But when I write something happens. A gust of wind blows my thoughts to the surface but this time everything else all the background noise all the chaos it all goes quiet.

I was having a conversation with a friend last night which happens to be the reason for this piece. During this conversation I’d described writing like a puzzle to begin with you only have the edges of an idea and the area of your brain that wonders about whether what you have to say has any substance turns up its volume so you spend time wrestling with trying to find the remote to turn it down.

Before long all the edges are in the middle of the long wooden table you gather them gently attempting to make sure you don’t lose any as you pick them up and begin arranging them.

First come the edges then the corners then the middle writing feels the same to me the image on the box is fully formed in your head meanwhile you fight with the edges of an idea until the corners connect together after a while the outline becomes more defined then there’s just the pieces in the centre the ones that give the colours the art language that speaks to the soul the substance if you will.

Once the last piece is placed you can see the image in high definition displayed on the box of your mind and the thoughts that race suddenly go silent.

And for a while you are calm.

Calm like you feel by a beach.

Like you feel when you listen to a song you love.

Calm like when you are wrapped in a blanket on a cold day and it’s raining and you have a book.

Writing calms the running thoughts.

The overthinking.

It allows people to feel before they think.

Last night I described writing like a puzzle.

Tonight I finished one.

And for a little while the racing thoughts have all gone quiet…

I think secrets get a bad reputation.

You ask one person that question and it’ll make them nervous. You ask another and it excites them. You ask a third and they’ll lean forward in their chair, saying, “Of course. Tell me more,” with a sparkle in their eye.

You see, most people see secrets as vulnerable things, but I believe there’s a certain kind of magic in a secret. You don’t tell them to anybody. You tell them to somebody, typically under the protection of the dark, late at night, in a room lit with twinkling fairy lights.

Usually, the first is confessing a crush under the quiet illusion of peaceful darkness. There’s a certain kind of safety in that, don’t you think? In choosing the person you share a piece of your soul with.

To me, that’s all a secret is.

Two people who connect like magic and volunteer to share pieces of their soul.

Sharing secrets is brave. It is noble and kind. But you don’t share them with anybody. You share them with someone who recognises the code to your soul. They unlock you, if you will.

I find secrets are a lot like magnets. Once you tell one, it becomes easier to tell another, particularly if it’s someone you’re only just getting to know. Swapping secrets feels like the easiest way to unlock the code. One magnetises another and, before you know it, you have someone who knows the inner workings of your mind.

The difficult thing, of course, is that once someone knows you, it’s difficult to deny it.

They say you have tells.

You say, “Oh no… please no. Why?”

The person just smiles.

They claim they just know.

I also like the certain kind of wonder that overcomes the atmosphere after sharing one. The magic of “Don’t tell anyone.” “Keep this one quiet.” The shared look. The sparkling smile. The glowing hint of recognition that races across someone’s face. The one that reminds you of sleepovers with your best friend, where you became the collector of secrets as well as the collector of dreams.

Perhaps the greatest gift you can give another person is the gift of allowing them to see pieces of your soul. After all, when sharing them, they begin to glow brighter against the cold, treacherous atmosphere that plagues our world.

You see, secrets are a lot like glow sticks.

Share them and they light up the dark room inside the house of someone’s mind.

I often think that the human mind is comprised of many rooms. You have the frequently asked questions room, the not-so-frequently asked questions room, the room full of childhood memories that you wish you could go back to, and the stories that you wish somebody would ask about, just to give you an excuse to talk about them.

But maybe they are yet to discover the code that unlocks that part of the house.

Some rooms in the house are brightly lit and welcoming, with a sign on the door saying, “Come in.” In this room is all the information you’d want someone to know upon first meeting you.

You walk further into the house and see that some of the rooms have a thin layer of dust upon the windows and gently sprinkled across the floors, as though they haven’t really been touched for a while. Until, gradually, someone comes in and tries to remove some of the dust from the floor. They brush it into a small pile and keep it contained in the corner of the room.

You walk a little bit further. You’ve now explored the downstairs of the home of their thoughts. Gingerly, you step forward, turn the corner and ascend towards the top of the stairs.

Whilst climbing the stairs, you collect little pieces of information like trinkets.

Favourite colours.

Favourite memories.

Favourite music.

Then you climb higher.

Who they love.

Things they hate.

Pet peeves.

First crushes.

When you reach the top of the stairs, you begin to realise why some of the rooms have a padlock on the door.

You’ve been here before, so you notice it’s a safety precaution.

Because of this reason, you make a note to be especially careful when navigating into the room.

At first, you don’t find the key, so you explore the area around the locked door, hoping to collect more information in order to eventually be handed the key to the space beyond the padlock, if the owner sees fit to grant you entry.

Eventually, after waiting outside on the landing for a while, they gently hand over the key to the room with the padlock.

You realise it’s full of extraordinarily ordinary things.

The fears that fill their mind and make it difficult to move sometimes.

The whispers of dreams long forgotten and hopes never told.

The memories they play on loop in their mental DVD player—the ones that mean too much to leave behind.

And lastly, the parts of themselves they are still trying to become.

Maybe that’s why we remember the people we give our secrets to.

Because they are the keepers of our house.

They know their way around without having to look or ask for directions.

They know which rooms they can walk into without knocking first and the ones they should wait on the landing before being allowed inside.

Perhaps the most magical thing a person can be is the keeper of someone else’s house.

The keeper of the house of secrets.

If someone doesn’t let you in, wait on the landing.

So…

Can I tell you a secret?

Come in.

Make yourself comfortable.

Maybe the world’s best-kept secret is being trusted with the key to the house of someone else’s mind.

Every generation has one.

Not a prince, nor a knight, nor a long-forgotten myth from years past.

Every generation bears witness to a legend that transcends books, time and space.

I present the legend of The Boy with the Guitar.

Mine resembles an Irish boy who was once in a band. The band in question was once considered the biggest band on the planet. In case that clue wasn’t enough, he was also blonde, although now, because time moves so fast, he’s a brunette.

But one thing remains the same.

He can still play guitar.

If you haven’t already guessed from my enthusiasm, I’m talking about Niall Horan. But, you see, this article isn’t about him because before him there was someone else, and then someone else again.

Justin Bieber.

Shawn Mendes.

Danny O’Donoghue.

The Vamps.

They have different names. They appeared in different decades. They sing different songs, and yet they are all disguised as the same boy.

The inevitable happens.

He changes his haircut, his wardrobe, his accent.

Perhaps sometimes he performs in the middle of a packed stadium. Other times he’s folded into the pages of a novel or hidden in the shadows of a dark cinema.

His promise never changes.

“Pick me.”

“Choose me.”

“I’ll write a song about you.”

Maybe even an EP.

Maybe even an album.

There’s just one catch.

That guy.

The one on the stage.

He doesn’t even know any of our names, yet there’s a little bit of us that still hopes and prays.

He knows we memorise every lyric, for he can hear us screaming them back.

He doesn’t know we’ve memorised his interviews.

He doesn’t know the power of his own lyrics when they become the philosophy we choose to live by.

He doesn’t know he soundtracked the parts of our lives that we underline in bold.

The secrets.

The heartbreaks.

The happy times.

The sad times.

The vulnerable times.

The times in life we didn’t know where to turn.

The times when the world felt too loud, and the only thing that silenced it was the music played by that one guy with the guitar.

But I don’t think that’s the real reason.

I think we fell in love with the fantasy.

The idea that, after one particular show, the artist comes out of the backstage door and is faced with a girl he’s never met before.

There’s a flash of recognition which ignites a spark.

Suddenly the girl isn’t just an ordinary girl in the crowd.

Suddenly she is the girl in the crowd.

She’s the girl he remembers.

The one before the lights came on.

The one before his mind became infested with lyrics.

Psychology might help us explain why.

It’s simply about being chosen.

The allure of being the ordinary girl he sees as extraordinary.

Psychology suggests that, as humans, we have a need to be seen, valued, chosen and wanted.

The boy with the guitar gives that feeling something to hold onto.

You could argue the boy with the guitar is the home for the feeling.

He plants the seed that someone extraordinary could see something extraordinary in someone who is perfectly ordinary.

That’s why we keep returning to the fantasy.

We like the idea that we have permission to explore a world where extraordinary things can happen to ordinary people.

Perhaps that’s why storytellers keep rewriting him.

They understand something.

The boy with the guitar is more than just that.

He’s a symbol.

One of hope.

One of desire.

One of fantasy.

One of creativity.

And finally, the one that underpins the whole idea…

One of being chosen.

Maybe that’s why, generation after generation, we’ll continue to fall for the boy with the guitar.

They’ll keep inventing different ones.

New faces.

New music.

New hairstyles.

New accents.

The same stadiums.

The same audiences.

Similar songs.

Another guitar.

And all of the outcomes will remain the same, over and over and over.

Maybe that’s exactly the way it should be.

That’s the magic of the boy with the guitar

…………………………………………………………………………………

This is the first instalment of Unlocking the Why. Next time, we’re unlocking the lure of the Australian guy.

First of all, I write because I love it, but that seems obvious, right? But I don’t mean I love it in a gentle, I want this to be a hobby way. What I actually mean is I love the whole process. I love the feeling of selecting the right words. The ones that make people stop. The ones that make people think. The ones people want to highlight and annotate over and over again.

I believe words have a power. Always have and always will. They have a power that runs deeper than sometimes even speaking can express.

Since I was a young kid, I’ve been obsessed with writing and words. My parents would often joke that I’d swallowed a thesaurus or dictionary. I believe choosing the right words is much the same as painting. However, in this scenario, words are the canvas and I, the writer, am the brush.

If you haven’t already gathered, or this is our first introduction—which, if it is, hi, by the way, my name is Honey. I hope you enjoy my writing and that it makes you feel something. Anyway, back to the point.

As I was saying, if you haven’t already gathered, I love lyrical prose. I love the sentences that feel so fragile that, if you picked them up, they would break. The ones that take a white canvas and fill it with splashes of colour. You see, in my mind, words are magic. That is a philosophy I live by. The trick is to find the right ones.

To me, words are the closest thing we have to real magic. Not a magic trick—real magic. The magic behind them is that they allow people to feel.

I believe the same to be true about lyrical prose. It’s the closest thing we have to magic because what do you mean a group of words can come together in a metaphorical way and hit all the right notes to make people feel?

When I say lyrical prose, let me give you an example.

Do you remember the first quote you read over and over again? Was it used to describe a setting? A place? Or was it a character in a story describing something in a way that made your body tingle with recognition?

Ordinary words can paint a picture too, but it’s by no means as vivid as one painted by beautiful ones. Although you should know there’s a distinction. Beautiful words don’t have to be clever. They simply take something abstract—grief, wonder, fear, pain, love, heartache, betrayal, happiness, sadness or excitement—and make it an idea that a reader can cling to, curl up with on a cold day beneath a soft blanket, and finally feel seen and understood.

You see, storytellers often cosplay as magicians too. In a sense, we cast a spell every time we put pen to paper—or, in my case, keyboard to page.

We have the power to make people cry over ink sprawled across a page. The power to make them fall in love over and over and over again. We hypnotise them, leaving them to believe that staying up until 4 a.m. just to finish that one book won’t hurt. But the thing is, the best writers know it will never, ever just be one.

But a spell can only be cast if the person on the receiving end truly believes it.

Every time someone picks up a book, reads an article or any kind of writing for that matter, they are making an active choice to let the magic of words consume them. Slowly, little by little, they become hypnotised. That’s why you often hear readers say, “Just one more line.”

It seems writers are apprentice magicians. We spend years quietly hiding in the shadows, learning the language that has spoken to us for many years before. Until one day, something happens. You add the correct ingredients to the correct spell, commit it to paper and watch as the spell you’ve carefully curated takes hold.

To the person behind the screen.

Yes, you.

You know who you are.

Come closer.

Can you do something for me?

Picture your favourite quote.

Can you see it?

Hold on to it.

Do you remember how it made you feel the first time?

Hold onto that feeling.

I’ll return to it later.

For now…

Just keep reading.

One sentence.

Then the next.

Then the one after that.

It seems you’re good at following instructions.

Keep going.

Are you having fun?

It’s getting closer.

And closer.

And closer still.

Wait…

I just noticed something.

You, the innocent person behind the screen, never asked me what the quote was for.

I simply asked you to imagine.

To remember.

To hold it in your mind.

I never chose which one.

Or why.

I gave an instruction.

You followed it to the letter.

You did well.

Better than most.

You never once asked why I wanted you to remember that quote.

You didn’t question why holding onto that feeling was important.

You simply followed.

You trusted me.

Sentence after sentence.

Word after word.

Knowing you, you probably thought the spell began the second I asked you to picture that quote.

It didn’t.

Every metaphor.

Every word.

Every carefully constructed sentence.

I have a secret to share.

None of it was accidental.

It was all part of the spell.

You thought you were reading an article about why I write.

You weren’t.

You were standing in the middle of one.

From the paintbrush…

To the canvas…

To the favourite quote…

They were never examples.

They were ingredients.

Guess what?

Those of you still reading, it turns out I wasn’t describing magic.

I was performing it.

So tell me.

You.

Yes, you.

Do you still believe words are just words?

Or did a simple collection of carefully selected ones lead you exactly to where you are now?

I believe the latter is true.

Thank you, random person behind the screen.

You’ve just helped me prove why I write.

Anyone that sits with me for long enough to know me well will inevitably come away knowing one thing: I’m obsessed with music. Number one, anyone I trust immediately will know that I have a thing for any boy who can play guitar.

Yesterday I was introduced to the film StarStruck.

Picture the scene: a blonde boy who oozes confidence and charisma. The best comparison I can give is Justin Bieber-level fame, and his name is—wait for it… wait for it…—Christopher Wilde. Or at least, most of the crowd goes wild for Christopher Wilde, except for Jessica Olson, who makes it abundantly clear from the opening scene that she wants absolutely nothing to do with him at all.

Do you get the idea?

Overconfident, charismatic boy meets quiet, reserved and completely, definitely-not-interested girl.

But as time moves on, the inevitable unfolds.

Slowly, very slowly, the walls Jessica has built to protect herself from becoming a Christopher Wilde fan begin to crumble.

At first, the pair meet after Christopher crashes into her backstage following a show, causing her to bump her head on a door. As punishment for his completely frivolous and, quite frankly, diabolical conduct, she insists he drive her home and instructs him that, after their brief encounter, she wishes never to see him again.

However, there’s just one problem.

After Christopher drops Jess home, his car point-blank refuses to start, resulting in him having to stay in her grandma’s garage, much to Jessica’s dismay.

Then comes everybody’s favourite trope.

Forced proximity.

You know the moment I mean—the one where they look at each other just a little too long.

I struggle to understand a world where two people can have so much chemistry almost immediately but, by some miracle, never actually kiss.

This film is incredibly charming and wholesome until the very end, not to mention the obvious fact of its catchy soundtrack.

I must admit, it made me smile.

If I had unearthed it sooner, I fear I have a secret to share.

I may have developed a slight affinity—or perhaps a borderline obsession—with Christopher Wilde.

Spoiler alert: the pop star façade definitely worked on me.

Despite his overconfidence and overall superstar bravado, I couldn’t help but see past the shining lights. Underneath, you’ll find a boy who is working tirelessly just to be seen.

Ironic, right?

The pop star wants to be seen.

But the funny thing is, I don’t mean literally.

I mean he wants to be seen underneath the sensational singer.

He wants someone to pull back his layers.

Quietly.

With the utmost care.

After all, apart from the flashy cars and the constant paparazzi, he is simply a boy who is desperate to be seen—and that’s what makes him so endearing.

Ready for a second secret?

I’ve got to admit that while I was watching the film, I couldn’t help wondering whether they’d based Jessica’s character on me.

I think we’re well enough acquainted now for me to confess that—and explain why.

She’s the definition of opposites attract.

She has confidence, but she’s terrified of what could happen if she let someone in.

So she’d rather watch from a distance.

After all, no one can hurt you if there’s enough distance between you.

The combination of Jessica slowly but surely uncovering the real Christopher Wilde, whilst he slowly breaks down the walls she’s built around herself, makes it a comforting and compelling watch, filled with peak Disney magic and nostalgia.

It’s the film I wish I’d seen as a kid, if only to add fuel to the “finding a boy who plays guitar” fire—which, in case you hadn’t gathered, has definitely not been extinguished.

In summary if you’re looking for a cute wholesome romance packed with Disney infused magic and of course you don’t mind the development completely reasonable crush on Christopher this is the one to watch

I thought this was just something I did when I wrote, but thinking about it, I’ve realised it transcends that.

Let me show you.

Take yesterday, for example.

I had just published my most recent article, The Itch of Curiosity, and mentioned to my Pa over text that she might wind me up about a detail I’d included.

When she messaged back, she was very confused.

“What would I wind you up about?”

I smiled and responded with something like, “If I tell you now, it’ll ruin it.”

So she went back and read it a second time.

Still nothing.

By the fourth read, she was convinced she’d missed something and admitted she didn’t know what I was referring to.

I replied, “Right then… I guess we’ll never know.”

She said, “Give me a hint.”

So I did.

Watching her piece it together was almost as fun as writing the article itself.

That’s when I noticed something.

I don’t think I just enjoy telling stories.

I like making people curious enough to follow them.

I’ve started calling it the Hansel and Gretel effect.

Not because a story should leave you feeling lost in the woods, but because every good storyteller leaves breadcrumbs.

One minuscule detail.

Then another.

Then another.

Just enough for someone to want to keep following the long, dark trail without ever fully knowing where it leads.

Maybe that’s what makes an exceptional story.

Not immediately showing someone the destination, but giving them reasons to continue following the path.

The funny thing is, I’ve discovered I do this all the time.

I’ll tell a friend about something that happened that day, but I’ll never start at the end.

I’ll give them one small, seemingly random detail.

Then another.

Then one more.

Before long they’ll lean forward in their chair and say, “Go on then… then what happened?”

Now I know what you’re thinking.

It sounds like I do it on purpose.

But in truth, I don’t.

I like the moment where you see a spark, when someone picks up a single crumb and says, “Okay, give me another,” and I already have another one in my hand.

They’re completely invested, not because I’ve refused them the ending, but because they’re walking the path that lets them discover it for themselves.

You know, I’ve never been good at keeping secrets.

I think that has something to do with the fact I’m a writer, not a wizard.

Yet I have managed to keep just one.

There’s magic that glows on the path just before you get to the end.

It gets brighter with each step you take.

Every crumb you leave adds a little warmth to its glow.

To be a writer is to leave breadcrumbs.

To be a lover of the story that lies ahead is to follow the path.

I’ve always been told I’m slightly dramatic, but what people don’t see is that I love having the ability to create something special in my mind.

It’s like having a magical power, except the power comes from something ordinary—a conversation, a passing comment or a piece of paper.

After all, it’s often the things you least expect that lead you down the most interesting paths.

But why would you leave them at all?

Because, dear reader, I hope someone will be curious enough to follow my trail and join me on my adventure.

After all, every path becomes more magical when someone chooses to walk it with you.

Leave a trail worth following.

While most people my age may have addictions to coffee or other caffeine infused beverages or alcohol or cigarettes mine is slightly different for, I seem to have developed an addiction to asking questions.

It strengthens daily and I never know what when or who will trigger it.

From a young age I was always inquisitive. I was known in my educational career as a teachers pet who loved academic validation and thrived on the adrenaline rush of asking questions and getting the right answers. But instead of satisfying my curiosity every answer I got seemed to breed two more questions.

I was interested in people and what made them them what made them tick what didn’t and why.

I loved niche subjects like palaeontology which for those less nerdy than me is the study of dinosaurs. I loved anything I could learn what is deemed as useless information about and was always in search of more.

The older I got the more questions I asked, and I still found that the feeling that I chased followed me and that it only grew stronger.

It started as a quiet whisper in the background of my mind like an itch.

You know the feeling.

One you can’t quite scratch but really want to.

Yet the strange thing about an itch is the more you try to ignore it the more aware of it you become.

It started small and wasn’t very demanding. It would rear its head every now and then just to remind me it existed and then it would fade away.

But eventually it began to linger.

It stopped being a short-term visitor and slowly, very slowly, took up residence.

I would lay awake at night thinking about conversations I’d had that day.

I became unable to watch something and have my brain remain a quiet bystander.

The itch would tap me on the shoulder.

I got curious soon enough.

What would happen if I scratched it just once?

I would come away from watching something with more questions than answers and would nit pick the details until the thread unravelled.

Conversation, I found, was where it really came to the surface. That’s where my love of trying to understand people comes from.

It also sends me down random rabbit holes at unspeakable hours of the night.

The relief was instant.

The itch that had plagued me had vanished.

But only for a while.

I found that when I scratched it, it would return as another question.

Then another.

Then a third.

So I decided to try something.

I stopped fighting it.

I let all the questions flood my brain and realised I had found something.

The itch never wanted to be cured.

It simply wanted to be followed.

As it turns out I think one of my friends who also happens to study journalism noticed it way before I did.

I have a habit of saying, “Sorry for all the questions. I’m a nerd.”

They said, “It’s okay. You’re a journalist in the making. That’s what makes you a good one.”

At the time I said thank you and laughed it off.

But looking back I don’t think it was reassurance.

I think they noticed the itch before I had even given it a name.

These days the itch still follows me.

It still taps me on the shoulder.

It hides in my lectures and takes shelter in everyday conversations.

Now I don’t apologise for scratching it.

Some people call it curiosity.

Others would call it journalism.

But I just know if I don’t follow it it won’t leave me alone.

Now I don’t know if I want it to.

That was it.

Nothing else. No list of songs to start with. No, “I think you’ll like this song because it reminds me of another artist.” Just four words before I opened the car door.

The next day, I sat down, opened Spotify on my iPad and picked a song at random. One song became two songs, which then became a third. By the last note of that third song, I found myself questioning how exactly I had managed to completely overlook a very talented, underrated musician who, prior to that one sentence the day before, I could confidently say I had never heard of.

After listening to his songs for most of that day, I excitedly sent her a message. It simply read:

“You cooked with the Bradley Simpson recommendation.”

Her response?

“I know.”

This got me thinking. Spotify recommends new music to me every day. TikTok is constantly throwing new tracks at me, and Apple Music does the same thing, so why did one recommendation from another person do more than these AI-influenced algorithms could do in one week?

On first inspection, it makes quite literally zero sense. Apps like Spotify have access to many years of listening data and generate hundreds of personalised playlists and recommendations, and I have to admit they’re very rarely wrong. I’ve discovered plenty of my favourite artists through apps like Spotify, and I’m sure I will continue to do so.

But every so often, something will happen.

It’s almost instinctive.

They take one look at you, analyse the inner workings of your mind, filter through the endless tracks that you’ve reeled off that you like, then look through their mental filing cabinet of music they like too. They pull one artist off the shelf of their mind and respond with, “You’d like this,” and in that moment the music tastes of two people combine.

For me, Bradley Simpson was one of those recommendations. However, it wasn’t just one song that convinced me ether.

Every time I thought I had found a favourite, another one played and replaced it almost immediately. Now let’s discuss some of the songs that pulled me into his orbit.

How would I describe Bradley Simpson’s music to someone who has never heard him before? If you’re a fan of Mark Ambor, One Direction, Shawn Mendes or Niall Horan, I think he’d be a good match to add to your musical filing cabinet.

To start with, I was pulled in by a song called Almost, a pop song that details a relationship that ended too abruptly, with a hook that instantly had my attention.

After that, a song called Favourite Band followed. This one features an upbeat tempo, with Bradley singing about how he is in his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend’s favourite band. The combination of great lyrics and a chorus that I knew by the second listen makes it a great introduction.

Then we come to my two favourite songs, Carpet Burn and Holy Grail, two slightly slower ballads with good lyrics and equally catchy choruses. There’s no flashy production, just lyrics that gradually get cemented in your head with very little that you can do about it until you’re pressing replay for the third or fourth time.

The funny thing that happens when you find a new artist you like is that, in the beginning, you listen out of curiosity. Then the second song comes on and, just as you get to the last chorus, there’s a whisper in the back of your mind that says, I wonder what else they’ve released? Before you know it, you’re six songs deep, the whole afternoon has slipped away, and you’re becoming familiar with a discography you didn’t even know existed twenty-four hours before.

It was by this point I realised something. I wasn’t just listening to a new artist anymore. If I had been listening casually, I would’ve played one song and switched to something more familiar. However, that didn’t happen. Although I’ve only been listening to his music since Thursday, I can safely say that the rabbit hole of music discovery has claimed yet another victim.

That’s the difference between algorithms and people. Algorithms predict what you like simply based on what you’ve listened to on previous occasions. People do something slightly different.

When you first meet someone, you share little parts of the information stored in your brain’s central entertainment filing cabinet. Based on the information shared in that one conversation, someone gently picks up something from their own, takes it off the shelf, hands it over and says, “I wonder if you’ll like this?”

That’s how shared interests are built.

Sometimes they’re wrong.

However, sometimes the music tastes of two people combine and you discover an artist you had no idea existed.

It’s funny to think that this whole article started with a passing comment at the end of a car journey. Four words as I got out of a car.

“You should listen to Bradley Simpson.”

As it happens, sometimes the best algorithm really is another person.

If I’ve convinced you, I’ll leave a link to his discography so you can decide if he deserves a spot in your own musical filing cabinet.

carpet burn

You have got to admit there’s something undeniably unique about concerts. We spend months counting down to the day, only for it to slip away quickly with every song that plays. In those three hours, time behaves differently, and a room filled to the brim with complete strangers that you have never met before—and after this one night will probably never meet again—feels oddly familiar. The world outside the venue keeps spinning and spinning, but the one inside stops briefly, almost as if the artist has got a little remote in hand and pressed pause. On reflection, it seems dreamlike, as if for one night you have travelled to another world only to return to reality when the final song ends.

It appears—would you believe—that this feeling isn’t just a coincidence. It’s a social phenomenon that has transfixed philosophers, sociologists and anthropologists for centuries. From the way crowds form communities to the relationship concerts have with time itself, there are theories that can explain why walking, or rolling, into an arena can feel like opening the door to another world.

My favourite podcast explained this rather well. I’m going to try my very best to explain it to you. (The podcast in question is called Binchtopia, for anyone interested.)

The first theory comes from a historian of religion by the name of Mircea Eliade. He believed that, as humans, we experience time in separate ways. For most of life, we live in what he calls profane time, constantly stuck in the orbit of mundane, everyday activities: work, school, university, deadlines, household responsibilities… rinse and repeat. But for a few days a year, our time gets split into “sacred time”. This interrupts the flow of normal life and is the time we associate with rituals, special occasions and experiences that are underlined with our glitter gel pens and fancy highlighters as days that are different from the usual.

That’s why concerts and live performances feel so special. They are so vastly different from our daily lives that ordinary time doesn’t exist anymore. For a few memorable hours, nothing outside matters. The email burning a hole in your inbox can wait. The washing cycle can wait. Tomorrow itself can wait. The only thing that is important in this moment is the lights, the music and the hundreds of thousands of united strangers sharing one singular experience. The rest of the world is on pause.

However, sacred time only answers one piece of the puzzle. It reveals to us why concerts feel different from life in general, but it doesn’t explain why thousands of people suddenly feel like old friends you’ve known for ages. That is a question answered by anthropologist Victor Turner, who suggested that whilst we’re at a concert, we enter something called a “liminal space”—a world in between our own, where we lose our labels for a while. We don’t worry about what people do for work, money or bills, or all the ways we have perceived one another. We become people who have come together for the same reason inside a venue.

He also said that from the liminal state comes the idea of “communitas”, which means a strong feeling of togetherness and social bonding between people who share a collective experience. The people sat next to you don’t feel like strangers anymore. They are singing the same lyrics, laughing at the same jokes and having the same emotions. For some time, individuals take a back seat, and community can take their place.

Now let’s explore the feeling that happens when you finally reach your seat. The nerves and the panic are replaced by a buzzing feeling. You can feel it through the crowd like electricity. That feeling has a name. It’s called “collective effervescence”, a term coined by sociologist Émile Durkheim, who believed that when a large group of people gather for a purpose, their emotions are no longer separate from each other.

Think about it like this: it’s like an epidemic. It starts in one person, spreads to every person in the room—an epidemic of collective joy that makes the crowd feel like a living being. It’s often the catalyst for something like the Mexican wave, for example.

When the artist—Harry Styles, for the sake of argument—comes out, one person screams, then another, and then another, until the whole stadium begins to erupt. You are no longer just feeling your excitement, but everyone else’s too.

Then comes the final piece of this concert-detangling puzzle: Michel Foucault’s theory of heterotopia. A heterotopia is described as a place that exists in everyday society but operates by a different set of social rules. A concert venue like Wembley Stadium is one of the best examples I can think of.

In the daytime, Wembley Stadium is simply a stadium. It has people who clean it, people who work in it and people preparing for the night’s events. But by nightfall, it transforms into something else completely. It becomes a new world with its own set of rituals, language and traditions.

Friendship bracelets are given out amongst people who don’t know your name. You might wear an outfit you wouldn’t wear anywhere else, and the lyrics are a language spoken only by those in the room. The building doesn’t feel like a building anymore. Instead, it becomes a portal to another world—a world where ordinary life does not apply.

Maybe that’s why concerts stick with us long after the final note. For a small snippet of time, people become a community, individual emotions become collective joy, and the stadium becomes a temporary world where nothing else matters.

Then it all ends.

The lights come up gradually.

People begin to leave, starting the descent back to ordinary life.

Maybe that’s why the journey home always feels a little weird. You know the feeling. The distinct one where silence has a sound. You drive home quietly, fighting the urge to close your eyes so the night doesn’t end prematurely.

The music may have ended, but at least for a while, a small part of us remains stuck in that crowd and doesn’t want to leave.

binchtopia episode (the inspo for this piece

Growing up, for disabled people and neurotypicals alike, feels like being dropped into a never-ending maze and being asked to find your way out, but not being given directions. Meanwhile, all those older than you have found the secret way out. They’ve gone through a secret door, and they are light-years ahead of you.

Sound familiar?

You eventually manage to find a key to a locked door, but the people who are taller than you, faster than you, and have better hand coordination than you make it through before you do.

At least that’s how growing up felt to me.

I was the young kid desperate to feel seen, searching frantically to put the key in the lock. Because I couldn’t move as freely as others, I spent a lot of time in my head, always thinking about the best routes to take in life, literally and metaphorically. I was always thinking about my destination, which path would be the easiest, which the hardest. Often, I came out at a dead end.

That was until I had access to the Internet and was finally given access to the key—not only for growing up, but to access the maze of finding myself.

I was able to find things I liked and discover the things I didn’t. One corridor of the maze helped me unearth my love of writing and the feeling of gingerly selecting the right words and having the power to evoke emotion that sometimes a conversation simply cannot do.

Words became like my secret code.

This secret code then unlocked a passion for reading, a passion so deep that I learned people connect through reading. Books helped me find another corridor. It helped me find the people who also shared a longing for words and vocabulary, for vivid imaginations, magic, and constant curious wonder.

As I wandered further—or rather rolled—I came across a large brown door with gold lettering on the outside. It read:

“Welcome to the Disability Corridor.”

I took a deep breath and opened the door, intrigued, scared, but also feeling strangely safe.

When I came through the other side, I was greeted by those who looked like me, smiling and waving happily. They were athletes, writers, and so many more, all who had found the key to the same correct door.

Though this corridor felt like home to me, I didn’t want to stay rooted in one spot, so I continued my journey, putting a key in another lock.

After some more aimless wandering, I came to a halt. I thought for a split second I had come across a hidden vault.

Only it wasn’t a vault, but another corridor.

This one had a note pinned to the first door.

“Interviews in progress,” it read in black ink.

In my head, I thought, dream career, I think.

I tapped quietly on the oak door, expecting no reply, but I heard a voice once more.

“Come,” they said. “There’s room for one more.”

On entry, there were people all around with cameras and bright lights and lots of questions with answers to be found.

I finally felt excited.

I rolled up to a chair.

I sat eagerly at the table with a story to share.

This is it, I thought.

This could be me.

A reporter in future, with a tale to be told, for I am more than the one story my disability beholds.

The interview was successful.

I’m now a journalist in the making.

Now let’s continue my adventure and see what else is mine for the taking.

After leaving the journalist corridor, I found my second-to-last door.

I then noticed something strange.

All of a sudden, I didn’t feel lonely anymore.

In this one, there were people.

I’m social and love making new friends.

I saw we had similar interests.

One liked music.

One liked poetry.

One liked stories.

The other liked art.

Altogether, all at once, we’d found the final piece.

Only this door wasn’t labelled.

It didn’t need to be.

The label upon the final door read:

Community.

There I sat at the end of the maze, finally understanding why this is where I spent my days.

I hadn’t unlocked every door.

I didn’t know what each one had in store.

That’s part of the fun, the adventure, I think.

Part of the allure.

Every door and key hid behind it something I had yet to explore.

To the communities and people who helped me begin.

The ones I was clever enough to let in.

The Internet never told me how to be.

It helped me find the person behind those locks and keys.

Though the maze stretches on further than I can see, I am no longer lost.

It helped me find the most important thing

 it helped me find me

This is How I Wheely Feel is a collection of poems written by Hannah, a 24-year-old girl who has cerebral palsy (CP). The book explores some aspects of life and her experiences navigating the world with a physical disability.

The book truly encapsulates some of the lesser-talked-about aspects of life having a disability, such as the daily struggles we face battling our own bodies just to succeed and achieve our goals and aspirations.

The trials and tribulations we experience when attempting to make friends are explored in poems like “Invitations” and “And.” The way we are not accurately portrayed on screen and if we do get lucky, we are seen as the lesser or weaker character.

The anthology also details how, as a marginalised community, we are treated differently by non-disabled people and our own peers seem scared of our mobility aids.

What stuck with me most while reading this book was the honesty throughout. In most cases, disability is shown in extremes: we are either the inspiration porn used to demonstrate overcoming impossible odds or we are viewed as the tragic characters whose lives revolve around their conditions. What This Is How I Wheely Feel did so well is strike the balance that most of pop culture gets astronomically wrong: it showed the space between the lines, it manages to capture the everyday frustrations, the hopes, the fears, and the bits that most definitely don’t make it on screen or in our books typically.

From my experience, there is often a tendency for stories about disabled people to be shared from the perspective of a non-disabled audience, whether that be through non-disabled people being cast as disabled or a non-disabled writer creating a disabled character.

The difference with this book is that it allows for disabled people to have their stories represented to them in an authentic way. It allows them to tell their stories in their own words without having it interpreted for them.

So often, representations of disabled people are through a lens that is poisoned with stereotypes that are harmful. This anthology, because of the writer’s refusal to be infected with this poison, instead stands (pardon the pun) in a league of its own. It allows us to showcase the complexities of living a disabled life and allows our experiences to be ours without the need for over-explanation or apology.

If you are a disabled person who is looking to see themselves represented when they look in the mirror or, in this case, pick up a book, then this is the one you should choose.  If you’re looking for true representation that isn’t clouded and fogged over by slightly iffy interpretations, this is the book you should read. And finally, if you’re a non-disabled person looking to learn more about the inner workings of the minds and bodies of a young disabled person, this is the book for you.

It’s a book I will come back to when the world feels heavy on the days where I think, “Why me?” on the days where I wish things could be different. This book will validate me. It will pick me up, dust me off, and will remind me that the way I am, with disability and all, is exactly the way I’m supposed to be.

Thank you, Hannah, for creating the book younger me would have read repeatedly

If you would like to buy a copy and help out a new author, you can buy a copy of the book using the link below.

https://amzn.eu/d/07tzIKga

We don’t just use pop culture and media as an outlet or something to entertain us when the world gets dark and dreary. It’s a great way to escape from the realities of life, but it also helps to shape our identities. Let me tell you more.

Pop culture and media products are used almost like a map that we can use to help us understand the world around us and navigate life in general. Think about it: that’s why we have favourite books, movies tv shows, and songs— the ones that we use for comfort, the ones we love when we feel fragile. For example, we might listen to particular songs when we’re going through heartbreak or read certain books in search of comfort we can only find within the pages of that one book series. (For anyone wondering, mine is Magnolia Parks by Jessa Hastings.) We might also watch that one tv show to escape for a while, for example, Love Island.

It’s more than just a coincidence though. There’s a theory behind it. Uses and Gratifications’ theory. Which despite the intimating name is surprisingly simple.

Nobody accidentally becomes obsessed with anything we get invested in media products because they provide us with something. The something can take many forms. Sometimes we crave connection and social interaction with others, which is why we love fangirling and spaces like BookTok that allow us to connect with people who share our thoughts.

Other times we are looking for information to understand something or someone better. We want to learn about the world or about something that we are yet to experience, that is why we use documentaries and is maybe the reason why David Attenborough is one of the most beloved figures. 

As alluded to earlier, we use some products to seek comfort or to escape from the fast-paced nature of life, hence the need for what is labelled trashy TV, like Love Island, for example.

Arguably, the biggest reason we consume media is that we enjoy seeing characters that we can relate to and use as a mirror to help construct our identity.

That is what media theorist David Gauntlett thinks; he suggests that we use and consume media to help form our own identities. In simple terms, what we watch, what we read, what we listen to can imprint upon us like a tattoo; pop culture can help us to understand ourselves and to help give us a better understanding of the world. Think about it: how many times have you admired a character’s bravery or confidence or even resilience in challenging times? We take elements of characters that we like and try to implement parts of their personality or nature into our own lives. In a sense, the media we consume is more than just a means of entertainment; it creates the map we follow; it shaped the people we are and the people we hope to become.

That goes a long way to explaining why when people criticise a book, film, TV programme, song, or artist we love, it feels so personal. They aren’t just criticising a piece of media. They are criticising the individual maps that we have curated in order to understand who we are as humans navigating a world in which you are not given a handbook. In essence, the media we love is the handbook we are searching for in the dark in our bedrooms late at night while the rest of the world is peaceful and quiet.

That’s why people are attached to media on the map of their existence; a certain TV show may lead to memories of a summer that is committed to memory forever. A favourite childhood film might take them to a different destination. A song or a lyric within a song may transport them to an oddly specific date in the revolving calendar of their mind.

We aren’t given a handbook when we enter the world; we spend our lives drawing one, adding landmarks whenever a book, TV show, film, artist, or character we love leaves their inevitable mark some of the landmarks we revisit often, desperate to uncover the memories they evoke; even for a short stint, others we leave behind and let the Earth cover the tracks. After all, a map isn’t valuable because of the paper it is printed on or the ink used by the pen that draws it; it is valuable because of the journey that it inspires us to go on.

We are often encouraged to be productive and to use our time efficiently and not to waste a second distracted by our own brain. However, to my knowledge, daydreaming has the power to make us the most productive and creative; hence why some of the best ideas come to us in absent-minded moments. Every book, film tv show, or song came from someone’s imagination.

Psychology says that it allows the brain to participate in something called positive constructive daydreaming or PCD. This can help with problem-solving skills, can cause creative breakthroughs, and help with recharging your mental energy.

In the brain, letting the mind wander activates your default mode network (DMN), which is the powerhouse where all your best creative ideas are stored. The DMN is responsible for all of the “ ah ha” moments when you’re lying in bed at night and you come up with that really good idea for a scene in the book that you want to write.

I believe that some of the best moments are forged in a person’s imagination. We encourage kids to use imagination in play through their lives; however, as soon as a certain age hits, our imagination gets shoved into a box, and we are then frightened to open it up because of what we could find inside.

I’m the type of person who will always encourage the use of imagination and creativity; something about it is a superpower, I think. Everything in this world was created by someone who didn’t know what their mind was capable of. Until one day…

One day they let the network in their brain connect, and the sparks that flickered became a fire, a fire lit by the match of an idea. An idea begins as one thought, one thought then attached to another and another, then the scaffolding of something was crafted. Once the scaffolding was formed, the house of ideas could be built.

Daydreaming is the house where the greatest ideas come to life, and that is why it will always be a superpower for the creative folks that walk (or in my case roll) amongst us.

When we daydream, we aren’t just procrastinating; we experience our future self in high definition. Future careers, relationships, friendships, holidays, sometimes even fictional stories that we have created within the scaffolding of our house. It’s a way of giving the current version of ourselves something to cling onto, as in, “This is where I want to be and what I want to do.”

Daydreaming is comforting because it gives us space to think about conversations before they happen or picture places before we even visit them. It gives us time to envision future visions of our lives before they become reality.

Of course, some daydreams stay tucked away quietly in the corners of your mind, and plans are never revisited. Others take root in the brain, and the house which stores them can form around them.

Maybe daydreaming isn’t a distraction at all; maybe it’s the blueprint for how ideas are created. Every house built starts with the foundations laid and the scaffolding put up, then the first brick is put down. The blueprint of stories, ambitions, friendships, relationships, and ideas that haven’t yet come together.

Daydreaming gives us room to play; it allows for creative magic before we decide which foundations we form into the house that the daydreams will become.

Every story begins with a sentence; every sentence starts with a thought.

The best thing is that the scaffolding of every achievement is built on using the blueprint of looking out of a window for a few seconds too long.

When you meet someone, you are greeted with the version of them with the latest software installed, but you don’t see the previous versions, the fears, the awkward moments, the first crush, the first loves, and first friendships. We meet the version of them that currently exists and assume that’s how they have been forever.

The truth is, as I’ve alluded to before, everyone is made up of a collection of stories that explain and make up who they are. Some of them can be dramatic, some are funny, some are surprisingly mundane, but they all do one thing: they form the invisible lore that shapes a person long before we meet them.

If you met me for the first time just based off how I write and what I write, you would probably come away with a few bullet points for how you would describe me and what you know. I’m the writer, the journalism student, the good friend, or maybe even the girl with the disability who talks far too much about pop culture and music or books. While all of those descriptions are very much true, you don’t know the origin story or the lore that shaped the current software, the writer behind the byline, if you will, and that’s the whole point. After all, you don’t know what the first draft looked like.

As the kid on the walker with the CP, I always stood out at school (pardon the pun). When the kids would ask why I walked a certain way, I would respond, “ I have poorly legs,” and the kid would smile, nod their head, and carry on the conversation as though they had never asked the question to begin with.

I was a kid who was good in school, particularly in English class (shock), and would always have something to contribute in a class discussion. I think you can see where this is going. I was also the kid who thrived on academic validation. My love of English and most written subjects continued through secondary education. I would sit in the front row of class, desperate to share my thoughts on whatever we were analysing that day.

As I went through secondary school, I began to worry that though I was good in class, my peers didn’t know how to interact with me. I worried they saw my walker before they saw me, and as a result, I was always at the edge of conversations, keen to join them but never truly feeling seen. The feedback from teachers became “she’s great in class and always full of ideas, but she needs to have more confidence talking to her peers”.

When I reached sixth form, I had a couple of friends, but they drifted slowly with their newfound freedom and other friends. Though I had friends who also had various disabilities (who I love dearly and still do), this often left me feeling isolated.

After this, I started university, and it did wonders for my confidence. People in my classes finally started seeing me rather than just my frame. I’ve made friends with some of the best people I’ve ever met and finally feel comfortable with myself and who I am. I’m also content with who I’m becoming.

Looking back, I wonder how much of my personality was moulded by the experiences I had. When you spend so much time on the edge of conversations, you become very good at listening and observing. You watch people, you notice things, you pay attention to the things others miss.

Maybe that’s why I ended up studying journalism. Ultimately, journalism is built on curiosity and listening to stories and tries to decode their own lore. In many ways, it feels like the perfect profession for someone who spent their entire life trying to figure out where they fit into the story themselves.

That’s why the idea of lore stayed with me long after I scrolled past the video, not because we are all fictional characters living in our own narratives, simply because nobody arrives fully formed.

Every person you meet is carrying around versions of themselves, unfinished chapters, and half-written drafts and plot twists and stories that make them who they are today.

The updated software

The rest exists in the background

You never meet someone’s first draft.

Despite our best judgment they are everywhere open TikTok you’ll see an edit of fictional man with the caption I support women’s rights but I support women’s wrongs open any other social media platform and you’ll find the fangirls myself included defending a character with questionable moral like their life depends upon it let me give you an example just to paint you a clearer picture take luc from the invisible life of Addie Larue that man is the devil personified (literally) however there are people like me who will always have a soft spot for him in this article I’ll attempt to dissect why  all love a villain we just don’t like admitting it

The first thing to establish is that villains are often more interesting than the heroes. Yes, I know the heroes are often pretty, though. So what do you mean the villains are pretty, to mind you? I know that news is hard to handle, but it’s objectively true. The heroes will make the right decision; the villain will make the interesting one.

There will always be the hero who is off saving the world, defending from evil, and looking handsome as he does it. The villain will be grinning a merciless kind of smile, causing chaos, making the decision that ultimately has us, the audience, screaming at the tv screen with adrenaline racing through us. It’s that feeling that we chase, and without knowing it, that’s why the villain always has it in the palm of their hand.

The hero gives us something to root for; the villain, however, gives us something to talk about.

I take it you all want to know why the answer might be simpler than you thought. Could it simply be that villains sometimes feel more human? Think about it. No, I mean really think about it. Heroes are caged in a sense and are not really given the opportunity to express their emotions. Villains, on the other hand, are written not to repress theirs but rather to show them. They are instructional manuals, if you will, on all of the emotions we are taught to suppress. Jealousy anger, pride, and revenge. Whilst we as humans have these feelingswe try not to act on them. They are emotions we have all felt at some stage of our lives.

Take the villain from the booktok, Luc, from the iconic book, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. Underneath all of those feelings of selfishness and the constant manipulation and general devilish behaviour, there is one that is very recognisable: loneliness. Then suddenly, the villain becomes a little harder to dismiss completely, not because his actions were defendable but because they are understandable.

We often view the hero as the person to whom we aspire to be, but the villain is the character that we inevitably relate to because they show parts of humanity that we are quick to shy away from: our insecurities, our flaws, and our worst mistakes.

That’s why we can forgive them easily, not because we agree with them, but because they hold a mirror up to parts of us. We can understand them, and in turn, we can begin to untangle ourselves.

Think about it logically: as fans spend some time obsessing and fan-girling over the hero, but we all know we spend the most time picking apart the villain’s complex persona and asking endlessly questions. We draft essays, watch edits and videos that have passionate discussions about a specific character.

In hindsight, is it because there is nothing to say about perfection? Because to be perfect is to be safe. Humans as a species are complex; we aren’t neat; we don’t fit into any kind of box.

The villains allow us to be challenged and for our minds to be stretched; they let us wrestle with the moral compass and never quite come up with the right route, but best of all, they allow for questions, and questions are the most powerful things in the world, no matter if the world is fiction or reality.

We don’t enjoy the evil after all, but instead, we enjoy the moral quandary that these characters create and the swinging pendulum of will they change? Perhaps we don’t love villains because they are evil. Perhaps we love them because they are complicated.

After all, we all love a villain. We just don’t like admitting it.

Quick disclaimer before we begin: before any of you get excited behind your screens and start accusing me of a little thing called bias, I would like to inform you that this investigation was conducted with the utmost professionalism. Several hours of interviews and music were completely necessary for the purpose of accuracy of primary research.

After a period of extensive study, I have concluded one thing: this is clearly not just a me problem. A quick doomscrolling exercise via any social media app of your choosing shows that there are comments from those who share the same addictions, whether it’s an actor in an interview, a musician, or an author. The Irish accent can do something most public figures can only dream of: universal approval unless, for whatever reason, you are a person who is somehow exempt from its powers. If you are, however, I can guarantee that there’s another one that evokes the same feeling in you.

After compiling my evidence, the only logical thing to do was to examine it and produce a few working theories.

Number 1: The storytelling hypothesis

The strongest thread throughout this investigation is the fact that most people aren’t drawn to the accent itself. I know, stay with me, and let me cook It seems to me like people are drawn to what they associate with it.

Think about it: some of the most recognisable Irish figures, be that actors, musicians, and authors, all have the same thing that unifies them. They are all excellent storytellers. Therefore, maybe the accent has been culturally linked with storytelling itself.

When people say they enjoy the accent, they rarely speak of the way things are pronounced; they simply say “I could listen to them talk for hours and never get bored.” This suggests it’s not the sound that people like; it’s the way that the accent makes every ordinary conversation feel like a story being told.

Number 2: THE FAMILIAR STRANGER

The second theory I produced also has legs too. Pardon the pun because, of course, mine don’t work! The Irish accent is the perfect drawbridge between something that intrigues and something that is comforting.

This is because to us, it sounds familiar enough to understand but different enough to be interesting. It isn’t completely new and isn’t entirely foreign either.

We cracked the code that’s part of the appeal: humans are naturally curious beings; they like to look at things just outside of their own environment. The accent feels close enough to home to be a comfort but different in a way that instantly captures and holds your attention hostage.

Number 3: THE LURE OF ANCIENT MAGIC!

At this stage, I had thoroughly exhausted all avenues of investigation and was left with but one… What’s that? I can hear you all shouting eagerly behind your screens, surely not? Yet it would be considered irresponsible journalism if I left out a large part of the truth.

 For it is to be seen that the answer, dear readers, is that somewhere in a realm that is far from here, there are leprechauns and old creatures of the past who tell tales of folklore whilst sitting around campfires and weaving their spells of magic into the accent itself.

Seems plausible to me, right? I mean, how else are we supposed to quantify the strength of its power?

Worryingly, there is little evidence to support this theory, but I believe it would be a pitfall of my journalistic investigational practice to dismiss this theory completely without considering the possibility of it to begin with; after all, true investigative reporting is done as a quest to uncover the truth.

Findings

After a lengthy investigation which generated more questions than answers, I have come to the three of the following conclusions:

Storytelling

Familiarity

Leprechauns and ancient creatures.

Though evidence would appear to point towards the first two, I cannot in good conscience dismiss the third.

As journalists, we harbour the responsibility of following evidence wherever it may lead; in this case, it leads to Irish folklore.

For this reason, further research is needed before we can reach a definitive conclusion. Until then, the case stays open for discussion.

When I asked a friend about what to expect from the movie after seeing her own glowing reflection on here, I’ll link it so you can read her thoughts toomy friend’s review . She had just one sentence to say: “Be ready to be teleported to childhood innocence and imagination,” and it seems, of course, she was correct.

What surprised me the most wasn’t how much I enjoyed the film; it was how quickly I understood what she meant. Within the first couple of minutes, Narnia does something few modern fantasy movies can accomplish: it makes wonder feel effortless.

One of the reasons for this is the simplicity of the wardrobe. For starters, it’s relatable and something that, as an audience, we can cling to. However, the biggest reason for its popularity is that most fantasy is complex, with advanced lore and history that takes at least half of the movie just to get your head around. Narnia doesn’t do that; it simply waits and allows us to discover it along with Lucy. We are not thrown into a fantasy world with brute force; instead, we trip, fall, and stumble into one.

It’s important to recognise though that the wardrobe is a toolbox of sorts; the characters are the tools. Lucy is the perfect fit for this; she is curious, kind, and friendly. For this reason, she invites the viewer into her world to see what she can see. Audiences can attach themselves to her as a vessel to carry their own imaginations. Therefore, she makes the perfect tour guide or passionate explorer, guiding the audience gently through the story.

Now, for the rest of the characters, the film sucks you in because the characters are loveable, and each one has their own unique personality. Edmund, who is stubborn and adventurous, rarely does as he is told. If you think about it, he’s the most powerful metaphor for temptation, and no, I’m not just referring to his affinity for the acquired taste Turkish delight; he is always tempted to go where no young boy has ever gone.

Then there’s the sensible Susan, who is the Hermione Granger of the Narnia universe, if you will. Calm, collected, always prepared, the mum of the group with the most intelligent plan with absolutely zero plot holes. You get the picture? The kind one, always there when someone needs a cuddle or causes the slightest bit of trouble.

Finally, there’s the leader of the pack, Peter, who I must admit I did develop a little of an affinity for. He’s the caring yet sometimes stern older brother who is fiercely protective of his siblings and will do whatever it takes to ensure their safety. However, deep down, he does fancy himself as a leader or a potential superhero, so give him the opportunity to one day be king, and he’ll be there with a sword and a detailed inventory of any other weaponry you could imagine, including an impressive shield.

Another of the film’s greatest achievements is that it teaches us to accept things just as they are without challenging the why or the how. For example, a talking lion and a conversational family of beavers should seem mad on paper, but within Narnia, of course, it makes perfect sense. In case you hadn’t guessed, their presence was just as endearing as the children at the centre.

If there was one word to describe the White Witch, it would be cold, not just in presence but in character and personality too. It’s a wonder she settled on an eternal winter. In GCSE English lesson terms, we would refer to this as pathetic fallacy. (In case you didn’t know what that means, it’s a technique used in fiction where the weather is used to reflect the characters’ mood or personality.) Narnia uses it well, turning the frozen, icy landscape into an extension of the villain herself. Every snow-covered tree or ice-glazed path shows the witch has drained the warmth and colour from the world around her. It’s simple but effective; the witch doesn’t just inhabit the setting; she becomes part of it.

The thing that makes Narnia particularly impressive is that I watched it with no childhood attachment to the movie. I wasn’t searching to relive a long-forgotten treasured memory. I experienced it for the first time, and yet the sense of wonder still remained.

In an era where fantasy films are all trying to be the next big thing, Narnia reminds us that sometimes all you need is a wardrobe, a curious human, and a willingness to believe in something bigger than yourself.

Before I watched the film, my friend told me to “be ready to be teleported.” I can confirm twenty years later that the wardrobe still works!

Let me land.

When you first come into a library, all you see is the building, the cover if you like. The interesting part, however, isn’t the architecture; it’s the part inside: the shelves and the books that are on them. If you look closely, you’ll find people are much the same.

All we see is what is visible to us, for instance, the way someone dresses, how they speak, their personality, whether they are quiet or loud, have confidence or are more reserved. We make assumptions based on the cover long before we look inside.

You see, the truth is everyone you ever meet in life is carrying a collection. Favourite songs carefully preserved like special editions; childhood memories tucked away into secret corners with the pages folded for easy retrieval. Dreams put up on the highest point of a shelf. Then there are the embarrassing moments hidden strategically behind other books so that someone searching for something doesn’t find them.

Entire sections of the library are dedicated to people: a person once loved, places they have once called home, and versions of themselves that don’t exist anymore that they want to keep for memorabilia’s sake. One thing you’ll notice, though: everyone is a library; no two are ever the same.

Some are meticulously organised, with the books in alphabetical order, a place for each one. Others have systems that are messy and complicated. The books are stacked on top of each other, some are just placed haphazardly with no real spot, others are put in drawers, their pages sprawled over the edges. However, somehow, some way, the owner always knows where they put each book.

I think that is what I find most interesting about people, not that they are mysterious or extraordinary, but because every person I meet knows something I don’t.

Perhaps that’s why some people capture our attention more than others. It’s not because they are louder or more important; sometimes it’s one sentence that makes our ears prick up enough to bookmark it and want to turn the page. Be that a passing comment about a favourite book or childhood story in the middle of a conversation, or a song recommendation delivered so passionately that you can’t help but listen to it on your way home.

Suddenly you want to know more. Not in an intrusive way, but in a “they made you curious” kind of way.

You want to know what is on the shelves you haven’t seen yet, what books a person clings to when life gets hard, and what stories they tell over and over again. Maybe even the ones they don’t tell at all.

I think that’s what all forms of connection have in common: from friendship to admiration to the people we develop a deep, slightly unhinged yet fleeting fascination with; every relationship you build starts with the blurb of curiosity.

Let me show you what I mean.

Let’s take the friend whose shelves are so familiar you could walk down the aisles of books in the dark whilst wearing a blindfold. The musician whose music you love so much it makes you wonder what books shaped the human that they are.

Now let’s zoom out a touch. Let’s say it’s the random person who tells you a story on a packed train on Wednesday on their journey to work in the city that makes you wonder how they got there in the first place. You then think about this person for the whole day. In book terms, you’d call it a cliffhanger.

Then you have the human being you want to know everything about, from who they are in the current moment to who they were and what they wanted from the age of ten.

The way I see it, these different forms are simply different ways of reading people.

Some people become comfort reads that are familiar and well-loved. Others are sent to challenge us, to fill us with intrigue and make us see things we would have otherwise never seen from a different perspective. Then there are the rare ones, the ones that make you want to stay in the library all afternoon, wandering through the shelves, convinced that there is always something new to find.

We talk about romance, friendship, admiration, and connection, but we do not recognise that all of that begins with one thing.

A question.

To ask a question is to believe that there is something worth discovering—a “tell me more” of sorts.

Tell me more about the dream you haven’t told anyone yet.

Tell me what song changed your life.

Tell me about something you miss.

Tell me the story behind the story.

That’s why I’ve always loved asking questions. Every question is a key to a door which, you guessed it, opens what’s on another shelf.

People often ask me why I study journalism. They expect something like storytelling, writing, or an obsession with current affairs, and yes, while all these things are true, the answer is much simpler.

I just love people.

Not in the cliché, motivational, trying-too-hard-to-get-an-interview sense.

I mean I genuinely am fascinated by other people.

I love finding out why people are the way they are and what makes them light up. I love knowing what books they check out most often. Or the ones they can lend without hesitation because they trust you’ll return them and put them back on the shelf in perfect condition.

That’s journalism at its centre: an invitation into a person’s library. Letting you walk through it, find a book—or indeed a page—that intrigues you, and pull up a chair in a silent corner and ask a question.

Every human on the planet carries a collection of dreams, stories, heartbreaks, favourite songs, and versions of themselves that have long fallen off the shelves.

Here’s the magical thing: no matter how much time you spend inside someone’s library, no matter how many shelves you have explored, there’s always another waiting.

Another story.

Another page.

Another quiet whisper that keeps you in the library just a little longer.

A dreamer,” scorns her mother.

“A dreamer,” mourns her father.

“A dreamer,” warns Estelle.

“Still, it does not seem such a bad word.”

I’ve always found it fascinating that some people hear “dreamer” and it gets them fired up. Some people with dreams are seen as driven or ambitious, while others are told they are naïve, unrealistic, or impractical.

In case you haven’t noticed from the way I write, I’m a dreamer. Not the quiet kind, the loud, written-in-bold, “nothing is impossible because everything is possible” kind.

Maybe, just maybe, that’s why I’m trusted with other people’s. I’ve become a collector of sorts. People don’t tell me their plans, as in what they are doing next Tuesday. They share the tiny fragments of hope, the things that, if they don’t whisper quietly in the dark, they might evaporate and never come true.

A nervous laugh follows, which turns into, “This is probably silly, but…”

So I think you could say I’m a collector of sorts. A collector of the wildest ambitions. The collector of future songs, novels, creative ventures, and new businesses.

I’ve always wondered why they arrive so quietly. No one apologises when they tell you what they had for dinner, for example. No one apologises when discussing weekend plans, but the second someone talks about dreams, words evade them; they freeze up rather than come loose.

I don’t know, but my best guess is that dreams are vulnerable things, not because they are weak, simply because they matter. The bigger the dream, the harder it is to say aloud. It comes wrapped in bubble wrap, as though declaring you want something means it’ll break.

However, I believe the opposite is true. I think dreams grow when they are shared because society is used to telling people what they can’t do and why. The second you flip the switch and become the person who says, “Tell me more,” they can take root instead of hiding. The things that were outlined in a person’s mind can become more, exchanged from pencil markings to permanent markers.

Dreams are like stars; they sparkle, but only when it’s dark enough, only when the sky is clear enough. Stars also need space and, most importantly, they need someone brave enough to look up, to see them and say, “Look at that.”

Perhaps that’s why people whisper them. Not because they don’t believe in them, just because they are waiting to see if someone listening will.

Share a dream with the wrong person and it’ll shrink. With the right person, it’ll expand.

That’s why I love dreamers so much, not because they have a lack of fear. In fact, I feel most dreamers are terrified of what’s ahead of them, but they lock eyes with it regardless.

There’s something brave in that, don’t you think?

Every book begins with a writer staring down at the blank page. Every song starts with a melody only heard by the person who created it. Every business starts with a vision or a blueprint, if you like.

Long before the final product, there is a person hoping.

Thinking about it, maybe that’s what I collect—not dreams, but possibilities. Future versions of people.

The singer before the hit single.

The writer before the book.

The person at the centre of the mind map before they discover who and what they are meant to be.

The more I think about it, the more I feel that collecting people’s dreams isn’t actually about the dream at all. It’s someone sitting across from you at a table and deciding you are a safe place to share something fragile.

A dream is strange when you think about it. It’s not something you can physically cling to, like, say, a note or birthday card. Yet it’s equally as sentimental. It’s part of a future that may or may not come to be.

Yet we hand them over to those we trust, not because we want answers, not because they need solutions.

We simply need someone else to say, “I see it too.”

You see, us dreamers, we are like constellations. We have the power to recognise each other. We link up. We speak the same language.

We can understand the magic of being excited by something that doesn’t exist yet.

To see the person for who they are, what they are, and who they have the power to become.

For this reason, being a “dreamer” never has felt like an insult to me.

The world has enough people to tell you why something won’t work. There will always be someone out there ready with their toolkit, their statistics, the risks, the practicalities, and frankly, the best list of why it’s best to stay exactly where we are supposed to be.

To find someone who doesn’t fit that model is rare. Someone who will listen. Someone who can look at the outline of an unfinished idea and say, “Tell me more.”

Someone who sees possibility when others see impossibility.

That’s all being a collector of dreams really means.

Not trying to make them happen.

Not holding them for others.

Simply treating them with care when someone hands them to you.

After all, every book, song, business venture, and creative project started off as a silhouette of an idea in the back of somebody’s mind.

Long before any of it became a reality, someone somewhere had to believe it was a possibility.

So if someone trusts you with a dream, listen.

Ask questions.

Be curious.

Look up with them as they point to the stars.

Most importantly, believe in someone long enough for them to start believing in themselves.

Learn to be a collector of dreams.

Do you know what? Since I haven’t been writing as much as usual because of uni and it’s now summer, which means I’m free to write as much as I please, I think it’s time to share a little something. I mentioned about that my friends will be smiling and laughing at my introduction. The reason why is simple: anybody that knows me or indeed has spoken to me for any length of time will tell you that I have quite the obvious obsession with the Irish. As I’m writing this, I’m trying to think about when it started. I remember being about seven, maybe eight years old. Picture this: One Direction were HUGE, and whilst every little girl had their respective obsession with Harry Styles, my attention was drawn to the little blonde Irishman, and since then, it has never wavered, even as his hair colour changed.

Now you understand that VERY important piece of context that weaves together a key aspect of who I am as a human. Let’s get into the review, shall we? As you can imagine, I love this album with my entire being. With that being said, in order to save your withering attention spans and prevent me from fan-girling too much (which I fear I am already doing), I promise I won’t whittle on too much about each song.

The album begins with “Tastes So Good,” a song that I feel perfectly encapsulates the overall mood of the album. It’s feel-good, upbeat, and summery, with a chorus you’ll know the words of by the third listen. I say this from experience!

From there, we go into the title track, Dinner Party, which, as the name implies, will, I’m sure, be the soundtrack of many over the coming weeks and months. It’s once again a summertime song that will have you singing along at any given moment.

Monochromatic is one of my favourite songs of this album. A quick definition for anyone who is nerdy with words and wishes to know what it means: monochromatic means one colour. It has one of the best choruses on the album with a brilliant bridge that the internet is convinced “has crack in it,” and I have to say I agree with them.

Then following this we hear “she gets it from her mother” a more wholesome statement about his girlfriend’s relationship with her mother this is a song I can sense will be a favourite amongst mothers and daughters.

After that, we are greeted with a more intimate track “Better Man,” in which Niall grapples with the question of whether there is a better person to love his girlfriend or whether he is enough.

There are more songs that I would mention here, but in the interest of not writing for hours, I’ll skip through and share a few more of my absolute favourites. These include “Little More Time,” “Boys Are Fun,” “Die If I Don’t,” and a song that is definitely within my top five: “Pretty.” In this song, we see Niall showing his cheekier side and letting his guard down. In short, it’s a song where he’s effectively crushing on his girlfriend. Ha ha, Niall, we see you.

The album closes with a much more introspective track called “End of an Era,” in which Niall opens up about his grief since losing former bandmate and close friend Liam Payne.

If I’ve convinced you, I’ll leave you the link at the bottom of this article. Happy listening!

 dinner party