we're sorry for the delay

We are sorry to announce that the 7:15 train to... London King's Cross... is delayed until approximately... 8:00... due to a signal failure. We are sorry for the inconvenience caused.

inconvenience (ɪnkənˈviːnɪəns/)
The fact of being troublesome or difficult with regard to one's personal requirements or comfort.

Ah yes, how inconvenient. How very inconvenient indeed. To put this simple inconvenience into perspective let's think about some other inconvenient things. An empty tube of toothpaste. A dead lightbulb. A fire drill. A card machine without contactless. Bird shit. A spot on your forehead. Light drizzle. Forgetting your password. Needing petrol. Diarrhoea. Need I go on?

Now, National Rail, you petty fools, I would not personally apply such a passive term to such a cataclysm. Sure, you are currently thinking that relating a train delay to a large-scale and violent event in the natural world may be a tad dramatic. Well you too are petty fools and have not taken into account the domino effect that ensues once the rail announcer's sweaty finger pokes the first, delicately balanced tile over.

Your time is now. The apocalypse is now. Is cataclysm to apocalypse too big a jump for the third paragraph? I'm angry just thinking about what's coming. On a day like this the sun should fall by 10am and an emergency bank holiday should be called. I'm fuming. Let's just do it.

coffee

The coffee shop. The simple, quaint café that was once your living room on the high street. The most simple of concepts that has transformed into a hipster haven of confusion.

It doesn't really make any sense. I mean, making a cup of coffee is something that even the worst of interns can eventually learn. So why do we find ourselves queuing to spend nearly £3 (a whole pint of actual beer) on a cup of burning, milky anxiety?

I recently found myself in said coffee shop, in said queue, buying said over-priced liquid product. Yep, sound the alarms, we have a hypocrite in the house. As a human centipede of millennial-looking folk stepped up to the counter, their orders sounded more complicated than a potions class at Hogwarts.

What ever happened to a latte, I thought. Is 'latte' not continental enough? Clearly not. The modern coffee order has instead transcended into a haiku of decaf, soy and chai, always ending in 'to go'.

Having witnessed the thespian performance of those ahead of me, I started to doubt my own order. Is a cappuccino 'enough'? Picking that was already a stretch, considering a mocha or, better still, a hot chocolate would almost certainly taste better. In fact, if this is the game that we're playing, we really just want one of those rainbow and unicorns-inducing pink frappuccinos. But alas, this is the coffee gods' world and just we're livin' in it. A cappuccino it is.

five am in toronto

As I walked through Toronto's Pearson airport, the sun rose in the distance above the cluster of urban pillars making up Canada's most popular city. I walked in solidarity between a casual formation of businessmen, couples and families, glancing through the glass towards the metropolitan hub. The spike of the CN tower pierced the rising golden orb, oozing an orange glow into foreign skies, providing the backdrop for the first step of an adventure.

Whilst strolling towards the departure lounge to catch my second flight of the day, Drake's Views coursed through my headphones in what I considered an authentic listening experience - I was in his city, after all. It was Keep the Family Close, the album opener, that struck the most poignant chord. Maybe it was the irony of doing the exact opposite of the title's imperative, maybe it's just a good tune, but it triggered a pause in time that I'll never forget. Satisfaction in its rawest form.

Fast forward two and a half years and the romanticism of 5am in Toronto is merely a mirage of my memory. Stood on an over-populated train, my tired legs struggle to suspend my hungover body as the ThamesLink stops and starts its way through the Hertfordshire countryside. Snail-like rain drops dribble down the doors, blurring the view of a lifeless grey horizon. Middle aged commuters sip over-priced, instant coffee, fuelling the fight to avoid eye contact with any of their neighbours.

It was at that moment when the opening notes of Keep the Family Close, pricked my ears into life. It was the first time I'd listened to the song in a long time, and its impact was like that of seeing an ex after a prolonged period apart.

twenty18

“For last year's words belong to last year's language 

And next year's words await another voice.” - T.S. Elliot

As the calendar year prepares itself for a software update, the world pauses to take a poignant glance over its shoulder. On life's treadmill, we are relentlessly instructed to look forwards whilst seconds, minutes and hours rush by under our feet. The turn of the year presents us with a rare opportunity to slow down and reflect on the produce of the last 365 days. We revisit the good, the bad, and the ugly of 2018, and evaluate how iOS19 will patch the shortcomings of its predecessor.

So, what does 2018 look like? Whilst 2017, 2016, 2015 and co. await the arrival of the history book's latest member, who is preparing to walk through the door? The answer is undoubtedly subjective. 

For some, 2018 is a brash, regressive and condescending, with thinning yellow hair and a sickly orange glow. For others, a panicked, uninspiring figure, unable to give a concrete answer to those that rely on it. Maybe it doesn't walk through the door, but instead rides in topless, on a horse. When the power players of global politics represent the cast of a bad seventies sitcom, media scramble to caricature them into the face of their annual review, but do we really want to remember 2018 as the year of Trump, Brexit and Vlad?

home

"Our country has been through difficult experiences in terms of unity. Sport — football in particular — has the power to help that. It is a special feeling." - Gareth Southgate

On 27th June 2016, English football was clouded with the ash of an Icelandic boom. As eleven players collapsed onto the pitch in Nice, fury raced its way from Lands End to John O'Groats. In its wake, the rage left shards of victimised pint glasses in puddles of beer-drenched tears. Football wasn't coming home, England were. The nation's disconnect with the squad had never been worse.

Fast forward 145 days, and words of disconnect continue to pollute the country's papers. Teresa May's frail Brexit proposal has left the country hanging from a tightrope, with her own teammates scything away at the rope one resignation at a time. With the country in need of a hero, English football’s candidature is no more than low-hanging fruit for satire. Right?

Flip to the back pages and fall into a utopian parallel. On Sunday afternoon, England beat Croatia to qualify for the UEFA Nations League finals in Portugal next June. The national stadium finally became a cauldron of passion, representing a euphoric microcosm that banished the fear and uncertainty of the outside world. 

The victory at Wembley topped off an incredible year of transformation for the national team, who became arguably the first people ever to stick to the concept of 'new year, new me'. Kittens became lions, and it becamse, dare i say it, ‘cool’ to support England again.

superclásico

'For a century, one duel has halved Buenos Aires. The God of one half is the Devil of the other"

- Eduardo Galeano

Occasionally in life, the stars align. Shining specks in the night sky meet, forming patterns that are romanticised from the safety of planet Earth. Get a little closer - approximately 4.24 light-years closer - and a star bares its teeth. Face a ball of furiously burning gases, and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star suddenly loses a touch of its charm.

Back down to Earth, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, two more combustible entities are set to collide. The constellation of the Copa Libertadores, South America's top club competition, has guided bitter rivals Boca Juniors and River Plate towards a stellar collision that will dwarf the magnitude of cosmic activity.

It's been 58 years since the inauguration of the Copa Libertadores, yet the first that has graced a final between Boca Juniors and River Plate. If fate wasn't clear enough, this year's final is the last that will be played over two-legs at each team's home ground, meaning that both Boca and River will take their turn to welcome their arch nemesis to their own, spitting cauldron.

The derby, the superclásico, is widely considered to be the greatest in world football, and is regularly dubbed the holy grail of the sport's 'bucket list'; attend a superclásico and you've done it all. Take a stroll through Buenos Aires and the presence of the two teams is unavoidable. Whether it be the ragged replica shirts, the branded shop fronts or the murals of Riquelme and Aimar, the city breathes from two lungs, one blue and yellow, the other red and white.

fight

"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face" - Mike Tyson

It's 6:15 on Sunday morning. Two hours have passed since my confused alarm chimed on its day off. My tired eyes fixate on the screen illuminating the room, and the peace of dawn is broken by high-pitched growling of Joe Rogan and co. The television pixels construct an image from over 5,200 miles away, in Las Vegas, where one of the most important sporting events of the year has descended into unadulterated chaos.

Conor McGregor is not a personality associated with calm. The Irishman is the shot of whisky that so often fuels a late Saturday night - a figuration that has become a commercial reality through his Proper 12 venture - and one of few people on this planet that can get me to set a 5:15am alarm on a Sunday morning. His opponent, Khabib Nurmagomedov, personifies everything expected with a bruiser from the Dagestan region of Russia: unaesthetic, rough, robust.

Three minutes and three seconds into the fourth round of the biggest UFC fight of all time, the tactical skill of Nurmagomedov choked the ego of McGregor. After months of media attention, hype and cash, the Russian bear suffocated the octagon's green and gold oxygen supply to the point of blurry-eyed submission. For ten seconds, Khabib was the golden boy and his legacy was stamped in the blood-stained canvas of the UFC.

Then the Dagestan fighter initiated a riot. As he flew over the cage and towards McGregor's team, the glitz of Las Vegas descended into a brawl outside your local Wetherspoons. The technical quality that illuminated a championship fight became a distant memory as wild, un-calculated punches were thrown from all parties. It was raw violence,  but I couldn't stop watching.