by matthewcharlesdavis@gmail.com | Apr 27, 2026 | Thoughts You Can Use
I had a marvelously humbling experience this past weekend, going to Washington D.C. and staying at the Watergate hotel while I played in a squash tournament at Squash on Fire, a reasonably new club run by my old friend David Hughes who I know from Open Squash in New...
by matthewcharlesdavis@gmail.com | Apr 21, 2026 | Thoughts You Can Use
Since moving to Norfolk, Virginia from New York City last fall the biggest blessing — apart from a Costco™ membership and a grilling habit, of course — has been having more time to write. In New York I managed to finish a graphic novel over the course of a couple of...
by matthewcharlesdavis@gmail.com | Apr 14, 2026 | Thoughts You Can Use
I recently finished Frances Wilson’s Burning Man: The Trials of D.H. Lawrence, a visceral biography that probes the great writer’s life to reveal the raw, grinding friction that fueled Lawrence’s work. Lawrence was, to quote the critic Geoff Dyer, a man who often...
by matthewcharlesdavis@gmail.com | Apr 9, 2026 | Thoughts You Can Use
Growing up in Southeast London during the 1980s, image was important. The schoolyard was a proving ground where projecting competence, sanity, and toughness was paramount. You had to hold your own, and you couldn’t afford to seem weak. It all made life extremely...
by matthewcharlesdavis@gmail.com | Apr 9, 2026 | Thoughts You Can Use
Growing up in Southeast London, I learned about the unwritten rules of the street long before I understood the nuances of a corporate balance sheet. I’ll never forget a local “hard man” from my neighborhood, someone who commanded a room without ever...
