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Choose Your Own Adventure Retrospective: The Curse of Batterslea Hall by Richard Brightfield

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The Curse of Batterslea Hall  was always my favourite CYOA book – it was also, for reasons I'll get into, one of the more unusual ones. It sparked my later love of adventure games and inspired some of my sketchy early attempts at creative writing (including a thinly veiled recreation on 90s 'edutainment' program Storybook Weaver ). It also deepened my devastation when I returned home one fateful school night to discover my mum had donated my extensive CYOA collection – precious gems tremblingly unearthed from the dusty Mills and Boon-straining shelves of my local Scope – back to charity. Around twenty years later, and I took the obvious next step for a mildly lockdown-crazed 90s kid squinting down the barrel of their thirties: sourced a copy inflated by just four times the original cover price through eBay. But was it worth it, and does it still hold up? Dust off your bootcut jeans and fire up your Walkman – it's adventurin' time, 90s* style... The premise Battersl...
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A Vegan's Guide to Surviving China: Xian and Chengdu Edition

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Open-air restaurants in Shidai residential block, Chengdu. Photo credit: Rick's Photo Thing (RPT) Around a year and a half ago, I read a Guardian article with the provocative title 'Free range is a con. There’s no such thing as an ethical egg'. As a long-term vegetarian, while I was aware of some of the issues with factory farming, I had been somewhat reassured by labels such as 'free range' and 'organic'. The article confirmed what I think, deep down, I had already suspected but hadn't known how to address given that so many veggie alternatives are heavily reliant on egg and cheese ingredients. It made for an eye-opening, unsettling read. I shared it with my partner, proclaiming, 'I can't eat another egg again in good conscience.' We decided to trial a vegan diet almost immediately.
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Roots

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The interviewer looked me in the eye and smiled. "Where do you see yourself five years from now?" "When will people stop asking me this ridiculous question?!" I groaned. "How am I supposed to know?! Anything can happen! Life can change dramatically in one afternoon, one year, let alone five! Having goals is one thing, but why do you have to put a timeline to it?!" Alright, I didn't say that. Out loud, anyway. I certainly thought it. There are two questions I never know how best to answer: "Where are you from?" and "Where do you see yourself in the next five years?" From this article I grew up moving between towns, cultures, and countries  –  I spent my formative years in England, South East Asia, and the United States. Thanks to my parents' work as pastors and missionaries, life could be shaken up overnight  –  an exciting, sometimes heart-breaking reality. Occasionally I wondered if I was alone in my struggle to ans...
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My Toga Made of Blond, Brilliantined Biblical Hair

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This is an archival post from April 2010 migrated from my previous personal blog. On a grainy April morning my partner and I trudged into the city centre to catch a 6am Megabus from Newcastle to London. In total, the return trip lasted around 14 hours. The reason? Why, for the summer of lovin', of course. The exuberant Broadway revival of Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical  is currently showing in London's West End (at the Gielgud Theatre), and the hippie spirit was, at least on that day and for all those involved, vigorously, hip-thrustingly alive.
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