Darling Magazine

 by Olive McCoy Let me set you alight douse you in petrol strike a match carry your charred bones in my macabre procession and wrap you in moss take your eyes for baby's breath. I'll send you floating like fair Ophelia down the river to make life of your death to create a home for the cold-blooded in the chest I once rested upon. I must ask now, lover. why your affections lead me to such visceral imaginings. I wish so desperately, I had a god to pray to, maybe then my piety could sway my violent persuasion and instead of decay I could offer lush green at your altar, nourish your soul. Until then, I'Il take and burn your bones, and use your ash to fertilise my good green Earth

by Emily Duff Portions: 2 bowls Time: 30 mins Ingredients: - 1 whole Lemon - 1 to 3 Garlic Clove/s - Splash of Olive Oil  - Pinch of Flour - TBSP Salt - 500ml Boiling Water - 175g Spaghetti  - Fistful of Grated Cheese (any - use VioLife etc to make vegan)  - Dash of Milk (any - use Oat etc to make vegan) - Mixed Herbs to taste - Pepper to taste Utensils: - Grater - Juicer (optional) - Pot - Frying pan - Hob - Knife Step-by-Step: 1, Roll out lemon to get the juices flowing. Grate the sides of the lemon and put zest to one side. Cut the lemon in half and squeeze the juices out either using your hands or a juicer.  2, Boil water in a pot, add the salt and spaghetti then leave to cook. 3, Thinly slice garlic. Add olive oil to a pan, allow to heat and then begin frying garlic.  4, Once garlic is crispy, add a dash of milk and pinch of flour. Continually stir to begin crating a roux before adding grated cheese and lemon juice.  5, After this has thickened, begin adding pasta water until th

Lara Parry speaks to Yasmin Berndt (Vocals, Guitar), Poppy Dodgson (Vocals, Drums) and Zoë Zinsmeister (Bass), the members who make up Bristol-based queer punk trio Grandma’s House, ahead of their Sunday afternoon set at Truck Festival (July 24th).   Lara: Hi all! How is your first Truck Festival going?   Yasmin: We have just got here! I’m excited to check it out.   Lara: Who are you hoping to see at Truck?   Yasmin: One of mine is Baby Queen, we actually met her before we knew she was an artist, in Bristol, and she was really sweet. She was writing or recording in Bath, she was just in Bristol by chance. Shame are always amazing, I’ve seen them a few times now and they’re just insanely good. Lara: What’s it like being an all female queer punk band in a male dominated industry?   Yasmin: It’s very frustrating actually. It’s sad as well. We just know so many amazing non-male artists and we just want to see them do better. It’s good though - it feels nice that we’re women bringing someth

by Emily Fletcher As much as we Brits love a beer garden, we must take off our sunglasses and see the reality. The world is burning.   This week, the UK reached a 40°C temperature for the first time. Coningsby in Lincolnshire recorded a high of 40.3°C - smashing the previous record of  38.7°C  set at Cambridge Botanic Garden back in 2019.  These numbers are alarming and if we, as a society, do not change now then by 2050 35-40°C Summer weather will be the norm.   Throughout the UK, the fire services reported ten  major incidents  on July 19th alone. Approximately 1,000 deaths are estimated to be due to failures in infrastructure during the heatwave. Humanity should take this as a wake-up call and drastically increase its efforts to combat climate change. Failure to do so could have severe consequences for today's children.   One reason many people are in denial about climate change is due to the fact that the UK experienced a heatwave for sixteen consecutive days back in 1976. Yet,

 by Katie Wheatley We’re coming to the end of the eighth series of Love Island and none of us are strangers to just how much the reality television show can change a person’s life. Take Molly-Mae Hague, the show’s most successful contestant – she may have already been a social media influencer before entering the villa, but no one could have anticipated her six million Instagram followers, becoming the Creative Director of PrettyLittleThing, and setting up a successful tan brand. Despite being unlikely to see anyone reach these heights (though Ekin-Su may give her a run for her money as current fan favourite), the lives of the islanders are never the same when they leave the villa. So many viewers look back fondly on past seasons because of how authentic the contestants were, and how they gave no cares for their image or the public’s perception of them – but now, unfortunately, the awareness of the cameras and viewers at home is becoming increasingly evident. Even just from glances at

Emily Duff speaks to Holly Minto, the Lead Vocalist for Up-and-Coming band, Crawlers, live from Tramlines 2022 as they prepare to play The Leadmill Stage for Day Two of the Sheffield-based Festival (July 23rd).  Emily: How did you all meet and decide to start making music together? Holly: Amy and Liv went to high school together and started a band playing covers, and I then met Liv in college. We loved working together and decided to make a combo of us all. After practicing in a shed for a year or two and our drummer left we met Harry after he did a review of our single called Hush - it was amazing. Emily: Most recently releasing ’Fuck Me (I Didn’t Know What to Say)’, you said over on Twitter “this song means so much”, could you elaborate on why this is so meaningful for you guys? Holly: ‘Fuck Me’ discussed a lot of personal issues I have faced. After listened to Leith Ross Never Have Sex and heard the lyric “you kissed me just to kiss me” I asked myself have I ever been kissed just to

 by Olive McCoy Cinematic self-indulgence, eyes rimmed red with rain and stirling smoke. Lips, slightly parted, wet as devils. Slick skins and hoarse throats. Running through tick infested grass, lucky to have survived screaming half remembered songs in a language I never really spoke. It felt like an ending. I wanted to draw blood. die in that frame, escape my sickly mind, sever those fleshy ties that keep my weak soul wandering. But I knew you would want to play saviour, tell me I was selfish, senseless, and sordid. You would tell me that if I stayed, drinking spit-warm vodka, I would miss my train and waste the money I had already spent on my return ticket.

 by Nicole Calogero Discovering new music, and by this, I mean discovering new artists and genres, certainly has been a lifelong hobby of mine. An interest that over the years had created an appreciation of different musical genres as diverse as heavy metal and folk. Indeed, music remains a faithful companion. It does not matter whether I am working on an assignment or going for a morning run, music will always be playing in the background.  Interestingly, when discovering music, I tend to associate lyrics with a state of mind or action, which usually happens to be whatever mood I am in while listening. Therefore, music holds a greater power for me because through this means I am able to reconnecting with my past self, as a result, evoking long-lost emotions and connections which I thought I had buried under the weights of memory.  During the lockdown, especially the first one, I often found myself reminisc over the past, yearning for memories that in comparison to the dismal nature of

 by Katie Wheatley Last week I spoke about how iconic Casa Amor is and it did not disappoint this year. Despite the following episodes being, in my opinion, quite dull, things are finally heating up again. It may be because the season began so strongly and every night there was a new bit of drama for us to sink our teeth into, but it has felt like the producers have purposely put in irrelevant scenes to fill out the episodes to build suspense – but all it appears to be doing is annoying loyal watchers. In my last column I mentioned ‘movie night’, which is finally being aired this evening – and I have a feeling it’s going to be one of the best episodes yet. But after teasing us into thinking we would see it on Friday evening and only showing us a 10-minute snippet, I was just as frustrated as what I was seeing on social media. What makes it so interesting that they’ve left it this long to show them the happenings in the villa is they have all made up for their wrongdoings and put them i

 by Lara Parry In just a few week's time, Truck Festival will be celebrating its 25th anniversary and will re-open its gates to 25,000 festival-goers after a three-year hiatus. The sold-out festival will run from 22nd-24th July, taking place at Hill Farm, Oxfordshire.  Truck Festival certainly lives up to its reputation of being ‘the godfather of all small music festivals’. It was established in 1998 and has been supporting immense and emerging talent ever since. And 2022 will be no exception. The lineup this year includes indie rock legends Kasabian, Sam Fender, Bombay Bicycle Club, The Kooks, and Blossoms to name a few. A hark back to peak indie! Also on the bill are big names from Sigrid to Easy Life, Sundara Karma, Inhaler, Sports Team, and Alfie Templeman. Ones to watch are Eurovision 2022 runner-up Sam Ryder, who recently performed at the Queens Jubilee concert in London, and Leeds-based punk outfit Yard Act, who shot to fame with their debut album The Overload , which was re

by Brenna Hagan There are mostly toddlers in the waiting room. Jude watches their mothers silently. A boy with red hair  turns in his chair towards Jude and calls  him  dada.  His red-headed mother snaps  and  excuses her son , saying   he calls every man dada.  She asks which one is his  – pointing  towards the pool of children tousling by a wooden abacus. None of the m, Jude tells her.  She opens her mouth to say something, then is interrupted.  Jude hears his name called. It’s coming from the squat nurse with round pink glasses who called out Evie’s name twenty minutes prior. He stands and follows her to an empty exam room.  Jude sees stickers on the wall from some show he watched as a  child yet  can’t remember now. The nurse has a cartoon frog beside her name tag: Norah.  She says Evie passed out during blood work.  Split her lip ope n on the floor . They’ll have to refer her to the city hospital to get stitched up. I couldn’t tell you in there, says Norah. Patient confidentiality