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 strategies do you use to maintain your health and well-being? The idea that health is JUST an individual one is a relatively new one culturally and socially, although it’s roots lie in the Robinsonades, as Marx called the genre including Defoe’s ‘Robinson Crusoe’, of eighteenth century ‘enlightment’ and free market thinking. The idea has … More The illusion of control
What would you change about modern society? There is too much to change to achieve justice and decency in the relationships that human beings have with each other. But in the richer West and North of the globe, one necessity must be to stop the pressure on seeing economic growth as the means to hopeful … More Our hope for the future has to be decoupled from the false promises of economic growth
This blog is the final ONE on Yayoi Kusama and relates to the catalogue of the exhibition at Factory International Manchester Aviva Studios, which I visited on Tuesday 4th July at 11.15 a.m., as part of a selection of the items from the Manchester International Festival. The catalogue is beautiful and the photography stunning but … More This blog is the final ONE on Yayoi Kusama. The catalogue is beautiful, one essay is fascinating: Phoebe Greenwood (ed. 2023.) ‘Yayoi Kusama: You, Me and the Balloons’.
What do you listen to while you work? Listening has always been a theme of my aspirations in work and life. When I worked as a social worker and as a social work teacher, the answer would have been obvious – if you do work, social work, you listen to the person with whom you … More Is divided attention really listening?
‘ ‘“Tell me a story.” … / “I cannot,” I whisper. I hide my face in your shoulder. I cry. “I cannot lose you.” I pull you closer to me, I cannot lose you after all of our stories. My life is tangled into yours and I fear pieces of me will die with you. … More This blog looks at Ahmad Danny Ramadan (2019) ‘The Clothesline Swing’ and wonders about the therapeutic in the act of storytelling. Info. to @TheDannyRamadan
In an interview in Wired with Christopher Nolan prior to the release of his and Emma Thomas’s film Oppenheimer, Maria Streshinsky cited Nolan speaking in the December 2014 issue of WIRED which the film-director himself guest-edited, this statement: “The relationship between storytelling and the scientific method fascinates me. It wasn’t really about an intellectual understanding. … More Christopher Nolan once said: “The relationship between storytelling and the scientific method fascinates me. It wasn’t really about an intellectual understanding. It was a feeling of grasping something”. This blog examines ‘Oppenheimer’ seen on Friday 21st July (release day).
Dogs or cats?
Which activities make you lose track of time? Since I retired, I have feared losing my grasp on the need to keep learning and exposing myself to new things or revisiting old things in a new way. That isn’t because I want to widen the opinions I am ready to hold but to understand why … More Engaged: Reading and writing
There are some novels that tackle queer life performance head on without reducing it to the absurdity our enemies see in us. The Foghorn Echoes is one such novel which combines a take of the global sources of the traumatic experience of its characters; the product of civil and religious wars, decayed institutions, even those … More There are some novels that tackle queer life performance head on without reducing it to the absurdity our enemies see in us. This blog is a review of Danny Ramadan (2023) ‘The Foghorn Echoes’. Info @TheDannyRamadan
List 10 things you know to be absolutely certain. That nothing is certain beyond the impossibility of certainty is the only truth that we must hold on to. The rest is wishful or magical thinking. We may need that but it is only confused with a way of shaping destinies in the most unhelpful faith … More Impossible questions
‘I feel myself at some undefined point, insane for my own safety and wanting to hide’.[1] Love, Leda (written probably in 1965 but only just published) is a not a novel about the repression of gay male identity in the 1960s and its consequences in anomie, mental ill health, and suicide, though, of course, it … More ‘I feel myself at some undefined point, insane for my own safety and wanting to hide’. ‘Love, Leda’ by Mark Hyatt (written probably in 1965 but only just published) is a not a novel about the repression of gay male identity in the 1960s and its consequences in anomie, mental ill health, and suicide, though, of course, it is that too. At its heart is the concept of the ‘truest non-loving lover’; because it is a term impossible to define outside of those questions.
‘Books are difficult to tidy. … They resist’.[1] In this blog I say that in his latest book, Ian McEwan returns to form by asking as directly as a novel can how significant art might be attained out of the mess of the politics, ethics and socio-cultural and individual lives of generations of people of … More ‘Books are difficult to tidy. … They resist’. Ian McEwan returns to form by asking as directly as a novel can how significant art might be attained out of the mess of the politics, ethics and socio-cultural and individual lives of generations of people of our current time and age. This is a blog on Ian McEwan (2022) ‘Lessons’ as, perhaps, a new ‘spirit of the Age’[2].
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