‘Yesterday two boys got hold of me in the playground and banged my head against the wall over and over and said “Why did you kill Jesus?”’
Yesterday two boys got hold of me in the playground and banged my head against the wall over and over and said ‘Why did you kill Jesus?’ I don’t know who they thought I was. My head hurts. I am six years old.
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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.
‘He was our younger sister’s baby – her and her husband’s baby, I guess. They were young parents and excessively chill.’
Memoir by Emma Cline.
‘Why can’t the heart keep still and why isn’t the brain smooth to the touch.’
An excerpt from Ariana Harwicz’s novel Tender.
Kjersti A. Skomsvold on writing The Child, a book on motherhood and grief.
Translated from the Norwegian by Martin Aitken, an excerpt from The Child by Kjersti A. Skomsvold.
‘Frequency of sex since marriage: zero.’
Sayaka Murata on a sexless marriage and the ‘Clean Breeder’ technique for pleasureless reproduction.
