If your last two posts are a first foray into writing something closer to what that sensitive young man working in Foyles dreamed about, then I'd say it's looking very promising.
I worry about you Nick, I have a daughter like you, brilliant but full of insecurity! I have to say that because that’s how you come across in your writing which for me is always guiding and helpful! I am not judging because I like to hear your voice! I think you might be wrong about the Lakes, there is a slow awaking there and i think if you end up back there they will need to hear your voice. Either way, for me your comments put my jumbled mess of worry for the country into order. Keep going, for me you make sense 🤷♂️ I need to hear it 🙏
Nick. I wanted to tell you how well you write - but I don’t want it to sound patronising. I enjoy the way it sounds in my head, and how it makes me feel.
Wow, thanks. That’s about all one can hope to do with writing (in lieu of actually useful information). So it’s a great compliment, and much appreciated.
June 6, 2026 (dated for context and reference) Hi Nick. I've followed you since the last year(?) or months that you were on the Headliners. To show my appreciation and concern for you as a person, and someone that I respect for.. as us Americans say.. "cutting through the grease". I know I should be concerned about you, but I see you as an incredibly "complicated soul". It was very kind and brave of you to share the early years of your adult life. My compliment to you, is that I took the time to read it. 😉 I think that I have a respect and appreciation for people like yourself that I consider "complicated and deep". An ex-wife of mine once noted that my preference in music seemed kind of melancholy. I think she was referring to the fact that I played a lot of Dylan, Baez, Judy Collins etc. while we were married. Don't get me wrong, my music collection ranges from White Snake, Wings, Neil Young, The Beatles.. of course, The Beach boys.. "California Saga - the beaks of Eagles" with the following song "California". Aways makes my heart soar. So.. an eclectic taste in music. As a person of mostly Native American heritage and twenty five percent from an immigrant Irish paternal grandfather. I have had my share of ups and downs, and get very angry with the non-Caucasians that are buying into the "micro-aggression" BS that the socialist/woke ideologues are encouraging them with. Who are mostly Caucasian by the way.😠 I have suffered from some racism, but the people that are there as adopted family, have provided important assistance, and are/were just wonderful people.. are/were Caucasian. I will say that my life has been a line of coincidences and happenstances. The main force for me was survival and the need to "Get her done!" Keeping a roof over my head, caring for family (two daughters), and friends. Has ALWAYS given me direction.. whether I liked it or not! 😂 So my dear fellow human, and person that I wish the very best for. I can only say, enjoy the adventure, find your "North star" and follow it. Lastly, when I get annoyed or worried about something. I play a game with myself. I call it "Would you rather?" An example would be that something is annoying me, or hasn't gone my way. I ask myself, would I rather this, or a call from my doctor telling me I only have ten hours to live? I think the answer is obvious.😁 Take care of yourself Nick. While advice always depends on who is giving it and who is receiving it. I can only say, surround yourself with the people and things that make you happy, and you spirit content. While people can assist in making you happy. The most important person is you, and you have to remain positive and productive to stave off all of the illness that stress and melancholy can cause. Stay well Sir, and enjoy your journey. Most sincerely, Larry Moran, Connecticut, U.S.A.🤗👋👋
Thanks Larry, for reading it and this great comment. Great music too. Beach Boys are the best of course. Didn’t know you were Native American. Did you ever read ‘The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven’? Sherman Alexie.
June 6, 2026 (dated for context and reference) Thank you so much for your kind and amazingly quick response Nick. (It must be quite late there in "Old Blighty".😮)😉 You, as always are most kind. I'm by DNA mostly Native American, but culturally British, and both an anglophile, and Europhile. I live in both worlds. I guess I would best be described as me being "culturally deprived", cause as you know.. "there ain't a lot of us Native Americans around anymore"🤨🤷♂️ Being Catholic, born and raised in New York City at my mother's insistence. I'm very pleased to be pretty cosmopolitan in my views and interests. I sincerely hope that you will not let any chemical imbalance, or life's stresses. Cause you to give into what I believe Churchill called his "Black Dog".. please correct me if I have misquoted that. Hills and valleys, Nick, they will always be there to test us. However, knowing ourselves, having the necessary grit to take on life's challenges is what it's all about. If we can't accept and conquer those challenges.. then we should all join you at the bottom of the lovely lakes of your home counties. 🤨Please feel free to reach out to me at anytime. Should you like the opinion of an opinionated, old, non-Caucasian, American. You've got to have noted that I am extremely loquacious.. so please make sure that you have time to read any of my replies. Keep well Nick, and my sincerest regards to you, your fellows, Leo, Paul, Simon.. and of course.. the ever popular Louis 😁 Enjoy your Summer.. that is NOT a request by the way!😉👋👋😊
Beautiful piece. By the way, I went to a grammar school, one of only four from my working class, Irish heritage area who passed the 11+ (we weren’t even told it was happening, just turned up and there was “a test”), it didn’t change the world for me, my little sister who went to (and was often suspended from) one of the worst sink comps in the country and started as a hairdresser was the one who retired on a big six figure salary, employer-funded MBA with a British Airways gold card. Depends on how you measure success. In my book, you have already done brilliantly, what more could a grammar school education have added? You would probably have joined the civil service and be a G3 working for Starmer now.
Thanks Fiona. Very interesting. Well, it might have stopped me wasting my entire 20s. Perhaps would have had access to opportunities, and contacts, plus actually know things. Frankly I’d have probably been prime minister. But doesn’t matter now.
You are too honest to be a politician, sorry, although I would certainly vote for you as PM! We all waste our 20s to some extent but they make us what we are. Did you have a plan, what contacts you would have wanted and what your ultimate career aim was? I didn’t get serious about my career until I was nearly 40 and got too tired to party every night.
Ha thanks. Well I thought I’d do music, then writing in 20s. But didn’t manage as I say here. Just always on an endless insufferable quest to find myself I suppose, though I would never use that cliché. Then comedy seemed to tick all the boxes. Until it didn’t.
June 6, 2026 (dated for context and reference) Hi Nick. Like.. Dah.. Yo!!😎 I'm not some clueless Yank from L.A. I remind you that I said I am an ANGLOPHILE.. and know where the Lake District is, and what Scousers, and Burmmies are. I had occasion to correctly tell a woman that by her accent I knew she was from the Home Counties. She was of course flabbergasted that an American with my "deep tan" would know that. Further, to answer your original question about Tonto and the Lone Ranger. The answer is no. However, I do know a joke about them that goes like this. "The Lone Ranger and Tonto are surrounded by very "annoyed" Indians.. (no.. not the ones from Mumbai😁), and the Lone Ranger says to Tonto.. What should we do.. and Tonto replies.. What do you mean "we" White man?" Please bear in mind that I pay a U.K. service to watch BBC Domestic programming 🤮, and have a subscription to GB News. Further, I watch a lot of Brit cop/drama TV series that are NOT "coated" with woke propaganda. One of the YouTube channels I follow, posted a video about how the YouTube entertainment review channel Nerdrotic. Gets more viewers than the "legacy news" media during "prime time". I posted in the comments section, that one of the reasons is because the content creators on that and other YouTube channels. Is because the content providers, (you would be one of them of course), interact live or post comments later with their their followers and supporters. Legacy media including state propaganda "news" channels like the BBC, DW.tv German and France24 English language programs don't and can't do that. I don't claim to be an expert in U.K culture, history and politics. But I dare say that I know more about the Norman conquest, Danelaw, etc. than many Brits. So I would suggest that you tread lightly Sir😁, you are not dealing with the average American isolationist dolt😂 Thanks as always for you kind and quick responses Nick. Once again, keep well, and cheers!😊😉👋
Sometimes you just have to start writing and get it out there. I think you did well with that.
A problem shared is a problem halved but thoughts and ideas shared are duplicated and compound.
Good luck and wherever you find yourself don't forget to bump into enough people to find new inspiration.
If your last two posts are a first foray into writing something closer to what that sensitive young man working in Foyles dreamed about, then I'd say it's looking very promising.
Thanks Tom. I can only write about myself, apparently.
Well, that always makes it more real, of course, but it's the details that make it special (the guardian ants, the wind on Rydal water).
And the gentle humour. I smiled out loud at several points.
I worry about you Nick, I have a daughter like you, brilliant but full of insecurity! I have to say that because that’s how you come across in your writing which for me is always guiding and helpful! I am not judging because I like to hear your voice! I think you might be wrong about the Lakes, there is a slow awaking there and i think if you end up back there they will need to hear your voice. Either way, for me your comments put my jumbled mess of worry for the country into order. Keep going, for me you make sense 🤷♂️ I need to hear it 🙏
Thanks. I see these things as little works of art, yet readers tend to worry and recommend vitamins.
Pray and sleep 🤷♂️ and the odd viagra if you get nervous 🤭 keep the humour 😉
Nick. I wanted to tell you how well you write - but I don’t want it to sound patronising. I enjoy the way it sounds in my head, and how it makes me feel.
Wow, thanks. That’s about all one can hope to do with writing (in lieu of actually useful information). So it’s a great compliment, and much appreciated.
Nice little essay. Good luck!
Thanks. It’s not little though. It’s monumental.
June 6, 2026 (dated for context and reference) Hi Nick. I've followed you since the last year(?) or months that you were on the Headliners. To show my appreciation and concern for you as a person, and someone that I respect for.. as us Americans say.. "cutting through the grease". I know I should be concerned about you, but I see you as an incredibly "complicated soul". It was very kind and brave of you to share the early years of your adult life. My compliment to you, is that I took the time to read it. 😉 I think that I have a respect and appreciation for people like yourself that I consider "complicated and deep". An ex-wife of mine once noted that my preference in music seemed kind of melancholy. I think she was referring to the fact that I played a lot of Dylan, Baez, Judy Collins etc. while we were married. Don't get me wrong, my music collection ranges from White Snake, Wings, Neil Young, The Beatles.. of course, The Beach boys.. "California Saga - the beaks of Eagles" with the following song "California". Aways makes my heart soar. So.. an eclectic taste in music. As a person of mostly Native American heritage and twenty five percent from an immigrant Irish paternal grandfather. I have had my share of ups and downs, and get very angry with the non-Caucasians that are buying into the "micro-aggression" BS that the socialist/woke ideologues are encouraging them with. Who are mostly Caucasian by the way.😠 I have suffered from some racism, but the people that are there as adopted family, have provided important assistance, and are/were just wonderful people.. are/were Caucasian. I will say that my life has been a line of coincidences and happenstances. The main force for me was survival and the need to "Get her done!" Keeping a roof over my head, caring for family (two daughters), and friends. Has ALWAYS given me direction.. whether I liked it or not! 😂 So my dear fellow human, and person that I wish the very best for. I can only say, enjoy the adventure, find your "North star" and follow it. Lastly, when I get annoyed or worried about something. I play a game with myself. I call it "Would you rather?" An example would be that something is annoying me, or hasn't gone my way. I ask myself, would I rather this, or a call from my doctor telling me I only have ten hours to live? I think the answer is obvious.😁 Take care of yourself Nick. While advice always depends on who is giving it and who is receiving it. I can only say, surround yourself with the people and things that make you happy, and you spirit content. While people can assist in making you happy. The most important person is you, and you have to remain positive and productive to stave off all of the illness that stress and melancholy can cause. Stay well Sir, and enjoy your journey. Most sincerely, Larry Moran, Connecticut, U.S.A.🤗👋👋
Thanks Larry, for reading it and this great comment. Great music too. Beach Boys are the best of course. Didn’t know you were Native American. Did you ever read ‘The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven’? Sherman Alexie.
June 6, 2026 (dated for context and reference) Thank you so much for your kind and amazingly quick response Nick. (It must be quite late there in "Old Blighty".😮)😉 You, as always are most kind. I'm by DNA mostly Native American, but culturally British, and both an anglophile, and Europhile. I live in both worlds. I guess I would best be described as me being "culturally deprived", cause as you know.. "there ain't a lot of us Native Americans around anymore"🤨🤷♂️ Being Catholic, born and raised in New York City at my mother's insistence. I'm very pleased to be pretty cosmopolitan in my views and interests. I sincerely hope that you will not let any chemical imbalance, or life's stresses. Cause you to give into what I believe Churchill called his "Black Dog".. please correct me if I have misquoted that. Hills and valleys, Nick, they will always be there to test us. However, knowing ourselves, having the necessary grit to take on life's challenges is what it's all about. If we can't accept and conquer those challenges.. then we should all join you at the bottom of the lovely lakes of your home counties. 🤨Please feel free to reach out to me at anytime. Should you like the opinion of an opinionated, old, non-Caucasian, American. You've got to have noted that I am extremely loquacious.. so please make sure that you have time to read any of my replies. Keep well Nick, and my sincerest regards to you, your fellows, Leo, Paul, Simon.. and of course.. the ever popular Louis 😁 Enjoy your Summer.. that is NOT a request by the way!😉👋👋😊
My lakes aren’t part of the Home Counties of course, just to be clear the north is very different. But many thanks.
Nick you write beautifully. I would love to have your talent. Keep it up.
Thanks so much Joanne. Never sure what to do with it other than put here for the legends.
Beautiful piece. By the way, I went to a grammar school, one of only four from my working class, Irish heritage area who passed the 11+ (we weren’t even told it was happening, just turned up and there was “a test”), it didn’t change the world for me, my little sister who went to (and was often suspended from) one of the worst sink comps in the country and started as a hairdresser was the one who retired on a big six figure salary, employer-funded MBA with a British Airways gold card. Depends on how you measure success. In my book, you have already done brilliantly, what more could a grammar school education have added? You would probably have joined the civil service and be a G3 working for Starmer now.
Thanks Fiona. Very interesting. Well, it might have stopped me wasting my entire 20s. Perhaps would have had access to opportunities, and contacts, plus actually know things. Frankly I’d have probably been prime minister. But doesn’t matter now.
You are too honest to be a politician, sorry, although I would certainly vote for you as PM! We all waste our 20s to some extent but they make us what we are. Did you have a plan, what contacts you would have wanted and what your ultimate career aim was? I didn’t get serious about my career until I was nearly 40 and got too tired to party every night.
Ha thanks. Well I thought I’d do music, then writing in 20s. But didn’t manage as I say here. Just always on an endless insufferable quest to find myself I suppose, though I would never use that cliché. Then comedy seemed to tick all the boxes. Until it didn’t.
June 6, 2026 (dated for context and reference) Hi Nick. Like.. Dah.. Yo!!😎 I'm not some clueless Yank from L.A. I remind you that I said I am an ANGLOPHILE.. and know where the Lake District is, and what Scousers, and Burmmies are. I had occasion to correctly tell a woman that by her accent I knew she was from the Home Counties. She was of course flabbergasted that an American with my "deep tan" would know that. Further, to answer your original question about Tonto and the Lone Ranger. The answer is no. However, I do know a joke about them that goes like this. "The Lone Ranger and Tonto are surrounded by very "annoyed" Indians.. (no.. not the ones from Mumbai😁), and the Lone Ranger says to Tonto.. What should we do.. and Tonto replies.. What do you mean "we" White man?" Please bear in mind that I pay a U.K. service to watch BBC Domestic programming 🤮, and have a subscription to GB News. Further, I watch a lot of Brit cop/drama TV series that are NOT "coated" with woke propaganda. One of the YouTube channels I follow, posted a video about how the YouTube entertainment review channel Nerdrotic. Gets more viewers than the "legacy news" media during "prime time". I posted in the comments section, that one of the reasons is because the content creators on that and other YouTube channels. Is because the content providers, (you would be one of them of course), interact live or post comments later with their their followers and supporters. Legacy media including state propaganda "news" channels like the BBC, DW.tv German and France24 English language programs don't and can't do that. I don't claim to be an expert in U.K culture, history and politics. But I dare say that I know more about the Norman conquest, Danelaw, etc. than many Brits. So I would suggest that you tread lightly Sir😁, you are not dealing with the average American isolationist dolt😂 Thanks as always for you kind and quick responses Nick. Once again, keep well, and cheers!😊😉👋