How do you stay resilient in hard times? View all responses Resilient? I won’t give in to it entirely! Luke Fildes’s famous picture Applicants for Admission to a Casual Ward, smaller version of the 1874 painting, held by the Tate Gallery (after 1908) with a cynical addition Perhaps only Dickens, and only in the conditions … More Resilient? I won’t give in to it entirely!
What life lesson did you learn too late? View all responses Yesterday, Geoff & I saw the National Theatre’s production directed by Sam Yates of Golden Boy. Here’s a second take based on a production that seems to promise that both Joe Bonaparte and Lorna Moon can learn a life lesson, though they learn it … More Yesterday, I saw the National Theatre’s production directed by Sam Yates of ‘Golden Boy’. Here’s a second take based on a production that seems to promise that both Joe Bonaparte and Lorna Moon can learn a life lesson, though they learn it too late. After all Lorna does say that she can envision ‘ a city’ in which ‘happy boys and girls’ exist ‘who can : teach us the way of life’. But could they have learned it?
Has your idea of what makes a good friend changed as you’ve gotten older? View all responses In the order of what endures, which is renewal, friendship is the oldest, briefest of things This question keeps playing on my mind and I search what others say: they often riff on the nature of ‘old friends’, … More In the order of what endures, which is renewal, friendship is the oldest, briefest of things
What is one thing you can’t live without? View all responses ‘What is life without thee!’ sings Orpheus: yet it’s clear he made a shot at continuing life that was something that others envied. The Bacchae, also known as Maenads, kill Orpheus, or think they are doing so. Let’s piece together a life from the … More ‘What is life without thee!’ sings Orpheus: yet it’s clear he made a shot at it that was something that others envied.
What’s a small moment from your past that you still think about years later? View all responses Roman Campagna by Thomas Cole in 1843. Some questions have been definitively answered. so much so that they become a barrier for having anything to say of my own about them, except that I remember the ‘small moment’ … More ‘… Only I discern— / Infinite passion, and the pain / Of finite hearts that yearn’. Thinking after the moment goes is endless ‘yearning’.
How do you define success in life? View all responses There is no doubt, of course, that money count is one, amongst other quantitative measures of success, as a generalised outcome of one’s achievements in life, but does the term ‘truthful success’ spoken of in Clifford Odets play Golden Boy point towards more qualitative outcomes … More There is no doubt, of course, that money count is one, amongst other quantitative measures of success, as a generalised outcome of one’s achievements in life, but does the term ‘truthful success’ spoken of in Clifford Odets play ‘Golden Boy’ point towards more qualitative outcomes equating with that outcome – things to do with the values systems we call ‘truth’ and ‘personal’ or even ‘spiritual fulfilment’? This is a reflection on the prompt question based on preparing myself to see Sam Yates’ production of Clifford Odets ‘Golden Boy’ from the Almeida Theatre as streamed to the Reel Cinema Bishop Auckland on Sunday 8 November 2026, by reading the play and two reviews of it.
Has your idea of what makes a good friend changed as you’ve gotten older? View all responses Friendship or fiendship: the complicated mix of loving and/or hating, (but usually complex configurations in between based on difference of expectations between ‘friends’) relationships. This tiny verse I thought I wrote in response to this prompt, or at … More Friendship or fiendship: the complicated mix of loving and/or hating, (but usually complex configurations in between based on difference of expectations between ‘friends’) relationships.
What’s a song that changed your life? View all responses No song ever on its own changes your life, but when I heard Jonas Patrick Marvin speak about his 2026 book, The Breaking of the English Working Class, I thought afterwards the song might break me up further for we, my class, are broken. This … More No song ever on its own changes your life, but when I heard Jonas Patrick Marvin speak about his 2026 book, ‘The Breaking of the English Working Class’, I thought afterwards the song might break me up further for we, my class, are broken.This is really a blog on Jonas Patrick Marvin (2026) ‘The Breaking of the English Working Class’ London & New York, Verso.
How do you define success in life? View all responses Oppressively articulated though it is, there is a point in William James’ dictum about the false ethical values of his, and our, century: ‘The moral flabbiness born of the bitch-goddess SUCCESS. That — with the squalid interpretation put on the word success — is our … More Oppressively articulated though it is, there is a point in William James’ dictum about the false ethical values of his, and our, century: ‘The moral flabbiness born of the bitch-goddess SUCCESS. That — with the squalid interpretation put on the word success — is our national disease’. [William James to H.G. Wells, Sept. 11, 1906]
Do you set personal goals for yourself? Simon Armitage has published a new verse translation of The Epic of Gilgamesh. In it all personal goals entail love of another, perhaps ‘like a wife’, but definitely ‘another’ of some sort.. This blog is about Simon Armitage (2026) ‘Gilgamesh‘ , London, Faber & Faber Despite immediate appearances, … More Simon Armitage has published a new verse translation of The Epic of Gilgamesh. In it all personal goals entail love of another, perhaps ‘like a wife’ but definitely ‘another’ of some sort. This blog is about Simon Armitage (2026) ‘Gilgamesh’ , London, Faber & Faber.
Share a few recent shots from your camera roll, no context needed. View all responses
What’s a book or movie that genuinely scared you? View all responses That which we fear we lock away, drown or bury, if we can and, hopefully, forever (or perhaps until Time catches up with desire at least). This is precisely what Max de Winter does with the body and memory of his first wife Rebecca … More That which we fear we lock away, drown or bury, if we can and, hopefully, forever (or perhaps until Time catches up with desire at least). “Close it down, Danni. Put a dust sheet over the piano. Bolt the shutters. Turn the key”. This is a blog on Rose Tremain (2026) ‘The Housekeeper’.
