James Abell Futures – James Abell

After India – Travel In Cambodia

James — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 05:31:01 +0000

Flying To Another Place

Travel In Cambodia. I left Delhi, India.

It felt like an ending for now anyway.

The new day came. Flying over Malaysia, meandering lakes and jungle over a spread out sea with mushrooming cumulonimbus clouds connected to nature’s grand order. Reaching the Cambodian lands, flat paddy fields and flood water shining back at the sky.

I was soon to fly back to the UK from Vietnam. With talk of widening war in the middle east and rocketing oil prices, I got worried and though the UK for the summer at least would be ok.

My travel energy had diminished, I just wanted a place to work for a few months especially making real sculptures again.

The hot windy streets of Phnom Penh shielded the stars and nature.

Annoying tuk tuk drivers “sir, sir sird” me somewhat as a gradually quieting echo of the audio assaults from India. I know they are just doing their job. However, it gets relentless in India so much. Flight or fight response is primed whenever someone shouts at you from one.

Pnomh Penh was a pleasant city, old French colonial streets, and medium high modern skyscrapers actually reminded me of Montreal in Canada. Another travel chapter a decade ago, another contient.

I went to the island Koh Rong on the internet it looked like paradise.

Koh Rong Beach

However, as I got to the ferry a lot of mainly British Gen Z mullets with the token moustache on gap years were lining up for the ferry. The island seemed to be made popular from Tik Tok. Tik Toxicity culture. At least it provides a boosted economy for the island people.

At the other chronological timeline old European men again mainly British on the street I was staying In Pnomh Penh. To me it looked like they were exploiting young women in the girl bars and being exploited by the women at the same time. A place with bad vibes those streets.

Sometimes these streets tell stories though.

Who am I to judge?

Satha Pana Bank Cambodia

Would these trying to be cool island trip kids someday become burned out pension day drinkers, A depressing cycle of generic mediocrity. Its strange what time does to the human being.

The eternal wheel or is there more can we break the cycle?

The last hangover of people from colonial Europe. The new Phnom Penh was booming perhaps with Chinese money.

I still get the feeling that the Sun is still rising in the east. Even the chaos of India. From chaos perhaps order will come in a few decades time.

Drawing of a Ganesha Statue Cambodian museum – the remover of obstacles, the lord of new beginnings

A positive future, well at least something is moving in a direction.

Outside this, the tropical beach swimming on the island was beautiful but an aimless anti climax.

It was too blue it felt like a simulation, perhaps sharks were nearby just offshore where the colorful fishing boats floated that caught the low afternoon sun.

Cambodian Girl In park gif animation

The Cambodians of Phnomh Penh were mostly nice people. Families played in parks as the hot hot sun baked the city. I got the impression April was a month of waiting for the rains to cool things down.

Rain washes away the past and creates a new beginning…

Tomorrow, I get the bus to Ho Chi Minh city. Vietnam.

Resources & Links From This Blog Post

Koh Rong Island - Wikipedia Entry
Phnom Penh - Wikipedia Entry
National Museum Of Cambodia - Wikipedia Entry

Spirit Of The Ages

James Abell — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 16:16:14 +0000

August 1990, North Norfolk, England

Unseen forces were operating high above the flat North Norfolk skies.

The long summer holidays became too bright, too windy,

Too many large billowy clouds creating a post cold war menace.

Too many fighter jets flying around from the nearby RAF base.

I was about 15 years old then.

Me and my friends decided to go and pick strawberries for money at a local fruit

farm. The sun was too hot for my skin, I burned even with suncream. Eastern European refugee immigrant workers had talk of distant wars. The local train from Norwich to Cromer passed by on the raised bank and stopped at the old empirical Gunton Station every hour or so.

During the picking duties, I spent most of the time speaking to my friends about the latest belle of the school or the latest budget sci fi desert 90s post apocalyptic film, or how tall, old or short film stars of the time were meant to be. Some of my friends managed to work hard and earn a “good” amount of money for the time.

I found it boring and in those nights I dreamed without intention of strawberries the horrific sweet smell would not go away even after a bath.

One particularly long day, I think it was day 6, I cycled home on my mountain bike.

The menacing billowing flatland clouds and wind tried to push me back to the farm.

I managed to get back home. A wonderful parcel wrapped in brown paper had arrived, dropped onto the terracotta tiles in the back kitchen of the old cottage where I lived.

It had a black rubber stamp on it – “ Multiverse Games, Post Mail Order”

I opened the package, a game…

I had ordered “SimCity” by Infogrames. My anticipation of making cities at least that day were destroyed.

It was the WRONG game.

However this game in the box was called “Spirit of The Age!” by Hawkwind labs. Was this a band? I think I had seen some of their albums in the CD rental stalls in the library. There was of course no Youtube in those old times to quickly find out. Was there now a computer game about them?

“ I am a clone I am not alone”

It was 3pm, and my parents were at work. I played the game for 6 hours on my AtariST.

By 9pm, I had played out the game and it resonated with the book Dangerous Visions by Harllan Ellison I had read on the school sports field before term finished in the sun, imagining I was in California not a Norfolk backwater.

I went for a walk, on my own around the path called “two gate lane”.

The moon was full so that would help me run away from the big black dog that roamed these lands.

The moon framed large billowing clouds over the north sea over the hill like black plate glass. To the west something strange a 10 degrees off the horizon,

One bead of light, then another and another.

The UFO books when I was 10 said they were ball lights.

Perhaps?

The summer rolled by, and I put the “Spirit of the Age Game” into a drawer along with the rapidly outdated AtariST.

Perhaps it was real or perhaps it was some weird fabricated dream from some future technology rewriting the past with false images.

Perhaps I had really had SimCity sent to me and this was all just a dream. We are all made of dreams…

September would come soon, the colder nights, the burning stubble fields and the promise of parties and first experience of alcohol. This moment in time would fade away and it would soon be time for kids, me and my friends to leave and study in the universities….

Meanwhile strange objects drifted across the sky and technology from the future planted false memories into us…..

I have no intention of picking strawberries again but I like them with cream sometimes and meringue these days.

Links –

Strawberry picking north norfolk in the 90s –

https://www.edp24.co.uk/things-to-do/20839463.remembering-back-breaking-days-picking-strawberries/

Gunton Station – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunton_railway_station

Hawkwind Spirit of the Age –

V1 –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSR5TnNGKmo

V2 –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePMlEnuXs9U

V3 –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXK_0H5m6sU

V4 – Remix by Hausfrauen –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_tsDS3NweU

V5 – Banco De Gaia –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFD-hXElndQ

Concept box images made with AI in Chat GPT and google gemini

PEOPLE IN FUTURISTIC CITIES: LONDON

James — Mon, 21 Apr 2025 19:05:41 +0000

We Are All Made Of Stars

I thought as a thank you gift for all of you who enjoy my work, you can now check my “People In Imaginary Cities – London ” out in its entirety below as a pdf reader app for you to enjoy on your browser.

“Strange drawings of people in a futuristic London who we may never meet along with glimpses of their life as words.”

“People in Futuristic Cities: London” is a 32-page zine by James William Crofton Abell, offering a glimpse into a semi-imaginary near-future London. This black-and-white zine features surreal drawings of people we may never meet, alongside poetic narratives that capture fleeting moments of their lives.

Inspired by my experiences in early Summer 2024, this zine blends reality with the speculative, creating an evocative and unique view of a London that could exist just beyond our reach. Printed in black and white, it comes with a saddle-stitched softcover and is signed by the artist.

Published by

James William Crofton Abell

Regular price £3.99

There you go ,a vision of London in the future that might be the present too. Something we can never grasp.

If you want a hard copy that will enable me to make more Zines about cities in the future you can purchased one from my online shop.

It is also available at –

Good Press – Glasgow

Gosh Comics – London

The Simian Beehive: The Monkey Tribe’s Temple In The Himalayas

James — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 09:33:36 +0000

by James Abell, March 2025

In the north west region of India where the hills become steep and force themselves upwards into the sky to meet the white mountains that meet the heavens, a legend unfolds.

The monkey tribe in these parts at some point in time decided to construct a temple to pay respect to the old Gods. The Gods who granted them more intelligence.

The Gods had long left this area. They only left some of their transparent jewels behind.

The monkeys decided to use these jewels to make a temple to remember the old Gods.

The monkeys worked in a group day and night.

They found an inscription to help them make the temple, using the jewels, earth and wood to make an ever expanding beehive like temple. The language was unknown to them, it was the language of the old Gods. However, they could understand the pictures.

Many of the monkeys said that this structure looked like the dwelling places of the old gods who lived packed together like the ants or bees where their chaos annoyed mother nature. This was one of the reasons why the old Gods disappeared from these parts.

The temple would grow over the years.

Due to the clean water and animals and food nearby the monkeys would start to settle here and come down from the trees. This would be the start of a monkey empire in these parts that would span far into the future!

The monkeys continue to build to this day…

A fallen sign on the ground that the monkeys cannot read shows the language of the old Gods, perhaps scholars in the future will be able to interpret what it means –

“ बंदर त्वरित बुद्धिमत्ता अनुसंधान संस्थान हिमाचल प्रदेश, स्थापित २०५५ “

Simian accelerated intelligence research facility, Himachal Pradesh province, established 2055

END

Story and illustrations by James Abell (c) March 2025

Further Reading

How Long Does It Take for Plastics to Decompose?

Link

Waste Warriors: Tackling the Waste Crisis in the Indian Himalayas

Link

Primate Intelligence: What Makes Monkeys So Smart?

Link

Himachal Pradesh: The Land of Gods

Link

Some Of My Science Fiction Illustrations For Other Stories

Link