‘I'd already begun to suspect that sex brought misery or death, and now I knew.’
Wheer wor’ ta bahn w’en Ah saw thee,
On Ilkla Moor baht ’at?
Wheer wor’ ta bahn w’en Ah saw thee?
Wheer wor’ ta bahn w’en Ah saw thee?
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‘Feelings can be very obscure but numbers never lie.’
Kevin Brazil on metrics, obsession and fitness.
‘An intense workout is an ecstasy of punishment packaged as self-improvement.’
Mary Wellesley on exercise, ritual and Barry’s Bootcamp.
‘I was not good at sports because I would not do sports because I did not have the body for sports because I would not do sports.’
Saba Sams on girlhood, embodiment and avoiding sports.
‘Following United rarely brings me any great joy and most often it depresses me. If I could disengage, I would.’
Jonny Thakkar on Manchester United.
‘I deployed my body against an opponent like a blunt and effective instrument.’
John Patrick McHugh on playing Gaelic football.
‘One by one they’re led into the box. They swear their oath. They confirm their name, their employment, why they were where they say they were, what it was they saw.’
‘My hopes weren’t high, even to begin with, so I felt no bitterness when He didn’t reveal Himself’
‘When young, we were impatient with our parents: now we want to atone for our callowness, to take measure of them, to understand which parts of them live on in us.’
Wheer wor’ ta bahn w’en Ah saw thee, On Ilkla Moor baht ’at? Wheer wor’...
‘Skirtless, jumperless, she lies on the floor, her hair settling about her like a silky parachute.’
‘Your promise has been extracted like the cow-horned remains of molars long-soused in a Diet Coke marinade.’
