Life of Liam

In November 2018, the Scottish Government made the monumental move of making LGBTQ+ inclusive education compulsory in the Scottish education system. This is a move that will likely save many lives and make young LGBTQ+ individuals feel safe and included with their peers. LGBTQ+ inclusive education is an essential in 2019, and it is a fact that school curriculums must come to terms with. We teach young people to be respectful and considerate at school, yet bullying against LGBTQ+ people is still prevalent. Looking back on my own experience of being a young LGBTQ+ individual, I now realise that it was isolating and lonely in some ways. Despite never feeling overtly uncomfortable with being gay, and despite having a good support network of friends and family, I feel that I was quite reserved and, in some ways, felt that I couldn't fully express who I was until I was in my final year of high school. Perhaps if LGBTQ+ inclusive education was part of the curriculum from a young age ...

Content warning: this blog post discusses suicide and mental health issues that some readers may find upsetting. Samaritans has produced a full research report about male suicide called which can be read  here . Suicide and poor mental health is something which is still very under-discussed in society, in my opinion, and is something that people need to be more open about. Whilst suicide affects both males and females, males are at a higher risk of suicide than females. In the UK, men are three times more likely than women to commit suicide, with the highest suicide rate being men aged 40-44 in 2017  (read the full 2017 suicide report by Samaritans here) . Data collected by Samaritans indicates that male suicide supersedes female suicide in all age categories, however, and in all areas of the UK. The 2017 report did also find that female suicide is on the rise and male suicide dropped a little from 2016 though, according to Samaritans, it is too early to tell whether th...

The TV anthology series Feud  hit the screens in March 2017 in America. When I first heard that Ryan Murphy was creating a television show based on the feuds of pop culture icons and that the first series would be starring Jessica Lange and Susan Sarandon, I was filled with excitement of what was to come. However, as the show was not aired in the UK at the same time, I was not able to keep up to date with each episode so had to wait until this week when the BBC aired the show on UK television and provided the whole series on BBC iPlayer. I have since became engrossed in the series and it is proving to be more enjoyable than I would have thought. As this is a television show review/analysis, the content of this post will contain some spoilers. The first season of the show presents a dramatisation of the famous Hollywood feud between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford - focussing on the one film they starred in together What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, the promotional tour whic...