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.
What alternative career paths have you considered or are interested in? This is possibly a non-question for me since, being retired, I have no thoughts of a career in anything. My past is littered with the search and pursuit of alternatives but I doubt I would want to pursue them now or their alternatives, even … More How to answer, being retired!
What food would you say is your specialty? The interesting thing about today’s question is I suppose what is meant by specialty. The word has a kind of professional air to it, so that a working chef would talk of a specialism that they could say they were expert in. It might be a food … More The art of eating.
Today it was reported widely that the Israeli government has called for the resignation of the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN) for saying that, though the attacks on Israeli land and people killing an estimated 1400 were ‘appalling’ (as of course they were and more) they were not an event that happened in … More The ‘major’ events in history will turn out to be the ones we only half-understood at the time and were little publicised.
It was a dreary start. Rain and gloom and a memory that 69 is one year off 70, but hubby Geoff had gone to some trouble to get me a range of little birthday gifts and greetings for Joanne, Linda, Mike and Ian helped cheer the old man up. And then we remembered that the … More My birthday visit to The Bowes Museum at Barnard Castle: An exhibition of automata. 24th October 2023 and 69 today
Preparing for a visit to the delayed exhibition of the work of Philip Guston at Tate Modern on 21st November 2023. A blog based on reading Harry Cooper, Mark Godfrey, Alison de Lima Greene & Kate Nesin (eds.) (2020) Philip Guston Washington, USA, Publishing Office, National Gallery of Art, Washington. Philip Guston is a force … More Preparing for a visit to the delayed exhibition of the work of Philip Guston at Tate Modern on 21st November 2023. A blog based on reading Harry Cooper, Mark Godfrey, Alison de Lima Greene & Kate Nesin (eds.) (2020) ‘Philip Guston’.
‘I placed my ear on his abdomen and listened to the low gurgle under his skin. The system beneath it seemed larger and more powerful than the belly of a boy. … I shut my eyes. It was a dark and endless canyon. The deep deep sea, outer outer space’.[1] In the interplay of exchange … More ‘I placed my ear on his abdomen and listened to the low gurgle under his skin. The system beneath it seemed larger and more powerful than the belly of a boy. … I shut my eyes. It was a dark and endless canyon. The deep deep sea, outer outer space’. This is a blog on Nicola Dinan (2023) ‘Bellies’.
Words are terribly significant and phrases are perhaps more so. Context is probably all important in interpreting them however. To be asked what I am ‘working at’ feels a case in point. How, for instance, does the phrase contrast with a phrase using a different preposition, as in this question, such as: ‘What are you … More The end of failure and the beginning of ‘working at’ or ‘working towards’. Just what are you ‘playing at’.
I wonder what ‘most people’ means in the question today? For most people in the world neither know me or care to know me in any way at all and that is not necessarily because they make a point of excluding me or because there is nothing to know about me – although both of … More ‘There, that is our secret: go to sleep!’
When Tennyson imagined ‘lazy days’ he turned to a myth of a kind of rest that felt like giving up on what till now has seemed your allotted mission in life. He chose, as often, to retell a story about Ulysses from Homer’s The Odyssey to imagine both a man with a mission – for … More Rest is a dream yet to happen, even though ‘… others in Elysian valleys dwell, / Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel’.
I am no great fan of ‘success’. Hence the Gore Vidal quotation. But whilst we are on Gore Vidal’s sayings we might strike a note of caution. The better known quotation of his (which may well turn out – as much he mouthed or wrote did – to be someone else’s saying) seems to suggest … More ‘It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail’.
Forgive the ponderousness of what follows. I am in that mood again! In that aspect of my character I sometimes talk like a preacher of holy text, though I am neither a Christian nor what one might call ‘religious’. However, it is to Biblical text I turn when faced with defining what is a GOOD … More A good neighbour is not someone you know but someone who stays close to you when others don’t.
‘If I cut these strings / Set myself free. / Let myself fly, / What could I be?’[1] A journey through the life-transitions of Mike Johnston-Cowley and in the hope of their beautiful future. A blog to honour the life-blood in the anticipatory heartbeat of my friend, Mike, as they bring out their first little … More ‘If I cut these strings / Set myself free. / Let myself fly, / What could I be?’ A journey through the life-transitions of Mike Johnston-Cowley and in the hope of their beautiful future. A blog to honour the life-blood in the anticipatory heartbeat of my friend, Mike, as they bring out their first little volume of poems, covering parts of the story of their life and struggles others too will recognise. I am blogging on Mike Johnston-Cowley (2023) Through These Words: A journey of poetry
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