Category: Gonzo Journalism

Fine art photographer Andrew Brooks happily acknowledges he is standing on the shoulders of giants when it comes to creating his own unique atmospheric pictures. Seven years ago British photographer Andrew Brooks took me on after a series of unexpected events kick-started my life as a freelance writer. As...

As Black History Month begins today on National Poetry Day, it brings to mind how a little-known poem by Muhammad Ali became a contender for the world’s shortest poem. Previously, the generally accepted holder of this title was poet Strickland Gillilan, that was until, Ali the greatest boxer of...

Never mind the bog rolls, if ever the country needed a reet good gallows laugh it is now. Fortunately for us, there’s a comedian who can help us in our dark hour....

From the moment the Millfield Girls 1st XI first stepped onto the astroturf together in the September of 1989, I knew we had that special kind of magic....

Julie Hilling is next to me pounding the pavements on a cold and wet day in Johnson Fold. The Labour candidate for the Bolton West constituency says it’s not a place you pass through, you have to hunt out the locals here....

For over a decade he has been walking in snowshoes to draw incredible geometric images on the pure white snow of the Alps. And the rest is as they say mathematics......

When the self-invented gonzo and sports journalist's career was allegedly in a terminal nose dive he wrote this piece for his Hey Rube column in the couple of days after the planes hit the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, because as he says 'even ESPN were broadcasting war news'....

Or How One Adoption Played A Crucial Role In Three Generations Of My Family Kathleen’s arm rests on an old printing press at the Beck Isle Museum in Pickering, Yorkshire. She possibly worked this exact machine – a Colombian Letterpress Double Demi – when she was a young woman...

  “I’ve never been in here before,” said Jules about Central Library. “It is completely overwhelming.” Despite being a resident of Manchester for eighteen years, it’s not really surprising as reading has never been one of her favourite things to do. An undiagnosed dyslexic at school in the 1980s...

In 1993 an empty Last Splash CD case permanently resided at the top of the other CDs sprawled across typical student detritus that grew next to my bed – an overflowing stolen pub ashtray, penguin biscuit wrappers and unused packets of fruit-flavoured condoms. (Only the mint one ever got...

Dear Alexandra,
It’s been nearly three weeks since we started hacking trees off you left, right and centre. 
My heart breaks into a thousand pieces that we can’t fix the damage that has been done.
Please forgive us....

Last September a train hurtled itself along the tracks in a sorry state from Manchester to Nottingham, it took me with it and delivered me and my frayed edges into the New Art Exchange. This venue was hosting the World Event Young Artists, a showcase of of 1000 artists from...

Colin the Big Issue seller had a busy week last week. His pitch is right outside the main entrance of the Cornerhouse that has just opened its doors to David Shrigley’s new show How Are You Feeling? and the ever-affable artist designed the cover on the magazine. “I sold...

A red-stitched baseball cap hung lopsidedly on the head of a man named Jamie. He swigged a Miller High Life and said, ‘I’m going to pace myself to three or four beers an hour.’ He was the favourite to fall first. An in-house sweepstake amongst our friends had him...