at large can only be satisfied by immense value for money. With this characteristic in mind, the bombardment of Facebook Ads for a £6 Scottish Symphony Orchestra (SSO) performance seemed to appeal to the appropriate quadrants of my brain. So I went, and compiled my thoughts on the event into the following paragraphs. The focus of the concert was on Sibelius, a man most famed for giving Finland a sense of cultural independence in an era of Russification. Yet we the audience (made up almost exclusively of people with either spotty faces or grey hair) were also treated to other composers in what soon became a Sveccoman smorgasbord of music flying in the face of so many former lockdown limitations.  The entree was a short brass rendition of Bach's 'Es ist genug' followed by Magnus Lindberg's 'Chorale', which took inspiration from the piece which preceded it. Both carried a world-weariness to the...

Cycling is a delightful sport, able to highlight the beauty of our natural surroundings, whilst also enabling us to take pleasure in the intense, unparalleled suffering of our favourite athletes. Nominally a team sport, it carries hundreds of individual stories each encased within a race, and dozens of different narratives and micro competitions that can intrigue and amaze. I'm therefore being flippant with the title of this article, though it also isn't wrong. For whilst 2021 was the year that Tadej Pogacar and Primoz Roglic reinforced Slovenia's sporting superiority in three week races, it was also a year of redemption, reinvention and glory for those whose recent records have been hampered by illness, injury or the mundanities of domestique duty. It is a pity that we never witnessed Roglic and Pogacar going head to head at the greatest race of them all, with crashes and abandons depriving Pogacar of his two fiercest rivals in Roglic and Geraint Thomas, a man whose recent...

 My academic year is over, no more, kaput! Banished to the rarely trodden corridors of history, to be subsequently touched upon only by fading memories. It seems that every time I am motivated enough to scribe my musings, I want to write about how strangely disconnected everything is. The communitarian spirit that seemed to unite at various points of lockdown seems to have given way to a profound sense of apathy, even as restrictions gradually lift on our ability to meet and greet one another. Allow me to wonder aloud why everything feels so distant. Though perhaps this apathy is personal. Returning home is a peculiar adjustment, one that will never sit comfortably after the independence of adulthood has sunk in. Time flows in ways I didn't know were possible, slipping by slowly yet noticeably. Every day lacks the variation of continuous interaction with others. Admittedly, it's not currently helped by being home alone, but the emotional stimulation of social interaction with f...

 I have a knack for only appreciating artists once they have had enough from this life, and have decided to take a chance on what the next one has in store, either on Earth or elsewhere. Bowie was first, his unexpected death in 2016 sparking an unprecedented listening binge so I could try and work out the scale of what the world had lost. Genius is the short answer, not just for his records but for his imagery, constant reinvention, lyrical prowess and originality. But for the last year or so, it's not been Bowie who has guided my musical journey of life, but an eccentric band from Dusseldorf who have gone on to power so much of the music we appreciate today. It is Kraftwerk. My first encounter with Kraftwerk was on a Soft Cell documentary I watched over New Year 2019/20. It was a fleeting reference, but I was intrigued by the minimalism and bold concept idea of Autobahn. However, upon first listening, I thought the concept initially outweighed the musical merits. It felt simplisti...

During my first two years of University, this blog entry served as my ad hoc portfolio of articles for The Student newspaper in Edinburgh. Articles were arranged from newest to oldest and are still listed below. Following upgrades to The Student's own website, my profile there now provides links to my articles for the newspaper. Also detailed there are my roles within the newspaper, including spells as Editor-in-Chief and Deputy E-i-C during the Edinburgh Fringe Festivals of 2022 and 2023.  Year Two Come Dine with Us - thoughts on a student experiment  (Lifestyle) June 2022 Sentimental kitsch - the wonders of Eurovision  (Opinion) May 2022 Zelenskyy: A true Servant of the People  (Opinion) March 2022 The tragedy of Ukraine and the demise of meaningful dialogue  (Opinion) February 2022 The battle the BBC didn't want  (Opinion) January 2022 A cop-out COP  (Opinion/Satire) November 2021 A Green Quandary: Slater, Harvie and Government  (Opinion)...

 Since starting University in the strangest of times, the reality of higher education has simultaneously bowled me over and left me distinctly underwhelmed. Maybe as the intensity slowly winds up (with first assessments due in 4 weeks time) things will feel different but for now, I feel in a unique state of limbo, one worth expressing in words. Words which will certainly not be my best, but words better out than in, in any event. Today (Thursday 1st October) began for me at 5:10 AM when I was woken up by my alarm to go and play badminton. Why anyone would choose to play badminton at 6 AM would normally be beyond me, but the opportunity to leave my flat is simply too great. But after the early start, I soon settled into a inherently unsettling routine of productive morning (pre-recorded lectures, notes, cups of tea etcetera), lunch, procrastinating patch of DOOM! Perhaps I'm being melodramatic but I doubt it. This is a period, where I think for prolonged periods about the merits of ...