christopherhughfrancisbaird

Life & Writings

I’m embarking on a new adventure this summer. Here are eight answers to the most commonly asked questions about it. Where are you hiking to and from? I’m hiking to Northern Ireland from the mountains of South West Poland. How far is that? Approximately 1200 miles on…

1200 Miles on Foot

Regent Street, London. 12.34pm. Saturday, 20th December. Spendthrift retail therapists shuffle past me in their droves, sedated and stupefied, awash in a world of fakery that cascades from every shop window within a one mile radius. Every so often one of them walks into me,…

The Hedonistic Treadmill of Consumerism

My mum didn’t leave a suicide note. The last thing she wrote came a few days before she died. It was bit of a mess; an inverted pyramid pencil sketched onto the inside of a torn-up Sugar Puffs box. At the bottom of the pyramid…

A Truth on Suicide

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Sparrows are playing; bouncing on the stalks of lengthy grass. Seeds fall from silvery plumes, gobbled up before play resumes. Swallows are swooping; soaring like spitfires of the sky. Wings brush a lily topped pond, goldfish and weeds blend n’ bond. Blackbirds are chirping; cheeky…

The Birds of Ballee

“Man does not have a nature, but a history. Man is no thing, but a drama. His life is something that has to be chosen, made up as he goes along, and a human consists in that choice and invention. Each human being is the…

The Authentic Actor

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It is a distance to the mountain crest and I am alone in the woods. The evening blossoms, the sun quells. The wind strokes over and round me tickling the leaves of crispy beech and silver birch as it passes. They jangle as if to…

Guardian of the Karkonosze Mountains

I threw my smartphone into the river Thames. I don’t know why I chose such a dramatic ending. I guess I was enticed by the immediacy of its closure. One splash marked the end. A single throw and it was over. It was easy, final, there…

Phone Smart

Liquified wax drips from the eye’s gaze Paraffin flame flickering tenacious from draught Reborn of the floor to meditate and ruminate Mind’s own wilderness where affirmation meets mystification Neural impulses throb my souls a flimsy stuff No need to anaesthetise I’ve called my own bluff…

Phoenix from the Ashes

Eye-contact is scarce here. It has seldom occurred anywhere other than from glances across elongated escalators that lie diametrically within the Underground. Only when mechanisms force us to move in opposite directions has the unwelcome threat of conversation been expelled long enough to have people…

First Days in London

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Autumn is easily my favourite time of the year. I have a special connection with the fallen leaves that lie eloquently in the crisp November sun. While nature was busy preparing herself for winter, I would be preparing my latest stunt. Out in the garden…

Falling Leaves