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.
Describe your most ideal day from beginning to end. Night sweats the body until it awakes, unsure whether the flakes of skin it makes are signs or symptoms of some eternal loss, or something even more infernal. Consciousness follows on, and then some light Registers at eyes locked in sleep till tight with gunge, as, … More A bad start to my perfect day!
How do significant life events or the passage of time influence your perspective on life? I feel I need to get this prompt out of the way, for it poses as a question whilst being, in my view, at least, nothing of the sort. However, I do not say that believing that there are no … More “… all things pass and nothing stays, and comparing existing things to the flow of a river, he says you could not step twice into the same river”. Hence: ….
A blog written for an Open University Course on Sunday, 17 Jan 2016, 15:35 Reflection, Psychological Theory and Multi-Modal Resources In considering some of the issues raised in the Region 09 Cluster 1 Forum on a Psychology Year 2 undergraduate course, especially a request that some model answer be provided, I decided to write this. … More Reissue (a sample on online teaching – by modelling expectations): ‘Reflection, Psychological Theory and Multi-Modal Resources’.
Describing Lou Reed’s response to an interview in ‘one British magazine’ around the time of the artist’s 60th birthday, Will Hermes say: ‘Reed brusquely parried questions involving his history (“I’ve lied so much about the past I can’t even tell myself what is true anymore”),…’.[1] This is a blog reflecting on Will Hermes (2023) Lou … More “I’ve lied so much about the past I can’t even tell myself what is true anymore”,…’ (Lou Reed). This is a blog reflecting on Will Hermes (2023) ‘Lou Reed: The King of New York’.
Write about your first computer. I think the Amstrad pictured above, here operating as a word processor,is how I remember my first computer, which I bought in the 1980s after getting my first full-time permanent job as a Lecturer in English at the Roehampton Institute in London. Amstrads were neither original nor particularly good but … More Imagine a world without Windows … and software a language not a set of icons.!
‘Dreams are like angels / They keep bad at bay, bad at bay / Love is the light / Scaring darkness away, yeah!’[1]. A great film sometimes discovers what is great, truly beautiful and scary simultaneously in queer culture. This blog reflects on All of Us Strangers, a film by Andrew Haigh seen at the … More ‘Dreams are like angels / They keep bad at bay, bad at bay / Love is the light / Scaring darkness away, yeah!’ This blog reflects on ‘All of Us Strangers’.
Sunday, 12 Aug 2018, 19:47 Visible to anyone in the world Edited by Steve Bamlett, Sunday, 12 Aug 2018, 19:49 The National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh (exhibition): Rembrandt: Britain’s Rediscovery of the Master The reviews of this exhibition sometimes play the ‘great master’ game: The Guardian’s reviewer says of the use of Glenn Brown, in … More The National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh (2018 exhibition): ‘Rembrandt: Britain’s Rediscovery of the Master’ (reissue)
W.H. Auden, in his poem O Tell Me the truth About Love, mentions amongst his many happenstance encounters with people who claim to know, or ‘looked as if ‘ they ‘knew’ about it, and the passing written references in history to times when it appears it did not pass without effect: “…. ; / I’ve … More A blog on finding a second-hand copy of his ‘Tell Me the truth About Love: Fifteen poems by W.H Auden’.
The study of leadership rather than an obsession with it is a vital task. It is the latter which produces what we too often call ‘leaders’ in contemporary life, who are, in brief, people who abuse relative power over others in order to assert a line of action whose success they alone are allowed to … More Leadership must be the object of reflection, I think, not just based on the assumption that leaders are needed.
What’s your dream job? A dream job? If your job is a dreamThen dream on in silentAssurance that to seemIs enough. ViolentSounds raise the alarumThat bruits wretched war,Dispatch to a haremA child, in fear of lawThat favours the powerful:The privileged man,Who knows not how hurtfulHands that go where they canGet access are. To rapeRemains the … More ‘… If / I have the time to work / Before ending up stiff / In death, I hope I shirk / Dreams. ….’ A doggerel verse for a dogged time and a worse prompt! LOL.
Write about your first name: its meaning, significance, etymology, etc. An unlikely avatar: Steven Universe, a character by Rebecca Sugar This is a blog I have resisted because all of the common stories of my name’s origin seem rather strained versions of a thing that is rather common and unremarkable, if ubiquitous. And then there … More ‘Weave a circle round him thrice’: is ‘Steven’ a name which strains for significance rather than having it.
‘beyond the light of memory / behind your life / there might be / other lives, waiting – ‘, ‘… I could have spent / a thousand lives changing myself,’. Queerness, allusion, metaphor and metamorphosis in Seán Hewitt (2024) Rapture’s Road London, Cape Poetry. I have waited a long time for the publication of this … More Queerness, allusion, metaphor and metamorphosis in Seán Hewitt (2024) ‘Rapture’s Road’.
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