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.

August 1, 2025

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.

The 2025 Booker Longlist – Template for updating the books I read or intend to read this year.

July 31, 2025

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.

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’!

July 29, 2025

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’!

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?

July 28, 2025

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’. This is a blog about Niamh Ní Mhaoilcoin (2025) ‘Ordinary Saints’

July 27, 2025

‘ … 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 …

July 26, 2025

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 …

We ingest self-sustaining comfort so that we might forget our emptiness in a world that starves others.

July 25, 2025

What’s your go-to comfort food? I think C. Lewis thought he might go one up on Milton in describing the role of food in temptation. But let’s start with Milton. Here is Eve having tasted the apple from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden: …………., for Eve [ … More We ingest self-sustaining comfort so that we might forget our emptiness in a world that starves others.

What act suffices as an ‘act of kindness’? Or is that the wrong question? This is a blog that is partially about Simon Armitage’s ‘Give’, first published in a collection in ‘Dead Sea Poems’ (1995).

July 24, 2025

From a film made to support schools teaching the poem Give by the BBC. See: https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/class-clips-video/articles/znd7t39 I happened upon a word on a wallThat said just ‘Give’: Give what? I thought, I giveEnough in taxes, in support of those Who claim to suffer more than me. Who knows?If someone could write on walls can’t they … More What act suffices as an ‘act of kindness’? Or is that the wrong question? This is a blog that is partially about Simon Armitage’s ‘Give’, first published in a collection in ‘Dead Sea Poems’ (1995).

A sonnet ‘stolen’ from Shakespeare: Mine is called ‘You with such power in sight, see nothing’.

July 23, 2025

The following sonnet uses all the rhymes (nearly) and much of the iambic line of metre that still work with modern pronunciation of the words – dignity for instance just won’t make sense today if pronounced ‘dignit-eye’ – from William Shakespeare’s ‘Sonnet 94: They that have power to hurt and will do none‘ (see it … More A sonnet ‘stolen’ from Shakespeare: Mine is called ‘You with such power in sight, see nothing’.

New directions in the queer novel. In a recent example from those written by the ‘best novelists’ of our time, William Rayfet Hunter’s debut novel ‘Sunstruck’ (2025), the story is often about the dual function of telling stories in society.

July 22, 2025

The job of the novel is not only to tell a story but to edit it to fit some kind of purpose that is its raison d’être. Yet simultaneously questioning its own purpose has also been a feature of the novel since its inception in the best novelists. In a recent example from those written … More New directions in the queer novel. In a recent example from those written by the ‘best novelists’ of our time, William Rayfet Hunter’s debut novel ‘Sunstruck’ (2025), the story is often about the dual function of telling stories in society.