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.

Has anyone truly adapted? Pandemics and the global extinction of livable environments are the wilful product of a world obsessed with growth and competitive domination.

April 2, 2025

How have you adapted to the changes brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic? GAVI is a public-private partnership created to enable the vaccination of more of the vulnerable populations of the globe. And yet, even so, its research implicates the need for change in the approach of both sectors to their belief in growth as … More Has anyone truly adapted? Pandemics and the global extinction of livable environments are the wilful product of a world obsessed with growth and competitive domination.

When knowledge is reduced to appearance and those appearances animate ‘legends’ so that the experience is ‘epic’, there is no room for a book to ‘read over and over again’.

April 1, 2025

I still have not got myself ready to write on James Cahill’s wonderful novel The Violet Hour, though I have started, but today one part of it sticks out as usable in answer to this question. One particularly character in the novel, Fritz Schein represents what the ‘art world’ is increasingly meant to mean for … More When knowledge is reduced to appearance and those appearances animate ‘legends’ so that the experience is ‘epic’, there is no room for a book to ‘read over and over again’.

Let’s be Dante!

March 29, 2025

I could be Dante because, as yet, I have read only extracts of what is considered by some the greatest poem of the modern world. Moreover, I have been preparing to read it for so long that the task of cataloguing these volumes is raising my cultural guilt to new and higher levels than ever. … More Let’s be Dante!

When I do strange things, fortunately I laugh at myself. A case in point …

March 28, 2025

My current reading Being retired and in one’s seventh decade of age leaves the issue of time open and yet I seem forever to find certain nagging questions pressing on my mind as if they mattered top anyone – even myself. Here is a case in point. i have resolved to do a blog a … More When I do strange things, fortunately I laugh at myself. A case in point …

The art of not being looked at comfortably: Ron Mueck

March 27, 2025

I am still cataloguing books, clearing away rejects as I go and re-reading when I feel the curiosity. I placed the 2826th book for keeping on the catalogue I am making tonight (the rest boxed for various Fates) and then sat down to read that little book through again and reflect. It was a volume … More The art of not being looked at comfortably: Ron Mueck

‘There is always too much and too little said in any story of desire’. A blog that won’t be written on a book that just needs to be read and reflected upon.

March 26, 2025

‘There is always too much and too little said in any story of desire’. [1] Simon Goldhill is an exquisite historian as well as scholar of Greek drama, as his book on the Benson family deeply illustrates (see my blog on this at this link). As works they they therefore satisfy without commentary – for … More ‘There is always too much and too little said in any story of desire’. A blog that won’t be written on a book that just needs to be read and reflected upon.

A distant memory of a distant Peter Avery: “Between my vice and my religion, I find myself continually on my knees.” A ‘straightened’ memory of a queer Fellow.

March 25, 2025

A distant memory of a distant Peter Avery: “Between my vice and my religion, I find myself continually on my knees” A straightened memory of a queer Fellow. I have just read Simon Goldhill’s wonderful book published this year (2025) Queer Cambridge: An Alternative History and will, when I am able and have reflected a … More A distant memory of a distant Peter Avery: “Between my vice and my religion, I find myself continually on my knees.” A ‘straightened’ memory of a queer Fellow.

In truth no-one is ‘unique’. The best thing we can do is to avoid turning to the single issues that fuel ‘moral panic’.

March 24, 2025

I need to answer this obliquely in order to avoid any validation of the notion of unique personalities. They do not and cannot exist. The argument might be worth taking up another day but my aim today is to assume that we should and must avoid the tendency in single-issue thinking to invoke moral panic. … More In truth no-one is ‘unique’. The best thing we can do is to avoid turning to the single issues that fuel ‘moral panic’.

Tash Aw’s ‘The South’ focuses upon the lives of queer ‘angry young men’, and even boys grown as wild as El Niño.

March 23, 2025

Growth and hunger create awareness of ‘hollow spaces that never existed before’: Tash Aw’s The South focuses upon the lives of queer ‘angry young men’, and even boys grown as wild as El Niño. But are both responding to an extraordinary and new  ‘physical evolution stronger than’ any of us or merely to ‘the effect … More Tash Aw’s ‘The South’ focuses upon the lives of queer ‘angry young men’, and even boys grown as wild as El Niño.

Since I first heard Elizabeth Welch sing it in Derek Jarman’s ‘The Tempest’, it has to be the Etta James blues lyric ‘Stormy Weather’

March 22, 2025

Dressed as the sun, the lady sings to thoseBoy sailors, resting shoulder to shoulderOf stormy weather ahead on the seasThat stand for their life voyage with each other.And should one fail the other truly knowsThat somewhere there’s a crew to make bolderAssay upon , for open seas will teaseThat way, for past lovers lost’s my … More Since I first heard Elizabeth Welch sing it in Derek Jarman’s ‘The Tempest’, it has to be the Etta James blues lyric ‘Stormy Weather’