‘Strangely, anti-British remarks made me feel patriotic, though I only felt patriotic when I was away from England.’
The man had heard that I was interested in talking about his country, Pakistan, and that this was my first visit. He kindly kept trying to take me aside to talk. But I was already being talked at.
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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.
‘The man died as Arnold predicted. It kept happening, and it was disconcerting, terrifying, like being possessed or going mad.’
A new story by Hanif Kureishi.
‘My response to the music had reminded me that concealed inside myself was a more excitable and open self raring to get out.’
‘The warmest companion with the coldest vision of where Humanity might head.’
‘If you think the living are difficult to deal with, the dead can be worse‘.
‘Smoking cigarettes has become the only element of real freedom in my day-to-day existence.’
