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 brings a tear of joy to your eye? A tear will show the feeling I hold back, Small signal of something I can’t disguise Or hide. Those feelings that can only crack The surface of reserve will not surprise With joy another that your love would hold In open arms. A smile’s more true … More Why shyly cry, you can openly smile
Why do you blog? If I stuck with Descartes in the foundational belief that ‘I think therefore I am’, life might be easier because, after all, there is a remarkably low threshold for evidence of having thought or even for continuing to ‘think’ in a continuum of supposed inner activity. But thought as a label … More I blog therefore I am!
BOOKER 2023: Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song may be a book that fuels opposing views of its quality. Melissa Harrison in The Guardian says it is: “powerful, claustrophobic and horribly real. From its opening pages it exerts a grim kind of grip; even when approached cautiously and read in short bursts it somehow lingers, its world … More BOOKER 2023: Paul Lynch’s ‘Prophet Song’: A book of humanity set against injustice (and other deeper things).
Interview someone — a friend, another blogger, your mother, the mailman — and write a post based on their responses. We like to think ballet, like other arts, should be an expression of the joy of learning that art and be accessible at all levels of involvement. If we are to have impressive ballet dancers … More How do you integrate the aim of child education in an elite art like ballet with public production
How are you feeling right now? My real problem with this prompt is how to hone in on what the questioner might mean by the phrase ‘right now’. That’s because I cannot determine enough that’s static or detachable enough from the motion of time in all of its manifestations to fix upon a ‘now’ on … More Right now?
What daily habit do you do that improves your quality of life? If I cannot read, and that happens sometimes, I cannot easily reintegrate imbalances in my mental health. Modern versions of cognitive-behaviouralism stress a kind of mindfulness, which is, in my view, more truly named mindlessness, and praise being in the moment and possibly … More The regulation of the relationship of emotion, thought, sensation and action through reading.
As a former lifelong member of the Labour Party, I do support Jamie Driscoll’s aim to challenge the current leadership of the party that has served him and us so ill. However I do not think that is a sound basis for standing down a Green candidate. Indeed, it feels all the more important to … More My view on The Green Party being asked to stand down a Mayoral candidate in North East England in favour of Jamie Driscoll
What was the last thing you searched for online? Why were you looking for it? In order to answer this I feel I ought to exclude any searching I do for my blogs, for I do this merely to source links. I used to prefer the term hyperlinks that we once used instead of just … More Excluding the blogs …
A writer at Work: A quick look at Derek Owusu’s novel in preparation possibly entitled Kweku. Submitted with trepidation (but with no request for answer) to @DerekVsOwusu In a recent diary piece on a stay at the Edinburgh Festival, I included the following, about which I am ashamed enough to come clean, for I have … More A writer at Work: A quick look at Derek Owusu’s novel in preparation possibly entitled Kweku. Submitted with trepidation (but with no request for answer) to @DerekVsOwusu
What TV shows did you watch as a kid? When Artificial Intelligence (AI) threatens the jobs of actors, special effect stunts persons and extras in TV and film, because of the realism achievable by simulated scenes and unlikely animated characters, I wonder why a string-puppet, with his strings obvious, and his nature as an inanimate … More Why, oh why did we love Muffin the Mule?
‘Jamie said: Rivers do not sleep, not the River Brú anyways …. And did you know that Brú means crushing? Jamie said, … My teacher said that is what it means and that it is good because rivers are important, but also bad, because if it is strong, …, it might crush fish and rocks … More BOOKER: This blog is about Elaine Feeney’s (2023) ‘How To Build A Boat’.
Sometimes we cannot, and maybe should not, visit the dark places into which our friends have trodden, and hence the idea of walking a mile in your shoes is exactly the wrong definition of empathy. I do not know the shape of your pain nor the wide extent of its blank landscapes, Amie, and your … More Imagining my friend Amie on the request of her dear mother.
Steve_Bamlett_blog 