Issue #299 / September 2024
Nearly 300 Red Hand Files are in, and I feel you know us contributors a little. Admittedly, in a slightly abstract way, but I think you have a rough idea of what we are like.
So, to celebrate your 300th File, how about you ask us a question?
I realise this could be a bit of an everyone-answering-at-once shit-show kinda thing, but this Q&A relationship has worked out more than fine thus far, and I think we’re grown up enough to deal with it sensibly.
This is a one-time deal – one shot, one question. After this, we’ll be back asking the questions again forevermore.
So, go ahead and ask us anything. We’re ready. Our response may surprise you in the same way your responses have surprised us for 299 astonishing issues.
SIMON, LEONARD STANLEY, UK
AT THE WILD GOD Q&A EVENT IN LONDON, AUGUST 2024
Dear Simon,
Thank you for your encouraging words. This is an excellent idea! Here is my question, and I’ll print my favourite answer in the next issue, the 300th! Brilliant!
I have a full life. A privileged life. An unendangered life. But sometimes the simple joys escape me. Joy is not always a feeling that is freely bestowed upon us, often it is something we must actively seek. In a way, joy is a decision, an action, even a practised method of being. It is an earned thing brought into focus by what we have lost – at least, it can seem that way. My question is, where or how do you find your joy?
NICK, BRIGHTON/LONDON, UK
I very much look forward to your answers. It may take me a little while to read them all as I am about to begin tour rehearsals with The Bad Seeds – now, there is an unadulterated, full-blown joy right there! See you in a few weeks!
Love, Nick