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Saba Sams
‘I was not good at sports because I would not do sports because I did not have the body for sports because I would not do sports.’
Saba Sams on girlhood, embodiment and avoiding sports.
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Mary Wellesley
‘An intense workout is an ecstasy of punishment packaged as self-improvement.’
Mary Wellesley on exercise, ritual and Barry’s Bootcamp.
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Kevin Brazil
‘Feelings can be very obscure but numbers never lie.’
Kevin Brazil on metrics, obsession and fitness.
Strange Relations
Ralf Webb
‘For both writers, this is an essential truth in their work. It’s also an essential truth in their lives: they are both queer, and live openly as such.’
Ralf Webb on the friendship between Tennesse Williams and Carson McCullers.
Rural Hours
Harriet Baker
‘Housekeeping, cleaning and tidying were domestic rituals; they had a performative, role-playing quality, but were also ways of feeling at home.’
An extract fromRural Hours by Harriet Baker.
Introduction
Thomas Meaney
‘Everybody knows a game is not worth watching unless the players are trying to win.’
Thomas Meaney introduces the issue.
Real Tennis
Clare Bucknell
‘Real tennis players like to say that theirs is the only proper racket sport because the rest aren’t difficult enough.’
Clare Bucknell on a historical form of tennis.
Mucker Play
Nico Walker
‘When you said so loudly that you were the best, that you were worth the top dollar, then not just every game but every play became important.’
Nico Walker on the rise and fall of American football, from Jim Thorpe to Deion Sanders.
England’s Other Island
Owen Hatherley & Tereza Červeňová
‘A Victorian summer utopia perpetually falling into dereliction and desuetude.’
Owen Hatherley on the Isle of Wight, with photography by Tereza Červeňová.
The Hurt Business
Declan Ryan
‘Honour, or anything approaching it, sits vanishingly low on the priority list.’
Declan Ryan on boxing and the fight between Anthony Joshua and Daniel Dubois.
Friends
Jia Pingwa
‘Your friends might never know you intimately. There are those that will know you intimately but never be your friend.’
Jia Pingwa on friendship.
The Secret Pattern
Aube Rey Lescure
‘My father said there is fate and destiny governing each of our paths, of individuals and of nations, and this only the dead may know.’
Aube Rey Lescure on returning to China.
