Aesthetically:
Rio, Venice, Hong Kong, Freetown, Paris,

Culturally:
Marseille, Tokyo, Marrakech, London, New York

One of my proudest moments is when I passed my driving test. I reacted with the same elation as when I learned my first book was to be published. In LDN I don’t drive often but like to imagine when the skill might be crucial, like in a zombie apocalypse, & feel like an adult

Can’t wait to speak with Nathalie Olah, who has written one of my favourite books of the year ‘Bad Taste’, at the University of Bern next week

It is a great honour and pleasure to have the British essayist and photographer Johny Pitts as our guest tomorrow Tuesday 18h30. He is the current guest professor of the Friedrich Dürrenmatt guest professorship Universität Bern. Don't miss it - register now! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAI…

Interesting, how eras echo. I was born into a 1980s nostalgic for the 50s & 60s, so my cultural references include things like The Flintstones, I Dream of Jeannie and the music of The Platters. But in today’s nostalgia for the 80s and 90s, those signals within signals have faded.

If you’re in the area next week, I’ll be speaking about Afropean and some of the resulting ideas that emerged from the book around the notion of the ‘B-Side’, that I’m currently teaching at the University of Bern

#BeyondWordsFest puts the spotlight on Marseille!

Get an authentic taste of the city with local authors vérane frédiani, Marion Brunet & François Thomazeau, joined by photographer Johny Pitts & journalist Mary Fitzgerald.

11 May - 17.30 Institut français UK
🎟️ beyondwordslitfest.co.uk/taste-of-marse…

Just finished Baby Reindeer. Don't want to reduce the overt issues it tackles, or the specific things Gadd suffered, but I also took it as an allegory for the ethical and emotional comprises - the struggle - it takes to make a creative career in London as a working class outsider

James Baldwin on the English (from ‘The Devil Finds Work’, 1976)

Amongst a small, inwardly looking clique of left wing British academics, to quote Mark Fisher is almost to talk in platitudes. Yet so few people I speak to outside the U.K have even heard of him. Why is this? Is he too U.K. specific? Is his work ring-fenced like a cult band?

Just spotted this in Switzerland. ‘Diverse Sandwiches’ whatever next? Racial equality…!? Wokeness gone mad!

Looking forward to talking about my favourite city Marseille with a good friend at the Institut Francais next month

Just had an unsettling thought around what I’d change about my life if I was independently wealthy. The happy news is; not much, really. But it occurred to me that I’d probably leave social media entirely, which makes me question what keeps me on it. Some sort of fear/precarity.

My two daughters. Same parents, different flavours. Genes are mad!

Nas’s Illmatic is 30 years old. For all you fellow older millennials out there some context: that’s as old as Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life was in 2006.

My Mom once paid for the family to get some pro photos done and the photographer made me, a 14 year old boy raging with hormones, make this exact pose… “don’t worry, it might feel silly but it will look great on camera” they said. It didn’t, it looked like I was doing this pose.

'People who grew up in professional families were now four times more likely than those with working-class parents to be in creative work.'

The arts should be accessible to all, yet many individuals still face all sorts of barriers.

#ExpandArtsAccess

theguardian.com/artanddesign/2…

#BehindTheCamera : Richard Billingham, a Birmingham native, captures the essence of family and landscapes in his art. 'Ray's a Laugh' unveils the mundane yet deeply human aspects of daily life.

Find out more ➡️ theherbert.org/whats-on/1779/…