Luckenbooth

My words exist in here you see, in my mind. Then they exist in your mind. Nobody else gets to see how they pass between us - it is a form of alchemy! Of all the art forms writing is the most intimate and strange.

Edinburgh seduces with her ancient buildings. She pours alcohol or food down the throats of anyone passing, dangles her trinkets, leaves pockets bare. She's a pickpocket. The best kind of thief, one you think of - most fondly.

Whilst I complain about Edinburgh, I like it here really. They say that makes me dour, it’s Scottish for miserable bastard. They gave a single word in a Gaelic that means ‘my eternal doom is upon me’, I can’t remember it right now. They are an old nation. They have a great wit at times. They need it to survive the damn weather.

Life is so much more than we can manage it to be, it is so much more sudden than we are able to understand.

My ma said: only love a man who reads books and understands them properly. If they don't read books don't go their bed. Ever!

The thing is, Bill, and you know this – wealthy men make mistakes. Working-class men commit murder. Then they get hanged. Not as a deterrent tae murdering women, noh, they have little reason tae try and deter that – fear ay that and rape helps keep women in oor place, it’s why they hardly ever convict them firrit. They killed that man to warn the great unwashed – to warn other working-class men – watch yer fucking step ay. We can just fucking hang your kind!

Why would you clone a human when you can’t even look after the humans who already exist?

A long time ago people could only date someone on their road. Or a village they could walk to, or across town on foot. It was only when the first wild horses were tamed – that love and humanity and all the humans in the world opened up a much wider map. The circle of our hearts’ hope grew exponentially.

Edinburgh often has the most beautiful skies. Pale blue or pink and when cloudless it is breathtaking. Sometimes the sky races in such a way it seems there are two skies from two different worlds entirely – rushing at each other in opposite directions, layers of cloud and dark moodiness – a hint of stars. It is dizzying!

…so many men are diseased and by that I mean they are dis-eased in their own masculinity. In their desires both homosexual and heterosexual, they are so twisted by it the only answer they have is to try and control literally everyone - women, children, dogs, trees, oxygen, space, other men.

I love you. – I love you too, John. – Is it crazy to love someone you’ve only spent seven days with in person? – No, it’s crazy to love someone when you’ve known them for years.

The last seven bumps definitely were not necessary. It's a fine line between sparkle and psychosis

Such is the way. It’s like a disease. Love: 80 per cent proof. Risk of death if you drink it. Can send you mad, bad, blind and delirious.

In art we can compress the present and the past into a time capsule - pass it forward into the future. It can be done via images but words do more. There is a level to them. There is an imprint within them. We alter compositionally in relation that interaction. The virus of words is not outside us - it is wholly within us.

There is a me that exists both here in the space I am in with you now - but also in the space where I was writing those words.

There is cheering out on the street. There is dancing. People meet and fall in love. Scuffles break out. They drink far too much. All of life is happening.

Girls are not meant to think like this. So they say. They never ask us what we actually do think- certainly not without telling us first what it is we should be thinking. And if we are not thinking what they have said we should then they say our thinking is wrong. If we tell them (men) what we think, they correct our thoughts. Thoughts leave our brains, exit via our mouths, hang in the air. ready to be shot down by their artillery all day long! We say we think a thing and they (men) ignore it or they (still men) say we just don't fully understand it. Then they expect silence. Or an apology. If neither is forthcoming, they look away. Perhaps they walk out a door. They rewrite the words that come out our mouths by teaching us to edit them inside our brains. No?