Spencer Kelly

2 months ago | spencerkelly.substack.com | Spencer Kelly

It’s 10pm. I’m loading up my new car with a few bits and bobs, and closing the front door of my sort-of-used-to-be-home. Of the fifteen houses in the Close, twelve are dark. Many of my neighbours have moved out, leaving behind houses that are uninhabitable, some already with their floors and walls ripped out, some just vacant, awaiting months of repairs. Thanks for reading Spencer Kelly on the Edge! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

2 months ago | spencerkelly.substack.com | Spencer Kelly

“Well this is not ideal”, I think to myself, as I bend over and throw up at Zürich train station. In 20 years of international filming, I’ve so far never been too ill to make it to a location and do my job. And for the last 5 hours, since I woke just after midnight with “something very wrong going on inside”, I’ve been in frantic negotiations with my digestive system to calm the hell down, because today promises to be spectacular.

2 months ago | spencerkelly.substack.com | Spencer Kelly

One of the most terrifying things I’ve done recently is sit in front of an audience of high-energy physicists and point out that their model of the universe is wrong. I couldn’t tell whether the silence that greeted me (which I measured in seconds, but they measured in tera-picoseconds) meant I had offended them, or whether the cream cheese bagels were just particularly scrummy (we’d filled the room despite it being lunch-break).

2 months ago | spencerkelly.substack.com | Spencer Kelly

“When you listen to the radio, think about how people came into possession of this wonderful tool for communication……it has a unique function in regards to the reconciliation between nations. Until today, nations learned of each other almost exclusively through the distorting mirror of their own daily press. The radio shows them to one another in the most lively form and primarily from a sympathetic view.

2 months ago | spencerkelly.substack.com | Spencer Kelly

“Sir, please take a step back.”I’m slightly annoyed at will.i.am’s security guard. He’s only doing his job, of course, but he doesn’t know that I know will (friend of the show, mate, and henceforth uncapitalised), and I’m just trying to politely get in his eyeline while he’s talking to his manager. Thanks for reading Spencer Kelly on the Edge! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.