DEFINITION:

1. The result of a yearning for exploration, education and enlightenment of the world we live in 

2. an insatiable curiosity which lends itself to an actualisation of existence through communication to others in written form

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Murals, Museums and More in Mexico City

Murals, Museums and More in Mexico City

Growing up in the South of England meant I had minimal exposure to a true representation of Mexico, experiencing instead occasional associations including a toy shop piñata at a birthday party, sporadic meals via Old El Paso Tex-Mex kits from grocery stores, or consuming copious shots of Jose Cuervo with merry friends (followed by multiple pained facial expressions).  Venture into the City...
The Reset Button

The Reset Button

So many guises in our years, Whose to say when it all becomes clear. Signing forms and forming smiles, All the while it still reviles. One door opens; another closes. I press reset for my mind’s repose. And begin again with a fresh slate. A new chapter, A new challenge...
Elevated Splendor: Big Bend Solitude and Terlingua

Elevated Splendor: Big Bend Solitude and Terlingua

“The mountains are calling, and I must go”.    John Muir, Yosemite Valley 1873. These are the words sprawled across the minty green shirts presented by my cousin for her fortieth year celebratory trip at Big Bend National Park, which have lingered periodically in my mind since returning to Austin....
CreativeMornings Austin: A Magical Initiation

CreativeMornings Austin: A Magical Initiation

It’s 7.30am and I’m peddling through South Austin’s winding roads, greeted by the glorious pink light of sunrise.  The cool, fresh air envelops me; a welcome change after the past 6 months, more accustomed to the feeling of wearing a vest of hot coals.  With 2 different lollipop ladies (mind my British, I mean...
Let your Authentic Self be Front Facing

Let your Authentic Self be Front Facing

A TED talk delivered by the masterful David Byrne on how architecture has helped music evolve has sparked deeper cerebral churning.  Byrne went on to quote the American author Thomas Frank, regarding the voting process: “Voters (like a lot of us) assume if they hear something that ‘sounds like’ its sincere, that its coming from the...
Don't let Digital kill the Art of Conversation

Don’t let Digital kill the Art of Conversation

Speed kills.  I’m sure you’re familiar with the advertising campaigns that bolstered our road safety regulations.  Texting whilst driving has also joined the ranks in securing more consciousness for travel in order to prevent unnecessary deaths or accidents. Whether you agree with this ruling or not, the digital and velocity based...
Faith: The Forgotten Motivator

Faith: The Forgotten Motivator

Following a recent meeting of family friends, a waver in self-belief resulted in the calming retort: “Have some faith”. This simple statement came from a dear friend of my late parents, with added resonance because he has known me since youth and through to adulthood. It was not a dispersion on...
Deconstructing ‘The Block’: The Quest for Inspiration

Deconstructing ‘The Block’: The Quest for Inspiration

If you are one of those lucky people that flows creativity from every vein with as much ease as blinking, then stop reading now. If however you are like myself, at times wandering aimlessly both in mind and body to source stimuli for an article or art installation, then read...
Resolutions for Life (and not just at New Years)

Resolutions for Life (and not just at New Years)

As we enter 2015, it seems inevitable that my latest (and overdue) article relates to this existential moment and the thoughts of what it means to have a fresh new year to play with. January 1st is welcomed worldwide through a variety of ways, some of which involve many libations, with...
Longing to 'be' happy? Just let yourself BE

Longing to ‘be’ happy? Just let yourself BE

There are many things to be said about freedom.  One of the most resonant for me though is that it is severely underrated.  And I do not speak on this occasion of the reasons and wherefores for incarceration.  It is more in regards to the personal and work related restrictions...
From Darwin to Digital: A Revolution for our Species

From Darwin to Digital: A Revolution for our Species

Most of us are familiar with the graphic charting the progress of man,from ape to modernity (with variances on the present-day interpretation ranging from obese man to stressed office worker) but who would have predicted the rapidity of man’s digital evolution.  With access to more and more articles documenting our digital history with trivia...
Creative Writing as Therapy: The Gestalt Approach

Creative Writing as Therapy: The Gestalt Approach

Writing, like so many creative arts, is a discipline that needs constant attention and a variety of stimulus.  Whatever you write, you need to consider its composition, its flow.  You need to articulate its story with prose or poetry, using words as colour to activate imagination in the mind.  There may be...
A Romance Continued: Returning to New Orleans & Tasting the Deep South

A Romance Continued: Returning to New Orleans & Tasting the Deep South

It’s a beautiful thing to build a relationship with a City.  Guidebooks can offer up suggestions, multiple apps help seek out hidden gems and there are always online recommendations (incredibly useful when in dire need of feeding), however I always find my best experiences are gained by seeking out and...
I Smile at Mirrors

I Smile at Mirrors

  (Dedicated to my Mother)   The scent of your perfume fades from memory Until a stranger passes by, then I smile Closing my eyes to remember your face As I breathe in deeply   I stare at stories in the dark Illuminating the empty seat beside me But I...
Getting Older & Embracing your Age

Getting Older & Embracing your Age

How do you react when you are posed with the question “How OLD are you?”… Do you wince, mumbling the wretched number under your breath?  Perhaps you state it proudly, with the enquirer following it up with a welcomed “but you don’t look it!”.  Or do you simply change the...
A Sense of Independence in Palawan

A Sense of Independence in Palawan

There is much to be said for a woman travelling alone in the world, in my case the Far Eastern side of the planet to the Philippines.  As a demi-Filipina, one might assume I have a distinct advantage in navigating around the 7000+ island culture, versus the typical ‘tourist’ trip...
Soaking up New Orleans: My NOLA Inauguration

Soaking up New Orleans: My NOLA Inauguration

Aside from Austin, Texas and a weekend in Las Vegas, I have had no other experience of the US of A until recently, when the fine opportunity to celebrate New Year’s Eve in “N’awlins” presented itself. I am sure like many others before, I speculated upon what NOLA had to...
Stoicism: The Key to Modern Day Living?

Stoicism: The Key to Modern Day Living?

During the throes of modern life, it is easy to lose ourselves in our daily chores, occupations and moments of liberty.  The demand for our time as we get older becomes ever more engrossed by what we are expected to do but these expectations are usually projected onto the situation...
LISBOA

LISBOA

  Your children departed briefly Only to return swiftly Enticing me with their journey of smiles So much affinity Though we never met Yet And then we drank in the skies With each other’s eyes In contemplative adoration Of this feeling of elation   My feet tread upon your cobbled...
REVIEW: Prawn on the Lawn

REVIEW: Prawn on the Lawn

It occurred to me recently that I have never stated prices or budgets for restaurants that I’ve written about.  This is not an intentional disservice to the reader, I simply think it is a little tawdry to overcast the splendidness of a meal with a quotation.  Much like when I...
No Questions to Ponder

No Questions to Ponder

  There is something serene In the gleam of your eye it calms the internal chaos   No more questions to ponder as I only grow fonder of a now, somewhat altered status   As I drown in your lips Hands pressed close on my hips swaying gently in sync...
Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain

Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain

There must be many moments we re-live, whether due to failure to learn from experience or the bittersweet nostalgia of familiarity.  I raise this topic as it is one I notice within many people, including myself upon occasion (although I would also like to say a tad savvier now).  We...
Epicurean Expeditions: from San Francisco to Austin

Epicurean Expeditions: from San Francisco to Austin

Although primarily to reconnect with family and friends, my other purpose to visit the United States was to explore further cuisines and navigate the restaurant and bar scenes.  Aside from the travel itself, an integral part of the journey for me is what and where I feed.  This break in...
The Need for Sexual Revolution

The Need for Sexual Revolution

Sex: a subject historically known to raise hushes and cause blushes whether in regards to your orientation or the reproductive (although sometimes unproductive) function has had a shift.  We live in a world where previously abhorred inclinations are now becoming increasingly socially acceptable and depending on where you live (in...
Latest entries
Hanoi cuisine to make your smile wider at Banh Mi11

Hanoi cuisine to make your smile wider at Banh Mi11

If there are support groups out there for Vietnamese food addiction then I am an unregistered member.  I adore the stuff.  Fresh summer rolls of vegetables, meat or fish rolled up in an envelope of rice paper; soothing, hot Pho that cures all ailments with slurp-up-sharp noodles or crunchy baguettes piled with slow roasted meats,...
Blowing the trumpet for the Green Man and French Horn

Blowing the trumpet for the Green Man and French Horn

Over 6000 restaurants exist in the Capital.  Not particularly surprising for me when I read this in (yet another) harshly written review however the specified figure made my mind spin in terms of how does one possibly have the time to explore so much uncharted culinary territory?  Location is a huge obstacle in this feat however the...
Plates to fall in love with at White Rabbit

Plates to fall in love with at White Rabbit

There is something amiss in London. The 2012 Olympics have ended and with the impending autumnal weather upon us, there seems a struggle for reasons to continue the unexpectedly positive spirits that accompanied the Games. It would be easy to succumb to the misery of the daily grind and regress to the eyes-down, dog-eat-dog approach...
The Importance of Being George

The Importance of Being George

The Tate Modern, National Gallery, Whitecube, National Portrait, the Serpentine, Saatchi……. familiar with the names?  There are surely some favourites muddled amongst these, let alone the many other galleries and exhibition spaces not mentioned. Not quite the same plethora of free resources in Johannesburg I’m informed, where the subject of this post hails from. George...

To Heal and Damage

A cycle of turmoil that repeats Yet completes It is strangely fulfilling (although quietly killing) all manner of wisdom I accumulate through learning it still leaves a yearning   The path to true clarity  so full of disparity between logic and emotional thought I get caught such mortal torment is typically fraught   With a constant...
The Spanish come to Shoreditch

The Spanish come to Shoreditch

I love it when a new restaurant opens.  Let me rephrase; I love it when a new restaurant is conceived.  Much like the population growth, restaurants are following suit and the gestation period is becoming ever shorter in order to meet the demand of high competition in the culinary stakes. When SAF closed its doors...

Fairweather Love

  The smiles seem only forecast When the sun creeps behind the clouds A cue for our union is then allowed   So starry-eyed and blissful Our laughter sprinkles the air and all those around that stand and stare   For every moment our eyes meet I wait for your presence to disappear so far...

Gun for a Tongue

The smoke still lingers on me From the barrel of your gun But it wasn’t this that shot me Just the malice of your tongue   The licks of ammunition Trigger thoughts inside my head What brought about this apathy? Do you really want me dead?   But your wrath is unrelenting And it pierces...
Cocktails Ahoy!

Cocktails Ahoy!

Impromptu and spontaneous; somehow the best evenings of enlightenment come from the unplanned.  It is with these circumstances that saw me enter an unassuming doorway, down the dimly lit stairs and into the realms of speakeasy-esque Nightjar, the much talked about cocktail and music spot in Old Street. It has already built a reputation of...
Eastern Promise

Eastern Promise

I believe there comes a time in one’s life (in my case quite frequently it would seem) that change is necessary and good in order to stimulate the mind and body. This thought process is what prompted me to “up sticks” and move to North East London recently and the wonderful pastures new of Stoke...
Feed your ears, eyes and mouth at Trangallan

Feed your ears, eyes and mouth at Trangallan

A long overdue reunion of friends was happily met with sunny skies one Wednesday afternoon in London.  Damon & Michelle, two Texans I had the pleasure to make the acquaintance with back in Austin, had arrived in London in upbeat tempo.  Regardless of over 30 hours lack of sleep (attributed to the excitement and unfortunate...
Bring a good appetite to Budapest

Bring a good appetite to Budapest

I have been lucky enough to have enjoyed various home cooked Hungarian fodder in my lifetime; Pörkölt a delicious chicken ‘stew’ of sorts & an excellent cure for a poorly head; Leves (this just means ‘soup’ in Hungarian) in various guises as there be meat ones, bean ones, creamy ones etc etc… and the sweet tooth is...