Doors of the mind: Ghosts and thresholds in Bowie, Dickens, and the Generation Game
I’ve never been able to pass a door in an ancient wall without wondering what’s behind it. I know the truth is overwhelmingly likely to be mundane, but my subconscious mind can’t help picking out the details: the old ivy growth across it; the absence of any mechanism on the outside; the permanent silence…
Zombies, punks & immigrants: What J.G. Ballard’s ‘High Rise’ says about Britain in 2015
It’s there if you look for it, snaking like mist around the tower blocks of West London, from Acton to Ladbroke Grove. An atmosphere. A message for us, maybe. This part of London was the inspiration and setting for JG Ballard as he wrote his 1975 dystopian novel High Rise. In…
Review: Why new Ukraine documentary film Maïdan is right to resist the voiceover
I was asked to review Sergei Loznitsa’s 2014 documentary film Maïdan for Radio 4’s Front Row programme earlier this week. You can listen to the review, in the form of a stimulating conversation with presenter Samira Ahmed, here. A year on from the massacre of Maidan protestors by president Viktor Yanukovich’s berkut officers,…
Are US mercenaries deploying in Ukraine? Or… is it bullshit? On Putin’s use of speculation as foreign policy.
Yesterday, Russian news agency RIA Novosti asked for my insight into Kremlin claims that US private military company Greystone is deploying mercenaries in Ukraine. Amid the chaos of eastern Ukraine and Greystone’s association with Blackwater/Xe Services, the Russian claims seem to be gathering momentum, regardless of evidence. There’s an added twist. RIA…
The real reason I write: In praise of ‘threshold apprehension’
The cover for my next book arrived today. Any writer will tell you: the arrival of their new book’s cover is an exciting moment. Me, I’ve always found it a little bit poignant too. Up to this point, it’s all about the making. There are routes to take; ways to turn things. The…
DOWNLOAD: Cool fabricator: The strange and beautiful case of Tom Kummer
In the course of researching my new book on resignations, I’ve been wading through a lot of parting shots from journalists. Well, they have the public forum. Most of us pass through our careers without leaving a trace. We speak as representatives. We curtail our language. We stick to the script. This makes workplaces…
“Paddy? What a fantastic death abyss!” Why the 1990s were David Bowie’s REAL creative hot streak
My revisionist piece on the David Bowie’s least-known (but most creatively rewarding) purple patch was published in Sabotage Times today, just as the world hailed his latest offering. I argue that his lost years – Tin Machine, Black Tie White Noise, 1.Outside, Earthling, even The Buddha of Suburbia and his revelatory, manic…
A modest proposal: or, how to save journalism, make money and safeguard self-regulation… by killing content
In this post, I suggest a way forward for journalism, both for journalists and media companies struggling to make content pay. But the future sketched here is about more than keeping (making) content financially viable. In the aftermath of the Leveson inquiry, I believe it could also be a way out of the…
‘Outlaws Inc.’ to appear in abridged form in Reader’s Digest editions worldwide
This autumn’s worldwide editions of legendary book-sampler The Reader’s Digest will see Matt’s latest book ‘Outlaws Inc.’ published in abridged form in a further 16 languages. They will complement the full UK/Commonwealth, US, German, Italian, Finnish and Romanian editions currently published, while in the UK, the updated mass-market paperback edition currently on the shelves…
News: Catch Matt performing in the Literary Death Match at London’s Stoke Newington Literary Festival, June 2nd!
I’ll be facing off against some of Britain’s best writers and comedians in the 26th Literary Death Match at London’s hipsterest literary festival this June. If you’ve not yet had the pleasure of sampling Outlaws Inc., or enjoyed it but suspect what it might be missing is a live, onstage setting in which its…