I expected this at 19. At 27, it’s really grating — Whatever you want to call me, I’m just not the stupid stereotype of a partying, ditsy, fun-loving, naïve and unfocused young woman. Which is incredibly misogynist, but there we go. I like staying in to watch documentaries on geopolitics and buying paint swatches. I want to go to Capri just to see Tiberius’s palaces instead of the beaches. I have strong opinions on how to teach a child to read. In short: I see myself as an adult. But bafflingly, men still don’t.

Short black comedy story — Not unusually for a Thursday, it had begun to rain frogs. Which would have been fine, of course, except Glunk had left his umbrella back at the Department of Minor Inconveniences. …

Short psychological horror story — There was a sour wind that blew up the long grasses from the Morston isle and swum with the hollow sob of the gulls. It lingered there, bitterly cold on the warmest of days, haunting the reeds and the rushes before fading back with the withdrawing tides. …

Sex work and the morality of income: yes, yours too — There’s a Yiddish song I’ll share with you: You’ve got to give the butcher his sher (dance)/ no matter what you buy or what you wear/ You’ve got to give the butcher his lot/ for being everything you think you’re not. Opening Remarks to the Court of Public Opinion For little strips of green paper, money has a…

Anxiety hacks for my fellow anxious princesses — I found out from my shrink, recently, that most people don’t constantly analyse what the person we are interacting with is thinking and feeling. That, ladies, is apparently ‘mentalisation’. Most people are thinking about themselves: their wants, their feelings about that person, and their own boundaries and outcomes. And apparently, that isn’t extremely selfish.

The worst, most unwanted elephant in the feminist room — Disclaimer: anything I reference in this piece is generalised commentary in the wake of dialogue on several high profile celebrity cases and not directly referring to any ongoing dispute, allegation, or case. These are my personal opinions and I support empathy and due process. I’m watching that Dispatches documentary on…

I’m sick of stupid excuses, let’s write the rules down — Ok, you know this story. Insert famous actor, CEO, politician, or musician. He gets a text from, or bumps into, a young beautiful woman who he feels physically attracted to. He wants to try his luck at a one night stand. I mean, she hasn’t said no yet, right? She’s even agreed to talk. And besides, she’s an adult, even if she is half his age or scraping twenty. What’s a man to do? It’s all so complicated!

How good are you at managing your emotions? — When you’re a child, you begin to become aware of rules. Authority figures. Consequences. For those of us from stable homes, stable communities, and safe environments, this isn’t a confusing world. We know that screaming and hitting doesn’t get us what we want, that we need to be respectful to…

Home-Counties Gothic — He was the wrong man at the right time. And perhaps you loved him once, or you said you did, in that early kodak bloom of white nineties polyester and hard marzipan. Your parents approved, in their foreign, distant way, in answer phone messages and polite handshakes. A good family…