STAT14

Design & editorial work. Book-binding. For STAT - ISSUE 14. March 2025.

One of only two hundred and each complete with a unique rubbing of Preston’s Wallace & Gromit statue, STAT is BACK. PINK. Preston, pool tables, prison visits, and peeking into Martin Scorsese’s dressing room.

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Editorial

Recently I’ve been romanticising bus shelters. I reminisce about all the times I’ve paced up and down, miserable and in- waiting. Must’ve spent hours stuck at the things, all grotty and smashed to bits. I think it’s the latent bleakness, the aching mundanity of those three glass walls, such an omnipotent feature of life in poorly-connected Northern towns.

This romanticisation isn’t unique to bus shelters, I feel it for a whole variety of infrastructural normalities. Telephone ex- changes, railway stations, substations. All these things are indicative of a once grand plan, a connected whole. These days it’s easy to feel as though no one’s arsed. We cling to our libraries, our community centres, the derelict buildings not yet levelled for something far uglier. People are arsed, though, and just a small handful of them sit within these grey pages.

We at STAT believe the material and the mundane deserve attention. The ache of existing in a shit heap is real, and ignoring the problem only makes it worse. So next time you’re at a bus shelter, revel in the grim reality. Let it wash over you like a cold shower. And, when the bus finally arrives, give that driver a smile and maybe they’ll be arsed too.

Pete Mercer

March 2025