The building blocks of everything - you and me, baby - are quarks, which come in six varieties: UP, DOWN, TOP, BOTTOM, CHARM and STRANGE. It’s easy to be up and down, top or bottom, and even to have some charm. But have you ever considered the importance of being… strange?
The Strangeness Kit
is intended to be a space for fiction, surreal mythology, poetry, essays, aphoristic musings, and everything that doesn’t fall under the film essay heading - which is covered in my film Substack Back to Back.
ONLY THE FICTION POSTS ARE SENT AS NEWSLETTERS!
If you wish to change that to receive essays, surreal mythologizing and discussions with other Substackers, go to
Strangeness Kit Newsletter Settings
The Strangeness Kit fiction is replicated in Spanish language versions at
La Extrañeza
For film essays that take a comparative look at two films every week, check
Back to Back
Get Some Strange!
ABOUT ME
People call me Murph, I’m 60 years old, I live in downtown Barcelona and I’ve lived here ever since the 1992 Olympics when I came to work on that event. I’m originally from London though my family are all ridiculously Irish Catholic. Like, movie-cliché levels of Irish, with all the good and bad that entails. For me Banshees of Inisherin is a documentary about my cousins.
I’m married with two grown-up children, 26 and 24 years old. My son is presently in the UK where he works as a Formula 1 engineer in the Red Bull team. My daughter is severely disabled, in good health but lives exactly like a happy baby and needs care 24/7.
My wife is Catalan from an absurdly numerous Catalan family that merits the name clan. She’s a successful architect who brings home the Eurobacon. Tolerates my ways like a fucking saint.
I used to be a ruffian, drinking and smoking dope like a maniac, and getting in continual scraps. Have been involved in many many altercations with the police in the many riots we have here, but never got caught once because I’m a slippery sumbitch, hehe.
During all those many years of youthful hijinks I’ve lived in the UK, Ireland, the US and Canada. I believe, thanks to anonymous paid sperm donations, I’m biological progenitor to half of Ontario.
My aim is to write a lot, working on a novel right now. I’ve always written journalism, sometimes in Spanish or Catalan, but I’ve only been writing fiction for about a year. I’ve got prose style down right for the most part, need to work more on plotting and especially character.
I like collaborations, and I’ve done some very interesting work with Jon T and James Worth.
