Author: stevendouglasblog

Born in 1954. Chequered career including Lecturer in English, Social Worker and Lecturer in Social Work. Had breaks related to mental health that also meant I worked in social care. Now retired.

Who are the biggest influences in my life will be probably be both my emergent identity and its destiny!

December 24, 2025

My answer to this prompt question is vague, isn’t it? It deliberately employs an archaic usage of the word ‘who’ that has no clear referent but nevertheless does not explicitly ask a question? It is differentiated from tje conventional usage in the following Ai supplied dictionary definition: The archaic usage isn’t  quite complete for even … More Who are the biggest influences in my life will be probably be both my emergent identity and its destiny!

How have your political views changed over time? Political views that change ‘over time’ are most often based on political interests. This blog is stimulated by Peter Oborne (2025) ‘Complicit: Britain’s Role in the Destruction of Gaza’.

December 23, 2025

Political views that change ‘over time’ are most often based on political interests. Free-standing, and relatively independent thought, feelings and action regarding politics – about how different kinds of power are distributed and used –  probably do change over time in reflection of learning, provided we allow ourselves to continue learning over our lives. However, … More How have your political views changed over time? Political views that change ‘over time’ are most often based on political interests. This blog is stimulated by Peter Oborne (2025) ‘Complicit: Britain’s Role in the Destruction of Gaza’.

‘Nothing so true as what you once let fall: / Keir Starmer has no Character at All’. A case study.

December 22, 2025

I ought to apologise to Alexander Pope for twisting his tritest lines – the opening of ‘Epistles to Several Persons: Epistle II: To a Lady on the Characters of Women. But the lines are indeed trite and bear nothing much beside the most rank misogyny – but pointed at political women. But it does have … More ‘Nothing so true as what you once let fall: / Keir Starmer has no Character at All’. A case study.

The dilemma of the Fallen or the Thrown: the idiocy of happiness or free self-possession and self- regulation in a world of horror and gloom.

December 21, 2025

Gustave Doré’s version of Satan after the Fall may be thinking: ‘Am I happy here?’ Those of us who refuse the blandishments of comforting religions still appreciate the call of bliss, so called, of perfect and unqualified satisfaction and that superfluous emotion we call joy. We all now live in a world into which we … More The dilemma of the Fallen or the Thrown: the idiocy of happiness or free self-possession and self- regulation in a world of horror and gloom.

It was this blog, of course! It is on Peter Jefferies & Gregory Jusdanis ‘Alexandrian Sphinx: The Hidden Life of Constantine Cavafy’.

December 20, 2025

It was this blog, of course! How to write on a life, whose archival raw material is ‘marked by two conspicuous gaps – the relative absence of material regarding Constantine’s erotic life and his views of Muslim Egyptians’.[1] This is a blog on Peter Jefferies & Gregory Jusdanis Alexandrian Sphinx: The Hidden Life of Constantine … More It was this blog, of course! It is on Peter Jefferies & Gregory Jusdanis ‘Alexandrian Sphinx: The Hidden Life of Constantine Cavafy’.

‘Political consumerism’ and food choice

December 19, 2025

‘Political consumerism’ and food choice WordPress often asks us to pretend that all our choices are mediated on a simple model of choice, that might, of course, still involve a number of factors regarding the item, such as cost and affordability, use value of the the product – the nutritional value of foods for instance, … More ‘Political consumerism’ and food choice

This man has made his mark, if that’s impact / …

December 18, 2025

Detail from B&W photograph of Anthony Micallef Animal Head (Oil on linen ) 140 cm x 140 cm Lazarides catalogue of show in Sept – October 2009, p.16. When I tried writing this I began to  imagine the case, common enough in Caribbean slavery, of white male rape of young enslaved black men and boys. … More This man has made his mark, if that’s impact / …

Visualize your future and step towards it: Looking around to see the limits of motivational techniques

December 17, 2025

Look again at the strange and impossible meme above. It tries to visualise the rationale of the motivational technique in which you ‘visualise your future and step towards it’. In theory, visualising where you want to be makes you more likely to visualise and practice the things you do to make that future possible. Hence, … More Visualize your future and step towards it: Looking around to see the limits of motivational techniques

Keeping the flame alive: The demise of the Socratic idea of learning?

December 16, 2025

According to Socrates, at least as adherents of his definition of learning argue, learning is only tangentially about the acquisition of objects of learning – call them what you will, but here ‘skills and lessons‘ – that are the emergent by-products of a process that is never completed. Hence we ‘kindle the flame of learning’, … More Keeping the flame alive: The demise of the Socratic idea of learning?

The only city you could continue to want to visit, and not yet have found a way to go there, is one of which you lack any realistic current knowledge but of the need your visit will fulfill in your imagination. For Dick Whittington, that city was not London but a city paved with gold. Satan, as imagined by Milton, wishes for a community of all and every demon, and because these demons believed, the city of Pandemonium was built as they convened and communed in it.

December 15, 2025

Why not start with versifying of my own: But that is not the city, said DickAnd looked away to one not built,Its roads with gold inlaid so thick, Building, gilding his inner guiltThat he knew would rule that cityAs mayor, without love nor pity. Meanwhile, in Hell, Satan’s fine gilded hornA Trump of doom did … More The only city you could continue to want to visit, and not yet have found a way to go there, is one of which you lack any realistic current knowledge but of the need your visit will fulfill in your imagination. For Dick Whittington, that city was not London but a city paved with gold. Satan, as imagined by Milton, wishes for a community of all and every demon, and because these demons believed, the city of Pandemonium was built as they convened and communed in it.

This is a blog on the queer delight of forbidden knowledge, recovered from an imagined Hell, and other underground space, in Olivia Laing (2025) ‘The Silver Book’.

December 14, 2025

In a cold Italian winter with frost on the windowpanes, Nicholas Wade, art student and former rent boy, and perhaps a murderer, burrows into a ‘red brocade’ in Danilo Donato’s hotel room making it seem a ‘scarlet cave, the same colour as the inside of an eyelid’. As Nicholas flips over, ‘presenting himself for consumption’, … More This is a blog on the queer delight of forbidden knowledge, recovered from an imagined Hell, and other underground space, in Olivia Laing (2025) ‘The Silver Book’.

Would a good judge (of character or anything else) be necessarily a good – or even just – person?

December 13, 2025

To be good at judging the character of others clearly indicates some skill, knowledge and values (developed to a high standard) in the activity of ‘judging’ – and in this case of ‘judging character’). But what loaded words these are! Being, for instance, a ‘judgmental’ person is rarely seen as the quality of a good … More Would a good judge (of character or anything else) be necessarily a good – or even just – person?