#TenThingsLearnt w/c June 5🧵

1. Only female mosquitoes drink blood. Male mosquitoes primarily feed on nectar and plant juices for energy.

2. Female mosquitoes need a blood meal to produce eggs, and they also play a role in the transmission of disease.

3. Collagen smells like burning flesh.

4. Camels were once indigenous to North America. There were 20 different variations, from rabbit size to typical camel sizes, and beyond.

5. The camping to segregate toilets for trans people is really an attempt to exclude them from public life. It’s the new Jim Crow.

6. Doctor Who fans are the best fans in the world… 🙏🏿❤️🥲🎉

7. …1.59 million people watched my episode on May 10th! 😳😨🥲😌

8. The figure is not consolidated and does not include BBC iPlayer, where it was available at 8am on Saturday, ahead of its BBC One broadcast.

9. The United Arab Emirates is angling to become the AI capital of Earth by bankrolling America’s entire AI infrastructure; the sheikh in charge controls a $1.5 Trillion fortune.

10. Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAi once said: “AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime there’ll be great companies.”

May News

Didn’t quite manage to rest yet again / x

So,
After spending two weeks in the BEAUTIFUL Canadian mountain-town of BANFF (working on a new play) I came back down to England-Town on Monday. I am severely jet lagged, I feel like my soul is hovering over the ocean, and my body misses it, but there’s much ado this week and I gotta charge on until it returns.

I’ll try to be brief. Remember the formula?

4 news items + something to watch…

x

1 / The Writing Shed / Poetry

I have an evening of poetry and conversation coming up this Thursday at The Writing Shed. The Writing Shed is a creative project in which open mic nights, workshops and in-depth conversations with established writers happen at venue in North London. At the end of the event, after all the chit chat, we’ll get a drink or two. Personally, I’m looking forward to the Open Mic, I need to find new writers and performers for our 05Events.

Thur 8 May 7:30pm
The Roasting Shed
322 Hornsey Road
London N7 7HE

Book here!

x

2 / My Doctor Who / Episode 5

Above are stills from my Doctor Who Episode! After two years of work - that’s how long I had to keep my big mouth shut - this Saturday you’ll finally get to see it! My Ep is called The Story and The Engine. It is set in Lagos, Nigeria, where “…a mysterious Barber reigns supreme. The Doctor discovers in which stories have power, but has to think fast to stop the Spider from spinning its deadly web of revenge!” PLEASE Puh-LEASE tune in to watch, and lemme know what you think after!

Sat 10 May / 19:10 PM / BBC 1
Sat 10 May 8 AM / Disney+
more info here. 

x

3 / The Restitution Rap Party / May

In commemoration of Africa Day, this special edition invites audiences and writers to imagine and re-imagine the possible, histories and swirling narratives around artefacts in Manchester Museum’s collection.

To recap, The Rhythm And Poetry / Prose Party is a no-clutter no-fuss night of live literature and moving music. The format is super simple: 10 writers share a piece of work and after each, the DJ will play two songs of their choosing linked to the text.

I will be joined by Sid Mercutio on decks, and a fantastic line up of writers and performers from communities of origin. Expect live literature, moving music, and an unforgettable night out!

Sat 23 May / 7:00
Living Worlds gallery
Manchester Museum
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9PL
Book / here.

x

4 / Stained Metal / 💥New Project Alert!💥

KENYA x JAMAICA x INDIA x CANADA!

I got a lot of flack when I accepted an MBE, a royal honour, from King Charles. Some friends and fans of my work were angry and disappointed. Others called me a sell-out, an Uncle Tom, a coon, etc. I did my best to hold my peace, because there was (there always is) a larger picture and context at play. The plan was (the plan always is) to make art, to articulate complexity, to broaden and deepen understanding.

This is Stained Metal a project in which I ship the MBE medal itself - a piece of the kingdom - to four artists in four formerly-colonised corners of the Empire: Kenya, Jamaica, India and Canada. I will commission new work from local artists, ask them, (as a provocation) what it means to be part of a construct they never asked to join, and we will present their varied answers here in Britain and in Nigeria.

Stained Metal will be a profound exploration of empire, identity, and legacy. The purpose of the work is to better understand the everyday legacies of Empire from those most affected by it, and to add the voices of those we don’t hear enough of to the ongoing debate about Royal Honours.

Co-presented by Fuel, Creative Manchester, and Manchester Museum, Museum of West African Art (MOWAA), the project will be launched as part of my Honorary Fellowship at University of Manchester on May 28th. - Oh yeah, I’m now an honorary fellow there.

The launch-event promises to be an unforgettable night of poetry, storytelling, and thought-provoking conversation. I hope you can make it. Tickets are free, but you have to book…

Wed 28 May / 5:30
Living Worlds gallery
Manchester Museum
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9PL
Book / here.

x

5 / Something to watch / Dr Who again!

It’s my trailer! Only .30secs long. Enjoy here!

x

#TenThingsLearnt w/c April 21🧵

1. A lot of products “Made in America” were actually *made in China, but *assembled in America.

2.. Like in Canada, the trade war has only served united people in China against the US.

3. Chinese people save 40% of all they earn. Their plan is simply to wait out the trade war.

4. China is 5000 years older than America. Trump is playing a 4-yr game. China is playing for another 5000 years.

5. During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Pope Francis suggested Trump was “not Christian” because of his preference to build walls instead of bridges.

6. Pope Francis apologised for the silence of church leaders in the Rwandan genocide and to the Roma people for a history of discrimination and mistreatment.

7. Pope Francis begged forgiveness from Indigenous communities for the abuse and mistreatment of their children in Catholic schools.

8. In 2019, Pope Francis got on his hands and knees before the warring leaders of South Sudan’s government and its opposition to kiss their shoes, begging them to make peace.

9. His first papal trip out of Rome was to Lampedusa, the tiny Italian island that had become the point of arrival for thousands of African migrants crossing the Mediterranean.

10. 70% of crimes are committed by under 40 yr olds.

#TenThingsLearnt w/c April 7🧵

1. Arnold’s field in Rainham, England, is so contaminated with chemicals, it spontaneously bursts into toxic wildfires.

2. Workers in Japan, built an entire train station in the six hours between the night’s last train and the morning’s first, using 3D-printers.

3. Donald Trump is only as smart as America needs him to be.

4. The Mayans and Aztecs originated hot chocolate. They were the first to grind cacao beans and mix them with water and spices. It was a bitter, frothy drink, ceremonial drink.

5. Logs have to dry for two years to become firewood.

6. "Catwalk" and "runway" are used interchangeably in fashion, but have different meanings. A runway is a general term for where models walk, while a catwalk is a narrow, elevated walkway, also associated with construction settings.

7. Cambridge University was one of the first to offer women higher education, but the last ancient university to grant them degrees.

8. The 19th Century word: ‘Kakistocracy’ means a Government of the least qualified or worst people.

9. The 19th Century word: ‘Ultracrepidarian’ means somebody who gives opinions on subjects they know nothing about.

10. The 18th Century word: ‘Fudgel’ means Pretending to work while actually doing nothing.

#TenThingsLearnt w/c March 31🧵

#TenThingsLearnt w/c March 31🧵

1. In 2030, Ramadan will happen twice! In January and late December. 🤲🏿

2. At the current growth consumer rate of 3%, we will run out or copper in 70 years. ⛏️

3. An Israeli soldier said anonymously, that In Gaza, human shields are used by Israeli soldiers at least six times a day. 😤

4. At current growth costumer rate, 2052 is when we will run out of oil. 🛢️

5. After the IDF blew up all the bakeries, Gazan women made ovens out of clay. ❤️🧕🏽

6. The Jamaican flag is the ONLY flag that doesn’t contain red, white or blue.🇯🇲

7. When the Fred Perry company realised the Proud Boys had adopted their black polo shirts with yellow stripes as uniforms, they stopped making them. ✊🏿

8. Dr. Márcia Alves Marques Capella and her team found that Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 destroyed up to 20% of cancer cells in lab tests - leaving healthy cells untouched, suggesting certain musical vibrations may carry healing potential. 🎶❤️‍🩹

9. Like Jesus, Osiris, Dionysus, Adonis, Inanna, Ishtar, Balder, Shiva, Krishna, Vishnu, Quetzalcoati and at least 9 other Biblical characters came back to life from death.

10. ‘Aikido’, the Japanese martial art, translate in English to ‘The Art Of Peace’; its underlying philosophy is ‘to make the heart of the universe one’s own’.🧘🏿‍♂️

April Newsletter

4 news items + something to watch…

1 / Poetry Review Spring Launch / LDN (Online)

I have a new poem in the spring edition of Poetry Review, and I’ll be reading it (and selections from my next book) at the launch, with Rashed Aqrabawi, Tiffany Atkinson and Joe Carrick-Varty. I was kinda surprised it was published actually, first poem I’ve written in a while. It’s spurred me to recommit, to carve out time and put ink to leaf – for the love of word.

10 April ‘25 / 7 - 8:30pm
Free / Book here!

2 / Doctor Who / Premier  

So, I got to cerebrate with the cast and crew of Doctor Who at the premier on Monday, and I didn’t know my buddy Clara would be hosting! I grabbed her to snap this photo on the TARDIS-blue carpet, before we watched the first Ep. It was brilliant. Brilliant. I hope y’all make time to watch over the coming months. My episode, episode 5, will transmit on May 10th, please don’t miss it! Gather friends, make a watch-night of it.

Season 2 launches on Sat 12 April
on BBC iPlayer and BBC One
in the UK and Disney+
more info here. 

3 / SEARCH PARTY / Alberta, Canada

Thanks for the lovely audiences who poured out for the Search Parties in Belfast and Dublin. The next one will be at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, in a 246-seat studio theatre, extensively used for dance, drama, intimate music and events, but which I will use for poetry and storytelling. As you know, each performance is different. So if you’ve been and are passing by, come along again.

2 May
 ‘25 / 7:30pm
Margaret Greenham Theatre
107 Tunnel Mountain Drive
Banff, Alberta, Canada
T1L 1H5.
Tix here.

x

4 / NATURE MATTERS / New Anthology 

What we know is that climate change will affect far more people from the global majority, than from the Western minority; that those least deserving will be the most punished by our continual destruction and desecrations of nature’s sacred places and precious jewels. Nature Matters, and this is the topic and lens through which this forthcoming anthology, discusses all we are doing. I have a few poems included and I imagine you’ll know a few of the others:

Victoria Adukwei Bulley, John Agard, Jason Allen-Paisant, Moniza Alvi, Anthony Anaxagorou, Raymond Antrobus, Mona Arshi, Andre Bagoo, Khairani Barokka, Dzifa Benson, Jay Bernard, Sujata Bhatt, Malika Booker, Kamau Brathwaite, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, Anthony Vahni Capildeo, Mary Jean Chan, Kayo Chingonyi, David Dabydeen, Fred D’Aguiar, Kwame Dawes, Imtiaz Dharker, Tishani Doshi, Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe, Inua Ellams, Richard Georges, Lorna Goodison, Mina Gorji, Will Harris, Ranjit Hoskote, Sarah Howe, Ian Humphreys, Sharan Hunjan, Ishion Hutchinson, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Anthony Joseph, Bhanu Kapil, Jackie Kay, Mimi Khalvati, Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa, Zaffar Kunial, Hannah Lowe, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Roy McFarlane, Nick Makoha, E. A. Markham, Momtaza Mehri, Kei Miller, Daljit Nagra, Karthika Naïr, Grace Nichols, Selina Nwulu, Gboyega Odubanjo, Oluwaseun Olayiwola, Nii Parkes, Sandeep Parmar, Pascale Petit, Rowan Ricardo Phillips, Alycia Pirmohamed, Nina Mingya Powles, Taz Rahman, A. K. Ramanujan, Nisha Ramayya, Shivanee Ramlochan, Vidyan Ravinthiran, Roger Robinson, Denise Saul, Seni Seneviratne, Olive Senior, Warsan Shire, Jeet Thayil, Marvin Thompson, Derek Walcott, Kandace Siobhan Walker, Rushika Wick, Jennifer Wong and Benjamin Zephaniah.

Pre-order from here.

x

5 / Something to watch / Card On The Table!

Earlier this year, I got to break bread with Stanley Tucci, Professor Brian Cox and Sophie Turner. We had the chillest - we were too chill - conversation and the vibes were just right. It was part of a series called Cards On The Table, and you can watch my episode, right here. It’s only 25 mins long. Enjoy!

x

#TenThingsLearnt w/c March 24🧵

1. Because of impossible beauty ideals in Russia, many women there apply permanent blusher to their lips; tattooing red, pink, or nude colours to appear fuller and more defined.

2. In 2024, China unveiled the BV100 battery. It uses Nickel-63 as its radioactive source and has an estimated lifespan of 50-years!

3. There were five Brontë sisters. Three were writers. Charlotte was the most prolific.

4. Last year, a whole spoonful of micro-plastics was discovered inside a human brain.🧠

5. A Greek politician was once given an entire island 🏝️ as a bribe!!!

6. The Telegraph has a dedicated section for anti-woke stories, and it is utterly pathetic. 🤭

7. 104 million Americans have a reading level equivalent of 11–14 years old. Which means over a third of country is functionally illiterate.

8. According Northern Ireland urban myth, Catholics kept their toaster on the kitchens counter. Protestants kept in the cupboard.

9. In Norther island, ‘Soup Drinkers’ is a derogatory term for Catholics who, driven to starvation, accepted soup from Protestant-run soup kitchens in exchange for converting to Protestantism. 🥣

10. Because carbon is the fourth most common element, diamonds are abundant in the universe. Wood, which only grows on earth, is significantly rarer! 🪵

#TenThingsLearnt w/c March 17 🧵

1. Inverted pink triangles were symbols of oppression used by Nazis during the Holocaust. Gay men were forced to wear them in concentration camps, to be marked as enemies of the state. Many were imprisoned, tortured, or killed. 😕

2. Fascists across the world tend to target the same groups: Leftists & political opponents, Intellectuals & Academics and Ethnic & Racial minorities, LGBTQI & Disabled People, aka “DEI”. 😩

3. Sometimes crystals in your inner-ear come loose and trigger vertigo. 🥴🤢

4. The asteroid, Ceres, has more fresh water than Earth! 💧

5. China has revealed a quantum supercomputer chip, Zuchongzhi 3, that is a million times faster than google’s supercomputer chip, Willow* 😧

6. *Willow, performs computation tasks in under 5 mins, that would the fastest supercomputers 10 septillion years to complete. That's 10 with 24 zeroes, a timeframe that exceeds the age of the universe - China’s chip is a million times faster than this one!😧😧

7. Global human population growth, is projected to peak at 10 Billon in 2060, then begin to decline and plateau at 6 billion around 2300.

8. 2.1 is the global total fertility needed to replace ourselves. 2.3 is the global average, which is a significant decline from 4.2, the rate in the 1950s.

9. The fertility rate is plummeting faster in rich / western countries. The U.S’ is at 1.7, the UK’s is at 1.4, and South Korea’s is at .6! All are desperately in NEED of people; in need of immigrants. In 50 years they will be FIGHTING to attract immigrants.

10. No country that has dipped below replacement rates has ever climbed above. As of right now, the decline is permanent.

#TenThingsLearnt w/c March 10 🧵

1. PNut the Squirrel’s owner, Mark, makes content on Only Fans to generate money for the upkeep of his Animal Sanctuary.

2. Botanically speaking, bananas are berries.🍌=🫐

3. Anhedonia is from the Greek words ‘an’ and ‘hedone,’ which collectively mean ‘without pleasure’ - is a state of being common among mice and men.

4. Boxing predates Karate in Japan. 🥊

5. Astronomers found 128 new moons around Saturn, bringing its grand total to 274.

6. Micro plastics - which doctors think affect fertility - have been found at the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific, in untouched snow in Antarctica and deep inside the human brain. 🧠

7. Whilst most countries are loosing land to rising sea level, The Netherlands expanded their territory by 18%, reverse-drowning the ocean.

8. Japan has 72 weather seasons!

9. The seven big oil companies were warned, way back in 1959, about global warming and climate breakdown. Instead, they buried and discredited the science and scientists. 🤬

10. ‘Devour Feculence’ means ‘eat shit’. 💩

#TenThingsLearnt w/c Feb 25

1. One of the best horse in the world is called United Touch. It’s called so because its parents are brother and sister. The horse was bred this way. 🤢🤮

2. You can’t look at someone’s genes and from that, identify their race. This is what “Race is a social construct” points to.

3. Air b’n’b advertised 760 rooms built in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. 🤬

4. Brazil was the first country to win the World Cup three times. 🇧🇷

5. Cambodia's Khmer language has 74 letters, making it the world's largest alphabet. 😳

6. In original Statue of Liberty design, the was holding broken chains, but this explicit reference to slavery was deemed too controversial, so they swapped it for a torch. 😩

7. Ken Warby has held The water speed record (WSR) of 317mph for the past 46 years with his Spirit of Australia hydroplane. He is the only person to have exceeded 300mph on water and survived.

8. Silent movies never used to have soundtracks. The film would travel and local musicians would improvise live scores.

9. Charlie Chaplin was one of the first composers to soundtrack films.

10. Indiana University has the largest Black film archive in the world.

#TenThingsLearnt w/c Feb 17

#TenThingsLearnt w/c Feb 17

1. The asteroid flying towards Earth now has a 3% chance of making impact. Previously it was 2% 😳…

2. …we can only observe the asteroid until April 2025. Then, it’ll disappear and reappear in 2028… which might be too late.

3. There was once a gathering of people with sea-life surnames. The event was hosted by legendary weather man, Michael Fish, at a Sea Zoo, and the guest were gifted the fish they were named after.

4. Over the past 20 years the insect population in the UK has declined by 60% 😳

5. Microsoft's new "topological qubit" chip is not built on a solid, liquid or gas surface, but on a phase of matter many experts did not think was possible.

6. Janet Jackson has been married 3 times. Her Husbands include a former backing dancer who directed the iconic ‘That’s the way love goes’ video.

7. Malcolm X visited the English town of Smethwick in February 1965. Shortly afterwards they had - what is described as - the most racist election campaign in British history.

8. Ireland is the ONLY country to have been colonised in Western Europe. This is why they’ve always stood with Palestine; they DEEPLY understand wtf is happening. The privilege of whiteness has never blinded them from the truth.

9. Under the reign of The Third Reich people began having nightmares in which The Third Reich had made dreaming illegal. They’d wake up screaming.

10. Thailand means ‘land of the free’.

#TenThingsLearnt Feb 10

1. Women from different cultures have different symptoms for the menopause! 😳🩸

2. The asteroid flying towards Earth has a 2% chance of making impact in 2032…

3. …the Countries at risk are: sIndia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Sudan, Nigeria 😳, Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador.

4. One in six people on earth are Indian.

5. One is six people on earth are Chinese.

6. The Norwegian government suppressed the language and culture of the Kven people.

7. Isaac Newton believed the world would end in 2060.

8. Up until recently, Doctors didn’t believe it was possible to have ADHD & Autism simultaneously.

9. Lavatory comes from the verb ‘lave’, which means ‘to wash’.

10. Tesla is suing drivers who complain about their cars after accidents – and winning.