Is the idea that psychosocial or other roles are ‘parts’ played upon the stage a tired metaphor (from the too-often quoted lines of Shakespeare’s jester, Jacques, from As You Like It: ‘All the world’s a stage, …’). Why might modern novels then take up that idea again, other than to keep saying and showing the … More This is a blog on Katie Kitamura (2025) ‘Audition’.
The Electra suite of the Tyneside cinema at 1.10 p.m. on Friday 25th July The events of Friday 25th July are a fitting image of an ‘alternate universe’, so I’ll describe those. I had planned to see a new film, one just released in the UK at least,Sam Sahid’s biographical and art documentary of the … More An alternate universe is, for me, sitting in a cinema that is entirely empty but for your presence, waiting to see the end of a film that keeps freezing at the same place. Getting to see ‘The Hidden Master: George Platt Lynes’ less alternatively at home on DVD.
A recent article (July 2025) in Community Care magazine instanced the stories of three social workers, whose view of the support they received from within their practice setting as a social worker forms the basis of their stories. The stories vary but are anyway all instructive if read carefully. Note here my care in not … More ‘There’s this underlying belief that if you’re a social worker, you should just handle the pressure. If you can’t, then maybe you’re not cut out for the job’. So says a front-line UK social worker of her own profession in the magazine ‘Community Care’. Can you continue to admire such a profession?
‘”What d’you mean?” / “What do you mean what do I mean?”‘[1] Do we ever know what a person ‘means’? Is that the issue in David Szalay’s 2025 Booker-longlisted novel ‘Flesh‘. Male novelists, with a deserved reputation for being interested in the nature of contemporary constructions of masculinity like David Szalay are perhaps too vulnerable … More ‘”What d’you mean?” / “What do you mean what do I mean?”‘ Do we ever know what a person ‘means’? Is that the issue in David Szalay’s 2025 Booker-longlisted novel ‘Flesh’.
Being curious about questions you never thought you’d ask! Can the ghost of an eighteenth-century Scottish liberal moral philosopher save capitalism from its own contradictions and from the reputation cast back on him by neoliberal followers from Margaret Thatcher to Fred ‘The Shred’ Goodwin, the notorious Chief Executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland and … More Being curious about questions you never thought you’d ask! A way of preparing to see a new play: seeing James Graham’s ‘Make It Happen’ at The Festival Theatre Edinburgh on the 9 August 2025, 2.30 p.m.
2025 Booker Longlist – Template for updating the books I read or intend to read this year. The 13 nominated books are in the photograph (from Booker website) below: 2025 Booker Longlist – Template for the books I read or intend to read this year. To be edited again after the shortlisting, winning announcement, and … More The 2025 Booker Longlist – Template for updating the books I read or intend to read this year.
In truth, the blandness of my verse proves I can not sing, but the attempt from the basis of no poet’s deep knowledge, skill, or values is also a measure of totally unschooled love. However, I am going to give the book of Gillian Allnut’s poetry – so fine that poetry is – to make … More My father sang in a choir
Is desire measured by size? Is that the same question as ‘does size matter?’? The i newspaper’ tries to get us interested in the ‘lipstick effect’!! I probably would not have read this piece, in our daily i newspaper for Tuesday 29 July 2025 on page 5, were it not for the WordPress prompt, partly … More Is desire measured by size? Is that the same question as ‘does size matter?’? The ‘i newspaper’, tries to get us interested in the ‘lipstick effect’!
Since it now seems impossible for me to mount pictures on this site, I am reviewing whether to keep on using it and renouncing membership. This happened for the first time today. Panic over. It turns out storage on the site is limited unless I pay more money – £7 a month. duly did that. … More Unable to mount pictures on this site
The perception of beauty as an act of morality in the queer art of Paul Cadmus. If satirical visual art codes the objects of its satiric gaze as ugly, then how does it encode its moral alternatives to the immorality of ugliness? Paul Cadmus is so disregarded a painter at the present time that he is … More The perception of beauty as an act of morality in the queer art of Paul Cadmus. If satirical visual art codes the objects of its satiric gaze as ugly, then how does it encode its moral alternatives to the immorality of ugliness?
‘ … when what’s healthy and joyful is hidden, you never learn to tell the good and bad apart’.[1]Institutions, and the Irish Roman Catholic Church is one such, often control what we are allowed to see or witness and what we are allowed to remember or record of our witness of events (what we have … More ‘ … when what’s healthy and joyful is hidden, you never learn to tell the good and bad apart’. This is a blog about Niamh Ní Mhaoilcoin (2025) ‘Ordinary Saints’
Only for the medieval monk is jouissance equivalent to his habit: a fantasy dirty ditty about the phallacy of institutional religion (I am thinking Of Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, having just read Ordinary Saints by Niamh Ní Mhaoilcoin (2025) London, Manilla Press – blog on that coming soon) It clung to me that habit of … More Only for the medieval monk is jouissance equivalent to his habit: a fantasy dirty ditty …
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