TimurphySmith
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timwrite.net
TimurphySmith
@timwrite.net
700 followers 2K following 940 posts
Ex-chef. Ex-journalist (A.i. is getting all the work) I write words for free, for money, for my own health.

I’m trying to learn #Gaeilge

#LGM

First novel: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08YZ11TGP

Next novel - will not be on Amazon.

https://timwrite.net
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timwrite.net
My novel has a restaurant.

N.B. Lunsford is the central character. Things happen to him that change him. He has little agency, crippled as he is by grief.

Until he meets strangers that is.

Link in bio etc and so on.

(As soon as I hit Post, I’m going to see all the errors aren’t I?)

#Books
The afternoon flowed, joyful, into the evening. Delicious dish after dish, nothing too overwrought: a slice or three of rare roast beef with fresh horseradish sauce and a dollop of mashed potato that seemed to be more butter than spud. A salad of courgette, watercress, pickled cauliflower florets, blackberries and crispy fried kale. Lunsford had never eaten kale, it was animal food, he remembered smelling it rotting in his father's unloved allotment by the cricket pitch. The chef's business partner, Joyce walked over with two plates. On one was an egg in its shell, light brown. "Sliced with a razor blade", she explained, "and then the white is removed and mixed with chives, black pepper, clove, cinnamon, ginger before the whole thing is poached. Then you whisk up some double cream, as fresh as possible with a little cider vinegar and salt until you can see it making peaks. Add that to the eggshell and the yoke, and here you are. We hope you like it", she lowered her voice to a whisper, "We picked it up from a young chef in northern France". On the other plate, "We have a square of beef shin that we cooked with port and butter in the pressure cooker, then you've got some cubes of beetroot, which we cooked slowly in the beef fat and some salt from Porthampton. Then there are cubes of pickled celeriac, with some walnuts for crunch and more blackberries from Hunters Wood near Shalford for zing, and a little goat's cheese from Bursley to calm everything back down". Lunsford hadn't seen anything like either of these dishes, "You don't have any egg and chips, do you?" he asked before piling beef, beetroot, celeriac and cheese on his fork and eating it.
November 26, 2025 at 6:30 AM
timwrite.net
Seriously, where are the Aussies?

My cat, Sydney, and my dog, Hobart need to know.

(Also me, I miss Aus a lot)
Sydney the black and white cat, and Hobart the black and white dog sharing my bloody quilt.
November 26, 2025 at 12:17 AM
timwrite.net
I went to do some research at the Labour Party archives in Manchester. Found lots of great docs… and this.

#PoliticalHistory #Propaganda
An anti-socialism cartoon entitled the Cat as calm Harold Wilson (socialism with a majority of three) among the pigeons - Labour with a working majority (angry Wilson cat) doing terrrrrrrible things.
November 25, 2025 at 1:45 PM
timwrite.net
I went to Rio de Janeiro a few years ago (my wife was giving a conference paper. I was the bit of fluff on the side).

Walking around the city, we came across this.

A sentiment I hope we can all get behind.

(Non-footy/soccer fans think of FIFA as nearly as awful as the Olympic committee).

#FIFA
An orange wall with graffito. One piece simply says, "FUCK FIFA!".
November 24, 2025 at 7:41 PM
timwrite.net
Oh man. We got lamppost Poppyshaggers now.
November 24, 2025 at 2:05 PM
timwrite.net
My dog just looked at me and said, "You're not shadow-banned, Tim. You're just very, very boring. Where's my bone, you twat?"

And I think he might have a point. That said, he is in a bad mood.
A black and white dog in a massive cone of shame.
November 23, 2025 at 7:50 PM
timwrite.net
I'm sure this would make a decent album cover for some human artiste.

Details in alt text, my lovelies.
A composite of a rough rock-bricked wall inside an old building. I've used a colour layer under the BW to show the view out of the window. Next to the window is one coloured brick.
November 23, 2025 at 7:37 PM
timwrite.net
Current mood.

Details in the alt text.
A sketch of two stylised figures holding hands. Being happy.
November 23, 2025 at 7:10 PM
timwrite.net
Taking shit pix remains a skill unknown to A.i..

I am hoooooman!
A terrible photo of a keyboard obfuscated by blurred fingers.
November 22, 2025 at 11:25 PM
timwrite.net
This photo took me a while to frame. A wedding in Boris, Ireland.

`
Two women dancing in white at a wonderful wedding in Ireland.
November 22, 2025 at 10:07 PM
timwrite.net
Walk on the beach with the dog.

#Beach #Yorkshire
November 22, 2025 at 9:46 PM
timwrite.net
The prologue to my novel about resolved grief and unresolved Fascism.

@ottoenglish.bsky.social
he ancient city of Crosschester used its history like Cleopatra selective history were its lifeblood. It fed off the faithless payments of tourists who had superseded but not entirely replaced the subscriptions of pilgrims from a thousand years before. Like Cleopatra's baths, however, the longer it lay there, the more the milk softened its body, the more time it took to shower and scrub away the sourness, and the feeling that everything was forever held under a thin layer of white scum. Modernity would occasionally mount an assault on Crosschester but it would inevitably be forced back out to the big cities, or to Abroad where it had come from, leaving only shallow scratches behind. The local newspaper reported cattle auctions, garden parties, cricket scores and jumble sales. Crime and dread happened somewhere else.
November 22, 2025 at 9:30 PM
timwrite.net
Somewhere around here my granny Plunkett met my grandad Murphy. She lived around here. He lived in the British army barracks. It was 1920.

#Dublin
November 22, 2025 at 8:54 PM
timwrite.net
Took me a while to frame this photo.
Our Lake District guide on Lake Windemere. I forgot his name, I am a bad man.
November 22, 2025 at 8:49 PM
timwrite.net
Current mood.

(detail in alt text)
Dame Edith Sitwell with an amazing headdress, her eyes are closed. She judging what you said.
November 22, 2025 at 7:40 PM
timwrite.net
Went to Scotland. Saw a house. Took this photo of it.
B&W image: The sky and the land seem to be dominating a small house… but I think the house may win out.
November 22, 2025 at 4:05 PM
timwrite.net
Bloody hell, that was 2018 when my bakery was alive and I had no idea that the pandemic was around the corner.
Front page of the Gazette and Herald newspaper with the headline "Baker inspired by memory of Zuzu". I did a Wonky Bread deal whereby homeless or otherwise food-poor people would get a loaf for nowt. I've had a shave and haircut since then.
November 22, 2025 at 2:32 PM
timwrite.net
Still looking for paid editorial work that has nothing to do with A.i..

The book's stopped selling.

Skint. So, I'll have to sell the only guitar I've ever really loved.

Oh poor me etc.
A close up of the three pickups on my beloved Rickenbacker guitar in jetglow. My beloved three-pickup black Rickenbacker in its blue velveteen case.
November 22, 2025 at 1:09 PM
timwrite.net
Those were the days. I used to love being a news editor/writer on a national weekly.
The cover of New Computer Express magazine. Main headline = END OF AN AMSTRAD? New UK boss close to admitting defeat on ill-fated PC
November 22, 2025 at 12:53 PM
timwrite.net
Here's a character that I keep deleting and then restoring. Meet Dr Neil O'Neil the faux Irishman.

#WIPSnips
Dr Neil O'Neil's voice was always stuck in my head. Always. His basso combined with his thin as shoeshine pretence of an Irish brogue irritated me. He always had it at the ready. He had several brogues that he muddled up and deployed sometimes in the same sentence. "Everyone loves the Irish", he said, referring to everyone in the United States, because not even the Irish love the Irish all the time. I learnt in prison and similarly from my family that it was considered that you had 'notions above yourself to talk about that sort of thing. "Don't go playing the martyr, you" ', was the purest and most unanswerable admonition. "Will you not just come for a small one, I have the thirst on me?" he would say. "Would you have a few dollars to spare, I'm temporarily without funds for now, so". "Jesus, Mary and Joseph but I've the poor mouth on me!" "You're a good man yourself, so you are", he'd say. He adopted the theatrical Irishman when he needed a little extra charm. Born in New York, he'd never visited what he liked to call The Emerald Isle, The Auld Country, Eire. Any Irishness in him had been diluted by the Atlantic during his ancestors' boat journey and escape from either starvation or incarceration. The American Dream. Dr Neil's well-rehearsed accent was enough to fool most people outside Ireland. Actual Irish people weren't so gullible. Or they were confused by a single O'Neil sentence that travelled up from Cork via Kilkenny before veering off to Ennis, then back across to South Dublin, finishing in Derry. As I say, Dr Neil O'Neil came from New York; born, bred, educated, deflowered and lost his mind there. We'd met in Manhattan where and when I was modelling for the Austin-Rodney-Reed Agency. Mostly doing magazine fashion shoots, cocaine and anybody who fancied a go on me. Neil and I had been inseparable for a few years after recognising each other's opaque charms. We weren't other people. Like teenagers we were certain of this...
November 22, 2025 at 12:11 PM
timwrite.net
I've been dressed in my best International Man's Day uniform all morning.
Me in my St Pauli shirt with a fag in my mouth surrounded by pints of cider in a pub.
November 19, 2025 at 12:48 PM
timwrite.net
Now with a new and proud No A.i. tagline.

#NoAi

timwrite.net
New website header for my site: "Absolutely Zero A.i."
November 19, 2025 at 12:04 PM
timwrite.net
Morning all. Hope you’re well.

Pic details in alt text.
My daughter Zuzu in the arms of her Aussie uncle. She has her hand to her head in a salute. This is unlikely given she had severe cerebral palsy and was unable to control her limbs.
November 18, 2025 at 10:38 AM
timwrite.net
@manmademoon.bsky.social

Hobart the dog seems to be licking my porcini/cep like an icecream. He loves shrooms.

More details in the alt text.
My black mongrel rescue dog seems to be licking the enormous porcini I picked and am holding. It's an optical illusion. He's standing away from the shroom with the perspective of the photo making it appear like he's licking the damn thing.
November 17, 2025 at 4:11 PM
timwrite.net
Portrait of young Gibbo. An old friend.
Pencil and pastel minimal portrait of my old mate. A bald young man.
November 17, 2025 at 1:40 AM