First things first, you’re probably wondering about my name. Well, I was introduced to the early Tank Girl comics in Deadline in the late 1980s/early 1990s and fell in love with her energy, anarchy, and enthusiasm. Tank Green became my nickname in the late 1990s and about 17 years later, I realised that it had become my real name, so I changed it by Deed Poll. If you want to know more about my eponymous inspiration, I can only recommend the early Tank Girl comics and will trash talk the abominable movie until the cows come home.
Another element of my name and title – Dr Tank Green – which matters profoundly to me, is that it is gender neutral (and racially ambiguous). If you want to know why that is, I recommend reading Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time.
I am close to half a century old, come from a working-class background, and have lived a very unconventional life. My decision making processes and motivations are quite different from other people, and since I was blessed to be born without a maternal instinct, I have been able to trundle on through the world in my own little way. Not that it’s been easy, mind.
If I want to create a narrative (and who doesn’t?!), then I would organise my life thematically. I started with music by working in nightclubs and the music industry in London and Philadelphia from the early 1990s until 2004. It was interesting and a lot of fun: I would not change the experience for the world. But ultimately, it wasn’t for me as I am not cut throat and my emphasis was on music, whereas the reality is industry.
After that, I had a gap year fannying about in rural France practicing silence, Zen Buddhism, and gardening. Then I spent the next eleven years in and out of university, slowly working my way towards a PhD. I started off with the mistaken idea that academia was about books and learning and therefore for me. Turns out that academia is just another depressing corporate machine.
In truth, what I am is someone who doesn’t really belong. I am a peculiarly singular being. I have a wide-ranging curiosity, multiple competing passions, and the ability to do most things I set my mind to, unless it involves depth perception, in which case I’m fucked. The only person I have ever admired is Henry Miller because he lived the whole of himself, the ugly and the sublime, and wrote about it. The current theme of my life then, is to devote myself to writing as much as I can.
I have a tendency to get really obsessed with things and currently that is walking. I take a train out of the London grime once a week, and go and commune with the trees and the wild things of the hills. Alongside my morning meditation, I have found walking to be profoundly generative and restorative. It feels like home. As such, I have started a new weekly writing project Writing Walking, which (so far at least) is a series of (ultra)short magical realism stories riffed off a photo I have taken on a walk. There is a sub-series called the Folklore of Found Objects which I especially enjoy writing. If you like my stories, please sign up to my newsletter called 10,000 Delights to get the stories (and other magical wonders) delivered once a month directly to your inbox. I also post the stories on IG, if you want to read them there. Please know that I have started using Amazon affiliate links in my newsletter and on this site.
I am passionate about nutrition, health, and fitness, especially proactive health management through a healthy diet and regular exercise. I am carnivore and, having been a vegetarian for twenty years with disastrous consequences for my physical and mental health, I strongly believe that a healthy diet is one based on animal foods. I enjoy telling people my age as it always results in flattery as most people think I am at least a decade younger than I am. My favourite flatterer was an eight year old called Martha who I met on a boat in the Turkish Aegean sea. She insisted that I looked twenty years younger than I am, so I shower her memory with delight.
In general I am against: people and organisations whose words and actions are incongruent; shoes with tassels; liars, bullshitters, and blaggers; red flowered geraniums; vegetables; the monarchy; institutionalised authority; surveillance, especially when passed off as “safety”; purity politics; and spiders.
In general I am for: books; cats; anarchy; natural light; the sea; trees; Palestine; swearing; Star Trek; hidden things; social housing; plurality; privacy; the spa; walking; and flowers in the garden wot do smell nice.
I once had the greatest honour of interviewing Sivanandan for my PhD. He said that I was a philosopher trying to embrace the world; he also said that I was a neurotic. Both statements are superlative facts.