Batakliev's Bloc

“Wake up! Are you still dreaming?”  Over the last six months, I have been telling one story consistently and fervently - the story of my friendship with Jesus…the fox. Storytelling is my creative lifeblood. It brings me in this wonderful state of excited urgency where I can explore and dream. Some stories take epic effort to write. Others write themselves or have always been written. Such is the story of me and Jesus - the boy and his fox.  Ever since the four-legged fairy walked towards me on Good Friday, with that heart-wrenching air of anxious bravery, hungry, ailing and pleading for kindness, I knew that this was big. It was as if she had chosen me to tell the world about her in what was going to become my best story. Our best story. “God…you are obsessed with this fox.” You think? Well, erm…yes, I am obsessed. When have I not been obsessed with the matters that move me? What should I be doing instead? Skimming the surface? Dipping in and out? Sounds like a bloody waste of...

I opened my eyes to the wonders of blind massage in Hanoi. Visually impaired people provide services in many Vietnamese spas. This expands their employment opportunities, and their worlds, helping them become more independent and gain visibility in society.  A dear friend recommended the Omamori spa in West Lake area. One November Monday, I pedalled towards it, sedated by the balmy twilight and semi-sightless under the thick cloak of motorbike smoke. The spa was housed in a 3-storey colonial villa accessible through a narrow downhill alley. A sense of awe descended upon me once I stepped over the threshold and set my bare foot onto the glossy dark wood.  The ground floor consisted of a reception area that led to a vast museum-like chamber. Abstract life-size oil paintings claimed their places on the wooden walls like bespoke entrances to Wonderlands. They offered hectic visual gibberish to the naked eye and could, perhaps, be fully decoded only by those equipped with inner vis...

My recent visit to the traditional Russian “banya” in the London's Docklands is an event I shan’t forget anytime soon and one I’d strongly recommend to anyone with a taste for the authentic. A dear friend of mine had dared me to go and witness “the most raw & real bathing ritual”. It was a challenge I could not resist. The outside was intimidating enough. The dingy alley along the railway track in Canning Town where the establishment was situated reminded me of a back street in Bangkok minus the heat and the radiant mango-selling grannies. Barricades of rubbish led me to the entrance of what resembled an unemployment centre in Northern England, left to its own devices since the 70s. The reception area featured a plain eatery / vodka room with a constellation of sturdy square tables covered in green vinyl tablecloth - undoubtedly high-camp material in Shoreditch…but not here. Two big-belied comrades in baggy swimwear had positioned their giant pyramid torsos in front of a tv sc...