‘This book contains dead people. / …/ Caution: This work contains traces of eulogy. / …. / This book cannot change the ending or your ending or its own ending. … This book will not confirm if there is an afterlife or an alternative universe’.[1]  Thoughts about Salena Godden’s book in which symptoms like ‘grief, … More ‘This book contains dead people. / …/ Caution: This work contains traces of eulogy. /[1]: The artistic triumph and psychic conversion of the psychological ‘symptom’ in  Salena Godden’s  ‘Mrs Death Misses Death’ (2021). Will change @salenagodden if requested.

‘The teeming commercial life of the street had its own sensuality. … most people in these streets were men. Thomas derived such pleasure from observing them …/ …. he was like a child surrounded by things he dearly wanted, an almost unimaginable richness of them’.[1] The resurrection of imagined queer lives of famous writers of … More ‘The teeming commercial life of the street had its own sensuality. … most people in these streets were men. …/ …. he was like a child surrounded by things he dearly wanted, an almost unimaginable richness of them’.[1] A blog on critical treatment of  ‘The Magician’ (2021) by Colm Tóibín,  London, Viking (Penguin Books).

‘It’s not that easy being green.’[1]  (Kermit the Frog) This is a blog on why it is not easy to un-obscure the meaning of and story of David Lowery’s The Green Knight. It is incidentally also about how, why and how we saw the film at the Everyman Cinema in Liverpool, on Wednesday 29th September … More LIVERPOOL VISIT 5: ‘It’s not that easy being green.’[1]  (Kermit the Frog) This is a blog on why it is not easy to un-obscure the meaning of and story of David Lowery’s The Green Knight.

‘They narrate fragments of a psychic life we cannot reassemble for ourselves. It is hard, sometimes impossible, to figure out what kind of life Freud is painting slices of’.[1]  This is a blog on a visit to the Tate Liverpool, on Thursday 30th September 2021. The primary purpose was to see a retrospective exhibition Lucian … More LIVERPOOL VISIT 4: ‘They narrate fragments of a psychic life we cannot reassemble for ourselves. It is hard, sometimes impossible, to figure out what kind of life Freud is painting slices of’.[1]  This is a blog on a visit to the Tate Liverpool, on Thursday 30th September 2021. The primary purpose was to see a retrospective exhibition ‘Lucian Freud: Real Lives’.

Homes of space and light at either end of Hope Street, Liverpool. This is a blog of un-academic and possibly unintelligent comments on visit to the cathedrals of Liverpool. This blog is about a visit to homes of space and light at either end of Hope Street, Liverpool. This is a blog of un-academic and … More LIVERPOOL VISIT 3: Homes of space and light at either end of Hope Street, Liverpool. This is a blog of un-academic and possibly unintelligent comments on visit to the cathedrals of Liverpool.

‘… often described as a painter’s painter’.[1] This is a blog on a visit to the Walker Gallery, Liverpool on Wednesday 29th September 2021. The primary purpose was to see a retrospective exhibition Sickert: A Life in Art. I refer in this to the catalogue of same name by Charlotte Keenan McDonald (ed. Karen Miller, … More LIVERPOOL VISIT 2: ‘… often described as a painter’s painter’.[1] A visit to the Walker Gallery, Liverpool on Wednesday 29th September 2021 to see a retrospective exhibition ‘Sickert: A Life in Art’. References to the catalogue of same name by Charlotte Keenan McDonald.

‘Mother was also a kind of weaver’.[1] This is a blog that asserts the bizarre folly of excluding the biographical and crypto-biographical from the appreciation and understanding of great artists. It reviews the Artist Room: Louise Bourgeois exhibition at Tate Liverpool seen there on Thursday 30th September 2021 with my husband and our dear friend … More LIVERPOOL VISIT 1: ‘Mother was also a kind of weaver’.[1] This reviews the ‘Artist Room: Louise Bourgeois’ exhibition at Tate Liverpool. In lieu of there being a catalogue a fictional autobiography of Bourgeois by Jean Frémon (translated by Cole Swenson) [2018] ‘Now, Now, Louison’ is used.

‘Plutarch reports that Philip [King of Macedonia and father of Alexander to-be ‘the Great’] saw them “mingled together” – the word Plutarch selects has erotic overtones – and was moved to tears at the sight. “Perish all those who suggest that these men did or endured anything shameful,” Plutarch quotes Philip as saying, as though … More ‘Plutarch reports that Philip [King of Macedonia and father of Alexander to-be ‘the Great’] saw [these men] “mingled together” – the word Plutarch selects has erotic overtones” … moved by the thought of the erastai and erômenoi embracing in death’.[1] This is a blog reflecting on ‘The Sacred Band’ by James Romm (2021).

BOOKER SHORTLIST: ‘Oddly enough, there’s no name in the DSM for the compulsion to diagnose people’.[1] Reviewing this novel is like attempting to categorise the life of people of people use language that may be difficult to understand and who earn their living by making ‘worlds by the thousands’.[2] A blog reflecting on Bewilderment by … More BOOKER: ‘Oddly enough, there’s no name in the DSM for the compulsion to diagnose people’. A blog reflecting on ‘Bewilderment’ by Richard Powers (2021) London, Hutchinson Heinemann.

Reviewing queer content in Pat Barker’s (2021) ‘The Women of Troy’, the second novel of her Briseis trilogy. I did a brief blog on the 2018 novel by Pat Barker called The Silence of The Girls (accessible from this link). Since then it has become clear that Barker’s intention is that that novel is the … More Reviewing queer content in Pat Barker’s (2021) ‘The Women of Troy’, the second novel of her Briseis trilogy.

A visit to an exhibition of Beauty in the Everyday: Dutch & Flemish Masters at Auckland Castle in the Trevor Gallery in The Bishop’s Palace, Bishop Auckland, County Durham. This is an account of a visit on the afternoon of 17th September 2021. Is there a relationship between Protestant Ethics and Commodity Capitalism in these … More A visit to an exhibition of ‘Beauty in the Everyday’ of Dutch & Flemish Art in the Trevor Gallery in The Bishop’s Palace, Bishop Auckland, County Durham. This is an account of a visit on the afternoon of 17th September 2021.

An ODE to the wit and wisdom of Nadine Dorries as our new Culture Secretary. By Steven Douglas Bamlett @StevenBamlett I wrote a couplet on Twitter (https://twitter.com/StevenBamlett/status/1438205482523635728) on Nadine Dorries for a good friend: Justin by name. He then worried me by saying he thought the little couplet ‘what I wrote’ (going Morecambe & Wise … More An ODE to the wit and wisdom of Nadine Dorries as our new Culture Secretary. By Steven Douglas Bamlett