I learned last what I ought to have learned first: that things connect most when they separate. Transit, Transition & Transfusion: Chiharu Shiota: ‘Threads of Life’ and Yin Xiuzhen: ‘Heart to Heart’ at the Hayward Gallery.

March 7, 2026

I learned last what I ought to have learned first: that things connect most when they separate. Transit, Transition & Transfusion: Chiharu Shiota: Threads of Life and Yin Xiuzhen: Heart to Heart at the Hayward Gallery seen on the morning of the 5th March 2026. This is a prompt question response and a reflection on the dual exhibition currently … More I learned last what I ought to have learned first: that things connect most when they separate. Transit, Transition & Transfusion: Chiharu Shiota: ‘Threads of Life’ and Yin Xiuzhen: ‘Heart to Heart’ at the Hayward Gallery.

‘Dracula’: See excelled here Stoker’s themes of transit, including travel and flow between places and through spaces and times; transition of, and between, character and character traits, even Stoker’s obsession with masculinity and femininity in and between concepts of sex/ gender; and, of course, blood transfusion.

March 6, 2026

Dracula: See excelled here Stoker’s themes of transit, including travel and flow between places and through spaces and times; transition of, and between, character and character traits, even Stoker’s obsession with masculinity and femininity in and between concepts of sex/ gender; and, of course, blood transfusion. I had read, in my copy of The Guardian, … More ‘Dracula’: See excelled here Stoker’s themes of transit, including travel and flow between places and through spaces and times; transition of, and between, character and character traits, even Stoker’s obsession with masculinity and femininity in and between concepts of sex/ gender; and, of course, blood transfusion.

Neo-Romanticism for the new queer you: exhibits at the private Galleries of Brooke-Walder, Duke Street, St. James, & Osbourne Samuel, Cork Street.

March 5, 2026

Neo-Romanticism for the new queer you: exhibits at the private Galleries of Brooke-Walder, Duke Street, St. James, & Osbourne Samuel, Cork Street. I blogged on this trip yesterday. Today, my main objective is fulfilled and I am starting this on the 390 bus towards King’s Cross and my hotel. Here, is the start point of … More Neo-Romanticism for the new queer you: exhibits at the private Galleries of Brooke-Walder, Duke Street, St. James, & Osbourne Samuel, Cork Street.

A brief London trip in honour of new and old kinds of obsessive romanticism.

March 4, 2026

A brief London trip in honour of new and old kinds of obsessive romanticism. At home I recently added to my little wall of prints related to my hero Johnny Minton. Once only represented by the nude study top left (as you look at the wall), a print discarded from the British Museum. The rest … More A brief London trip in honour of new and old kinds of obsessive romanticism.

Is there still ‘world enough and time’ or do you and they (world and time, that is) have ‘too short a date’?

March 3, 2026

The glum depressive pastiche exercise in the sonnet below is of course based on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 (which appears as its appendix). The entire idea was to show if I could mimic how easily a cynic can undermine true verse and simplify its emotive nuance – taking only the ‘dark’ unto itself. My first attempt … More Is there still ‘world enough and time’ or do you and they (world and time, that is) have ‘too short a date’?

Does life bear telling, when what matters in life is inenarrable!

March 2, 2026

I have always loved words that fox the mind, Words of the archaic or rare-used kind. My life-story is inenarrable. I can’t tell you stuff I’m not capable Of telling either if I’m deficient In apt terms, or secretly efficient In hiding things I dare not let you see In case perchance you think badly … More Does life bear telling, when what matters in life is inenarrable!

The last thing you learned OUGHT always to be to distrust the learning that refuses to be open to change. Some thoughts about Kirill Serebrennikov’s film ‘The Student’.

March 1, 2026

The last thing you learned OUGHT always to be to distrust the learning that refuses to be open to change. Some thoughts about Kirill Serebrennikov’s film The Student. What if you discovered that every truth you will; ever need, sufficient to contest any other truth, except its own contradictions from the same source, was in … More The last thing you learned OUGHT always to be to distrust the learning that refuses to be open to change. Some thoughts about Kirill Serebrennikov’s film ‘The Student’.

There can be no substitute for healthy growth through the actions demanded by literacy: ‘reading’ and ‘writing’.

February 28, 2026

I wonder what a world would be like where there was no concept of reading. I won’t even tread into the world of ‘writing’ for I am no writer and have no right therefore to write or speak of it’s effects for good or ill, at least as far as I am concerned. But read … More There can be no substitute for healthy growth through the actions demanded by literacy: ‘reading’ and ‘writing’.

When Wordsworth said that ‘perhaps’ he did ‘not want’ a Redeemer as a refuge, did he think this was a job he could do for himself. That indeed would be a DIY project to wonder at! This is a blog on the book by Colum McCann with Diane Foley (2024) ‘American Mother’ as a book of redemption through story-telling art.

February 26, 2026

Wordsworth was sometimes called an Egoist in religion, usually from an an extrapolation from the following ‘evidence’, although but from a sub-clause in his case against Unitarianism and plea for the staid doctrines of the Established Church. The Unitarian Henry Crabb Robinson in his 1812 journal reported that Wordsworth told him that: “I can feel … More When Wordsworth said that ‘perhaps’ he did ‘not want’ a Redeemer as a refuge, did he think this was a job he could do for himself. That indeed would be a DIY project to wonder at! This is a blog on the book by Colum McCann with Diane Foley (2024) ‘American Mother’ as a book of redemption through story-telling art.

This blog is about a debut novel that, in my view, examines deliberate and / or necessary complications of what we mean by ‘being clear’, especially in the pursuit of physical satisfaction to selves full of yearning. You may guess this concerns an art that takes aspiring men and boys mainly as its subject matter, the debut novel being ‘Jean’ by Madeleine Dunnigan.

February 25, 2026

This blog is about a debut novel that, in my view, examines deliberate and / or necessary complications of what we mean by ‘being clear’, especially in the pursuit of physical satisfaction to selves full of yearning. You may guess this concerns an art that takes aspiring men and boys mainly as its subject matter, … More This blog is about a debut novel that, in my view, examines deliberate and / or necessary complications of what we mean by ‘being clear’, especially in the pursuit of physical satisfaction to selves full of yearning. You may guess this concerns an art that takes aspiring men and boys mainly as its subject matter, the debut novel being ‘Jean’ by Madeleine Dunnigan.

The notion that I must have a book in me and write it. Some thoughts prompted by giving up on completing reading the whole of Sacha Coward’s ‘Queer as Folklore: The Hidden History of Myths and Monsters’.

February 23, 2026

The notion that I must have a book in me and write it. Some thoughts prompted by giving up on completing reading the whole of Sacha Coward’s (2024) ‘Queer as Folklore: The Hidden History of Myths and Monsters‘, Manchester, Manchester University Press. Sacha Coward is a beautiful man (even dressed as a Nordic mer-creature) and … More The notion that I must have a book in me and write it. Some thoughts prompted by giving up on completing reading the whole of Sacha Coward’s ‘Queer as Folklore: The Hidden History of Myths and Monsters’.