This is a blog on the queer delight of forbidden knowledge, recovered from an imagined Hell, and other underground space, in Olivia Laing (2025) ‘The Silver Book’.

December 14, 2025

In a cold Italian winter with frost on the windowpanes, Nicholas Wade, art student and former rent boy, and perhaps a murderer, burrows into a ‘red brocade’ in Danilo Donato’s hotel room making it seem a ‘scarlet cave, the same colour as the inside of an eyelid’. As Nicholas flips over, ‘presenting himself for consumption’, … More This is a blog on the queer delight of forbidden knowledge, recovered from an imagined Hell, and other underground space, in Olivia Laing (2025) ‘The Silver Book’.

Would a good judge (of character or anything else) be necessarily a good – or even just – person?

December 13, 2025

To be good at judging the character of others clearly indicates some skill, knowledge and values (developed to a high standard) in the activity of ‘judging’ – and in this case of ‘judging character’). But what loaded words these are! Being, for instance, a ‘judgmental’ person is rarely seen as the quality of a good … More Would a good judge (of character or anything else) be necessarily a good – or even just – person?

An Addendum to my first version of this: My friend Ann says I Recited ‘The Collar’

December 12, 2025

The Folk Hall at New Earswick. My first go at this prompt related to a vague memory of the recitation of a speech from Measure for Measure (see it at this link). Since then, my friend, Ann, who has been my friend since we both went to Wooldale Primary School, has reminded me of much … More An Addendum to my first version of this: My friend Ann says I Recited ‘The Collar’

Ian McEwan states in his novel’s title a concern with ‘What We Can Know’. Clearly, this concern with the nature and limits of knowledge is central to the conduct of history including predictive history, biography and the study of the art or even counterfactual forms of those things. However, the epigram of this novel, taken from the biographer Richard Holmes, implies that biography embodies ‘human truths poised between fact and fiction’ themselves which requires the question of ‘what we can know’ but also goes on to ask ‘what we can believe, and finally what we can love’.

December 11, 2025

Ian McEwan states in his novel’s title a concern with What We Can Know. Clearly, this concern with the nature and limits of knowledge is central to the conduct of history including predictive history, biography and the study of the art or even counterfactual forms of those things. However, the epigram of this novel, taken … More Ian McEwan states in his novel’s title a concern with ‘What We Can Know’. Clearly, this concern with the nature and limits of knowledge is central to the conduct of history including predictive history, biography and the study of the art or even counterfactual forms of those things. However, the epigram of this novel, taken from the biographer Richard Holmes, implies that biography embodies ‘human truths poised between fact and fiction’ themselves which requires the question of ‘what we can know’ but also goes on to ask ‘what we can believe, and finally what we can love’.

Events have no agency in them. Responses to events do have such agency.

December 7, 2025

Apologies for another nit-picking response but this question embeds a very poor assumption that events are a cause of well-being or ill-being, the former being positive the latter negative. It is an assumption built into that facile tool in developmental psychology, the Life-Events Inventory. Here is a description of it, followed by a brief history … More Events have no agency in them. Responses to events do have such agency.

“It’s not wholly unlike seeing people talk about Faerie”. ‘Do you ever see wild animals?’ is a question trapped in the net of  binaries. This blog takes as its case study Amal El-Mohtar’s ‘The River Has Roots’.

December 6, 2025

“It’s not wholly unlike seeing people talk about Faerie”. [1] ‘Do you ever see wild animals?’ is a question trapped in the net of binaries. This blog takes as its case study Amal El-Mohtar (2025) ‘The River Has Roots’, London, Arcadia, Quercus Books. ‘Wild animals’ possibly don’t exist except as the ‘other’ to two norms … More “It’s not wholly unlike seeing people talk about Faerie”. ‘Do you ever see wild animals?’ is a question trapped in the net of  binaries. This blog takes as its case study Amal El-Mohtar’s ‘The River Has Roots’.

The fever of seeking recognition is at least one of the characteristics in the origin of the social, or aristocratic, vampire in literary myth. We could all do less fame-seeking! A case study based on John William Polidori’s life and writing, OR …

December 5, 2025

The fever of seeking recognition is at least one of the characteristics in the origin of the social, or aristocratic, vampire in literary myth. We could all do fame-seeking! A case study based on John William Polidori’s life and writing, [OR], ‘He watched him; and the very impossibility of forming an idea of the character … More The fever of seeking recognition is at least one of the characteristics in the origin of the social, or aristocratic, vampire in literary myth. We could all do less fame-seeking! A case study based on John William Polidori’s life and writing, OR …

Five things at which I’m good; You’re asking me!

December 4, 2025

Five things at which I’m good; You’re asking meTo raise my self-esteem, to fly a flagThat speaks of five skills that could claim to beThe sum of my accomplishment, the bag In which my goods, being tied up firmlyCan be cast in the balance that will weighAgainst hydra-headed infirmity, That stands on stilts to be … More Five things at which I’m good; You’re asking me!

My memory of choosing a speech to perform in young teenage in a spoken English talent competition

December 3, 2025

I can’t remember exactly when it was, other than in the early years at grammar schoo! [1] Being a member of a drama group led to the volunteer who ran that group to enter her flock into a spoken English competition. We each had to choose a speech or poem to read. Most competitors went … More My memory of choosing a speech to perform in young teenage in a spoken English talent competition

That place is in the eyes and is the creation of the cognitive-affective machinery we all possess. It can even be simulated as if we were there in a fine performance, consciously enacted.

December 2, 2025

That place is in the eyes and is the creation of the cognitive-affective machinery we all possess. It can even be simulated as if we were there in a fine performance, consciously enacted. We saw a fine multi-award winning film last night: Since The Last Time We Met, by Matìas de Leis Correa, a brilliant … More That place is in the eyes and is the creation of the cognitive-affective machinery we all possess. It can even be simulated as if we were there in a fine performance, consciously enacted.