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.

The meaning of a Pot Noodle (or other ‘snack’) and when you might ingest from it, possibly in secret, the mass of calories it supplies?

January 3, 2025

Believe it or not, there is a Wikipedia entry for ‘snack’. I link to it here. What is more this entry tries to enhance the significance of the term by looking at cultural variants of foodstuffs considered ‘snacks’ across a number of locations and cultures, as well as tieing it to theoriesof the propensities involved … More The meaning of a Pot Noodle (or other ‘snack’) and when you might ingest from it, possibly in secret, the mass of calories it supplies?

‘Fictile worlds’: a business in the interests of pretensive human well-being aimed at consumers we know to be the ‘most fingent plastic of creatures’.

January 2, 2025

The choice of vocabulary to describe the world we are always trying to shape around us and our needs – either in societies, groups or as individuals – is sometimes the most urgent issue in those worlds. This may be because our chief business as meaning-makers and users of meaning is to get things done … More ‘Fictile worlds’: a business in the interests of pretensive human well-being aimed at consumers we know to be the ‘most fingent plastic of creatures’.

What are youthful attachments worth? In my ‘salad days’ I knew no ‘meat’. And now I am a pescatarian.

January 1, 2025

Young people are portrayed in literature, as inordinately fond of things they can’t quite digest or understand. In another blog I mentioned the summary given by Mr Venus, the aged taxidermist in Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend, seeing off a young man who checks the change too carefully (for old men’s teeth substituted for the … More What are youthful attachments worth? In my ‘salad days’ I knew no ‘meat’. And now I am a pescatarian.

2025. What’s New about it? What we might think tomorrow when the booze abaits into split head, hopefully only your own?

December 31, 2024

The eve of this New Year, again, dangerFlows fluid, booze’s fast flux in venousVain channels, popping in the throat and thenThe flood follows. Scars of dependent bloodFrom ‘kiddies’ too, fallen near that flawed tree.Hogmanay wishes for that newer thingBound, as they know, to be nothing newer Than  subsequent pain, just that bit older Than is … More 2025. What’s New about it? What we might think tomorrow when the booze abaits into split head, hopefully only your own?

The harmful ignorance of Boris Johnson, or when will we dead awake and feel the oppression we foster in others.

December 30, 2024

The Rape of Ganymede – attitudes to rape in Ancient Literature The right wing press (the dailies Mail, and Telegraph) and GB News, and only they, are doing their best to continue the attitude of culture war and making news stories about ‘woke’ attitudes and their effect on freedom of speech. Their latest target is … More The harmful ignorance of Boris Johnson, or when will we dead awake and feel the oppression we foster in others.

Is thinking differently, doing something differently? Or is thought a means of doing nothing? ‘We are all of us born in moral stupidity, taking the world as an udder to feed our supreme selves’ says George Eliot magisterially with perhaps this issue in mind. If we are born thus, the emergence of independent moral understanding is painful as a result, for in that emergence we begin to know the otherness of others beneath the barriers set by our thick skins. (Cue George Eliot’s ‘Middlemarch’ from the end of Book 1, Chapter XXI).

December 29, 2024

Is thinking differently, doing something differently? Or is thought a means of doing nothing? Can thinking become its own object rather an an eternally self-reflecting subject seeing itself repeated infinitely in a Hall of Mirrors. A Yayoi Kusama Infinity Mirror Room. ‘We are all of us born in moral stupidity, taking the world as an … More Is thinking differently, doing something differently? Or is thought a means of doing nothing? ‘We are all of us born in moral stupidity, taking the world as an udder to feed our supreme selves’ says George Eliot magisterially with perhaps this issue in mind. If we are born thus, the emergence of independent moral understanding is painful as a result, for in that emergence we begin to know the otherness of others beneath the barriers set by our thick skins. (Cue George Eliot’s ‘Middlemarch’ from the end of Book 1, Chapter XXI).

Liz Truss called demands for ‘regulation’ of the ‘free market’ an anti-growth alliance’. That politics of despair for any environmental and socially just action is now embodied in Keir Starmer.

December 28, 2024

Green objectives are only one of the many ways in which Labour asks decency and regulated advance to lie down in front of the Juggernaut of Economic Growth. We need a new voice even for the supposed notion of a ‘centre’ left, for this is the bullying capitalist state of the nineteenth century resurrected. Meanwhile … More Liz Truss called demands for ‘regulation’ of the ‘free market’ an anti-growth alliance’. That politics of despair for any environmental and socially just action is now embodied in Keir Starmer.

“If there were no time there would still be some / Sometimes, …. / :Cocooned in comfort where there’s no splendour”.

December 27, 2024

If there were no time there would still be someSometimes, wherein we would find time containedIn some special relationship with us:Cocooned in comfort where there’s no splendour. It does not surprise me that when I think of time I type some plangent iambic pentameters like those I typed above with echoes of the moment in … More “If there were no time there would still be some / Sometimes, …. / :Cocooned in comfort where there’s no splendour”.

“O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us / To see oursels as others see us! / “:

December 26, 2024

The ‘gift’ is a complicated notion. It is considered as a possession by natural right, whose possession carries with it no obligation to the giver and yet is seen as something that could not be ours without someone have gifted it in the first place. A ‘gifted’ person may possess some quality or talent that … More “O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us / To see oursels as others see us! / “:

“We can’t celebrate in Gaza or Bethlehem”.

December 25, 2024

In Gaza, Palestinian Christians are undivided from Muslims as their holy place and places of family refuge are destroyed by Israel. They recognise a unity among Palestinians that must be destroyed. This gentleman’s  whole family was wiped out while sheltering in the Church of St. Porhyry, a Byzantine jewel. This is greater than GENOCIDE. It … More “We can’t celebrate in Gaza or Bethlehem”.

Marianne Hirsch, ‘a retired professor at Columbia University, whose field, traumatic memory, is interwoven with Holocaust and genocide studies’, says, “Genocide prevention is a responsibility,” but despite that, “Now, we’re watching on our iPhones, and still people are holding back.” Why study genocide at all, then?

December 24, 2024

Will there ever be a vocabulary that describes  adequately the vengeful annihilation of a whole people? This is the more poignant in that this is a people that is already displaced and sequestered  by international agreement and deprived of the definition and identity held by other  recognised nation-states. Palestine 🇵🇸 is a nation whose very … More Marianne Hirsch, ‘a retired professor at Columbia University, whose field, traumatic memory, is interwoven with Holocaust and genocide studies’, says, “Genocide prevention is a responsibility,” but despite that, “Now, we’re watching on our iPhones, and still people are holding back.” Why study genocide at all, then?

What Socrates ought to have said: ‘The unchallenged life is not worth living’.

December 23, 2024

The only thing that is usually certain about the many quotations attributed to Socrates is that he probably never said them. Both of the main sources of Socrates’ sayings in Plato and Zenophon are unreliable. It is clear that neither were as interested in Socrates per se, as in using him to promote their own … More What Socrates ought to have said: ‘The unchallenged life is not worth living’.