“Borehamwood’s the new Soho”
The Bend it Like Beckham generation has created a safe space in women’s football, but the men’s game is slow to catch up.
Rare £2,000 chair stolen from church
The specially-made seat disappeared from St Cuthbert’s Church in West Hampstead during recent renovation work.
It was one of a pair designed by the architect Jeremy Allen when the Fordwych Road church was rebuilt in 1986,
It was one of a pair designed by the architect Jeremy Allen when the Fordwych Road church was rebuilt in 1986,
‘Recessioncore’, Indie Sleaze, and Life in a Post-Brat Society.
A few months ago I was hungover on the Avanti West Coast to Liverpool Lime Street. I was the type of hungover where I try to reinvent myself, trying to draw a veil over what had happened the night before. Sitting there, all philosophical, with a pounding headache and half an M&S sandwich (which had set me back a fiver, by the way) in my hand, I considered my fellow passengers. A group of girls were sitting across the aisle, donning low waisted skinny jeans with skirts over the top in a way that would make red-carpet bound Ashley Tisdale jealous. I opened TikTok, scrolled for a few minutes, liked a video of a penguin, and I saw it: recessioncore.
Food and Identity (Nara Smith, Ozempic, and Bacon Sandwiches)
You’re scrolling on your For You page, and you land on a video of someone unpacking their ‘Erewhon haul’, their nails are perfectly manicured, invisible roots, they’ve bought sea moss for $50. Their tote bag full of organic goods fits in seamlessly into their image of glamour. You wonder, would you consider your weekly shop a haul? When does food become an accessory to a calculated persona?
First Responders: Right-Wing Keyboard Warriors and the Weaponisation of Tragedy in the UK.
Like many of us, my first port of call when I think something has happened is social media. News spreads fast and wide on sites like X before the reporters at the BBC or the Standard have managed to get their ‘scoop’ out there. A witness will tweet a sentence, a friend of a friend will ask what’s going on, a passerby will share a photo of some paramedics, some blue tape, a tarp on the floor.
The ‘Alpha-Male’ Epidemic, Male Violence, and Shakespeare’s Macbeth
One second you’re learning about iambic pentameter with a boy in your class, the next he’s sharing podcast clips on his Instagram story of men talking about how women need to be controlled, Taming of the Shrew style. These ideals are horrifyingly archaic, and are often played with in Shakespeare’s work.
Gender Identity and Empire: Reading Woolf’s Orlando in the Era of Trump.
From the invention of the concept, the nature of the empire is to police. To police who ‘counts’ as a citizen, to police self expression, to control. Empire uses gender, ethnicity, socio-economic background, education, and almost every other tiny detail that makes up an identity to create hierarchy: in the wise words of Charli xcx, ‘you wanna know what I’ve got going on down there?’
TL;DR True Love Is Real When You’re Not Overstimulated
Recently, I’ve found myself forgetting the walk from the library to campus, unable to recall the faces of those around me on the Northern line that morning. By putting on my noise-cancelling headphones, at just the right level to drown out the screeching between Camden Town and Euston, I could block myself away from the outside world. Muscle memory would guide me from A to B, until it got to a point where I hadn’t mustered a single independent thought in what felt like weeks.
Observations on East Pediment L and M.
(Audio description available) Tell me, O Muse, about a mother and a daughter, tell me about their journey into creation, and how they oversaw the city of Athens from their rooftop, and where they went when their duty of overlooking was taken away. Tell me about their Odyssey over the seas, and where they ended up. Tell me, O Muse, about their journey from the workshop, to the Parthenon, to the long, crowded hall. Find the beginning.
‘Neither and Both’: the Gender-Queer Body in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
Gender-queer bodies, while seeming like a hot topic among politicians in recent weeks, have never been a modern invention. Although the term itself originated in the 1990s, humans that fit under the wide gender-queer or transgender umbrella have existed for a millennia. A 5000-year-old biologically male skeleton found dressed in feminine clothing surrounded by traditionally feminine grave-goods in Prague, the 4000 year history of Eunuchs (sometimes referred to as a third gender according to Wang...
Inhabited Spaces and Ladybird
Social Media Experience
I am responsible for the graphic design and social media rollout of two student publications: Going Offscript With…, a podcast run in affiliation with STRAND Magazine, and Gals On Tour, a travel blog.
I also run my own TikTok page, where I share student survival tips!