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.

My memory of choosing a speech to perform in young teenage in a spoken English talent competition

December 3, 2025

I can’t remember exactly when it was, other than in the early years at grammar schoo! [1] Being a member of a drama group led to the volunteer who ran that group to enter her flock into a spoken English competition. We each had to choose a speech or poem to read. Most competitors went … More My memory of choosing a speech to perform in young teenage in a spoken English talent competition

That place is in the eyes and is the creation of the cognitive-affective machinery we all possess. It can even be simulated as if we were there in a fine performance, consciously enacted.

December 2, 2025

That place is in the eyes and is the creation of the cognitive-affective machinery we all possess. It can even be simulated as if we were there in a fine performance, consciously enacted. We saw a fine multi-award winning film last night: Since The Last Time We Met, by Matìas de Leis Correa, a brilliant … More That place is in the eyes and is the creation of the cognitive-affective machinery we all possess. It can even be simulated as if we were there in a fine performance, consciously enacted.

Late Medieval artists ‘shaped a society-wide fascination with all that bodies could become’: An exhibition and book charts the reasons why, using queer theory,  there is an inevitable relationship between the desire to create art and ‘bodies that were betwixt and between, changed or actively changing’. This blog investigates  The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new book by Melanie Holcomb & Nancy Thebaut (2025) ‘Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, And Gender in The Middle Ages’.

November 30, 2025

Late Medieval artists ‘shaped a society-wide fascination with all that bodies could become’: An exhibition and book charts the reasons why, using queer theory,there is an inevitable relationship between the desire to create art and ‘bodies that were betwixt and between, changed or actively changing’. This blog investigates  The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new book … More Late Medieval artists ‘shaped a society-wide fascination with all that bodies could become’: An exhibition and book charts the reasons why, using queer theory,  there is an inevitable relationship between the desire to create art and ‘bodies that were betwixt and between, changed or actively changing’. This blog investigates  The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s new book by Melanie Holcomb & Nancy Thebaut (2025) ‘Spectrum of Desire: Love, Sex, And Gender in The Middle Ages’.

Remove the artifice from intelligence: the real threat of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the presumption that we know what intelligence is and how it operates.

November 29, 2025

Remove the artifice from intelligence: the real threat of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the presumption that we know what intelligence is and how it operates. The definition of Artificial Intelligence in Wikipedia seems a good-enough start: Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field … More Remove the artifice from intelligence: the real threat of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the presumption that we know what intelligence is and how it operates.

‘For a long time, the mother thought life-changing moments were momentous. Entirely unambiguous’. This blog is a reflection of Bryan Washington (2025) ‘Palaver’ New York, Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

November 28, 2025

‘For a long time, the mother thought life-changing moments were momentous. Entirely unambiguous’.[1]  This beautiful, moving and comic line from Bryan Washington’s Palaver rhymes with one of his chosen epigrams for the novel by Akira the Hustler (ハスラーアキラ, Hasurā Akira) : ‘Our days are demarcated in the repetition of little goodbyes’. Prompt questions are so encouraging of … More ‘For a long time, the mother thought life-changing moments were momentous. Entirely unambiguous’. This blog is a reflection of Bryan Washington (2025) ‘Palaver’ New York, Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

The fifth, or ‘confession’ stage of the Alcoholics Anonymous programme of steps to recovery from addiction is that the addict has: ‘Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs’. What kind of drama does that produce? This blog reflects on seeing Jack Lowden and Martin Freeman in The National Theatre Live screening of ‘The Fifth Step’ at 7 p.m at Durham Gala.

November 27, 2025

The fifth, or ‘confession’ stage of the Alcoholics Anonymous programme of steps to recovery from addiction is that the addict has: ‘Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs’. What kind of drama does that produce? This blog reflects on seeing Jack Lowden and Martin Freeman in … More The fifth, or ‘confession’ stage of the Alcoholics Anonymous programme of steps to recovery from addiction is that the addict has: ‘Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs’. What kind of drama does that produce? This blog reflects on seeing Jack Lowden and Martin Freeman in The National Theatre Live screening of ‘The Fifth Step’ at 7 p.m at Durham Gala.

Where is my favourite place? It is a ‘place’ we construct by inviting (perhaps even willing) the senses to respond as if they were elsewhere – in some other space and time than the present, rather than somewhere in the present function of the neural mechanisms of the brain. Hence my favourite place has no agency except that I can form within it – beware relying on it as if it had such power!

November 26, 2025

Where is my favourite place?  It is a place we construct by inviting (perhaps even willing) the senses to respond as if they were elsewhere – in some other space and time than the present, rather than somewhere in the present function of the neural mechanisms of the brain.  Hence my favour place has no … More Where is my favourite place? It is a ‘place’ we construct by inviting (perhaps even willing) the senses to respond as if they were elsewhere – in some other space and time than the present, rather than somewhere in the present function of the neural mechanisms of the brain. Hence my favourite place has no agency except that I can form within it – beware relying on it as if it had such power!

“Boo only comes out at night”, so says Jem Finch in the 1962 film of ‘To Kill A Mocking Bird’. What does it take to make ‘darkness visible’. This is a blog preparing me to see the touring production of the play by Aaron Sorkin at the Lowry Theatre on 22nd January 2026.

November 25, 2025

Thrown to the pit of Hell, Satan in Paradise Lost looks around him: At once as far as Angels kenn he viewsThe dismal Situation waste and wilde,A Dungeon horrible, on all sides roundAs one great Furnace flam’d, yet from those flamesNo light, but rather darkness visibleServ’d onely to discover sights of woe,Regions of sorrow, doleful … More “Boo only comes out at night”, so says Jem Finch in the 1962 film of ‘To Kill A Mocking Bird’. What does it take to make ‘darkness visible’. This is a blog preparing me to see the touring production of the play by Aaron Sorkin at the Lowry Theatre on 22nd January 2026.

Wear colours as if they were things and contained emotion as well as expressing it, or, ‘if I were a fairy queen, I’d wear red and green’.

November 22, 2025

Wear colours as if they were things and contained emotion as well as expressing it, or, ‘if I were a fairy queen, I’d wear red and green’. There is some contention about whether the only personality who is allowed to be seen in ‘red and green’ is a ‘fairy queen’ or an ‘Irish queen’. Unfortunately … More Wear colours as if they were things and contained emotion as well as expressing it, or, ‘if I were a fairy queen, I’d wear red and green’.

Extra time. Isn’t that another way of invoking ‘…the respect / That makes calamity of so long life’.

November 21, 2025

Extra time. Isn’t that another way of invoking ‘…the respect / That makes calamity of so long life’. Asking himself whether he had rather ‘be’ or ‘not be’ (in short, die now by his own hand or continue living), Hamlet makes it clear that there is an angle (a ‘respect’) from which having ‘extra time’ would … More Extra time. Isn’t that another way of invoking ‘…the respect / That makes calamity of so long life’.