On the 2nd March, Exeter’s Art Society will be holding a life drawing class to raise awareness of mental illness. For various reasons, mental health is an issue quite close to my heart, so I thought that I would contribute to increase public understanding of mental health issues by writing about my experiences with anxiety […]
Pakistan, India and Bangladesh: tangled up in the Blues
1965 saw a turning point in the Beatles’ music. ‘Norwegian Wood’ from Rubber Soul (1965) featured George Harrison on the sitar, a traditional Indian stringed instrument. What was happening beneath this instrumentation, however, was a subtler, yet very sharp, turn away from western pop music. Listen to how the melody in ‘Norwegian Wood’ comes in […]
A whole new world: The Arctic Circle
Music is another language. By listening to the radio you can learn to speak melody, just like you can learn French by listening to conversation in Parisian cafés. If you listen to enough pop music you can memorise a catchy tune before you have heard it resolve, because you begin to recognise certain patterns of […]
Exe-ploring: The Middle Finger tour
Christmas is a strange time for walking around the city. The festively illuminated streets are made to look so much more inviting than usual. But, why is this so strange; surely every street is designed to beckon you down it? Surely every shop is always trying to entice you in, all year round? Well, no. […]
Exe-ploring: How to throw the perfect sushi night
Hello Exe-plorers! I should start by apologising for the absence of Exe-plore last week. To cut a long story short, I was invited for dinner at the house of a group of people with whom I am hoping to live next year. After the meal I very quickly began to feel unwell, and not long […]
Exe-ploring Exeter with a friend
Last year I learned a valuable lesson: don’t build stuff up too much. For example, don’t buy a gift for a friend’s birthday, then spend three weeks telling them how amazing it is, because they really aren’t going to love that Princess Diana memorial plate that you got from the British Heart Foundation as much […]
Exe-ploring: North Street, Picturehouse Cinema, and Bonhay walks
I woke last Saturday to the usual morning stirrings within the house – Max getting up to make an obscenely middle class breakfast (that day I think it was roasted tofu and avocado and quinoa salad, or something equally preposterous), Liz groaning her way through an all night in ‘Top-Top’ hangover, and Theo’s one-night-stand quietly […]