A day visit to visit on 21st February 2024 to London to The Courtauld’s ‘Charcoal Heads’ by Frank Auerbach & to the Hayward’s ‘When Forms Come Alive’.

Diary blog: A day visit to visit on 21st February 2024 to London to The Courtauld Gallery, Somerset House exhibition of Charcoal Heads by Frank Auerbach and to the Hayward modern sculpture exhibition, When Forms Come Alive. This is the Introduction blog to one introducing my day trip: For other parts use links here: Part 2: … More A day visit to visit on 21st February 2024 to London to The Courtauld’s ‘Charcoal Heads’ by Frank Auerbach & to the Hayward’s ‘When Forms Come Alive’.

In truth, if we even just tried to understand ourselves when we feel inclined to say that we are ‘bored’, nothing would be ‘boring!’

We are all bearers of our own contradictions. I am a desperate believer in the danger of the concept of elitism, yet I dislike the drive to blame élites (the word derives from the French meaning to select or sort out from the mass) – especially intellectual élites – for the malaise of the modern … More In truth, if we even just tried to understand ourselves when we feel inclined to say that we are ‘bored’, nothing would be ‘boring!’

This is a blog on Édouard Louis ‘Changer: méthode’ (2021) (‘Change’ (2024) but literally ‘To Change: Method’).

…, j’échouais partout et il fallait trouver un type d’existence dans lequel un corps et une histoire comme les miens auraient été possibles, c’est tout” (translated by John Lambert as “…, I was failing everywhere and I had to find a type of existence in which a body and story like mine would be possible, … More This is a blog on Édouard Louis ‘Changer: méthode’ (2021) (‘Change’ (2024) but literally ‘To Change: Method’).

The feeling of rejection and abandonment: a personal case study.

I am very much a person who continually questions their past, present, and decisions about the future in the light of those otherwise unconsidered trifles (thank you, Autolycus) picked up out of books. I say picked up out, merely I suppose to reference the character from The Winter’s Tale but actually these trifles seem to select … More The feeling of rejection and abandonment: a personal case study.

“Hidden in a book: A Life wrapped in dust covers”.

If there was a biography about you, what would the title be? The title of my ‘Life’, as I prefer to call  my auto fictional biography, would start with my childhood of course, something I addressed in a blog on the year of my birth, 1954 (see the blog at this link). The rather sentimental print … More “Hidden in a book: A Life wrapped in dust covers”.

‘Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation’

Are you patriotic? What does being patriotic mean to you? I have blogged before using this quotation, actually from a Canadian poet, but used on the outer wall, and as an epigram, of the Scottish Houses of Parliament at Holyrood, Edinburgh, as if they were the original words of Scottish author (poet, novelist and dramatist), … More ‘Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation’

Part 1 of a two-part blog which aims to talk about Andrew Scott’s achievement in enacting all the multiple personae of ‘Vanya’, as aspects of the solitary and solipsistic self, perhaps. (Part 1 is about preparing myself for the novelties of the Simon Stephens’ text).

Part 1 of this two-part blog about Andrew Scott’s achievement in enacting all the multiple personae of Vanya. In this part 1, I prepare myself, by examining the audacious text of the Stephens screenplay, to see Andrew Scott perform all the roles of this play, as it was intended one actor would, in the streamed … More Part 1 of a two-part blog which aims to talk about Andrew Scott’s achievement in enacting all the multiple personae of ‘Vanya’, as aspects of the solitary and solipsistic self, perhaps. (Part 1 is about preparing myself for the novelties of the Simon Stephens’ text).

This is a blog on Andrew McMillan (2024) ‘Pity’ Edinburgh, Canongate Books.

In Andrew McMillan’s Pity (2024) personal memories and socio-political histories meld so much that they are perfectly expressed in the same metaphors, as concerned with that which, ‘came back to him every so often, when the wheel of memory dredged it up and brought it into the light and then sunk it down inside of … More This is a blog on Andrew McMillan (2024) ‘Pity’ Edinburgh, Canongate Books.

Reissue: Some thoughts on online teaching method in the history  of art.

Orinal publication was: Online pedagogy in art: comparing A844 Block 2 Sec. 2 and Exercises 3.2.2, 3.2.3, 3.2.4 & 3.2.5 in Sec. 3Friday, 23 Nov 2018, 18:11Visible to anyone in the worldEdited by Steve Bamlett, Friday, 23 Nov 2018, 18:17 Having recorded real disappointment about the pedagogy revealed by exercises in Sec. 2 of the … More Reissue: Some thoughts on online teaching method in the history  of art.

‘I open my mouth to tell him he’s wrong. That he’s talking in tongues. Though no words come out. Nothing hitchhiking on my breath. Truth is troublesome like that’. This is a blog on the second queer novel by Jon Ransom (2024) ‘The Gallopers’.

‘I open my mouth to tell him he’s wrong. That he’s talking in tongues. Though no words come out. Nothing hitchhiking on my breath. Truth is troublesome like that’.[1] This is a blog on the second ground-breaking queer novel by Jon Ransom (2024) The Gallopers London, The Muswell Press. For my blog on Jon Ransom’s … More ‘I open my mouth to tell him he’s wrong. That he’s talking in tongues. Though no words come out. Nothing hitchhiking on my breath. Truth is troublesome like that’. This is a blog on the second queer novel by Jon Ransom (2024) ‘The Gallopers’.

A day in Edinburgh with Prints and Photographs: (3) Making Space for a Reason. But what reason?

A day in Edinburgh with Prints and Photographs: Exhibitions in National Galleries of Scotland: (3) Making Space for a Reason. But what reason? (Part 3 [FINAL PART] of Edinburgh blog). For Part 1: A day in Edinburgh with Prints and Photographs: Exhibitions in National Galleries of Scotland: (1) Introduction; use this link. For Part 2: A … More A day in Edinburgh with Prints and Photographs: (3) Making Space for a Reason. But what reason?

A day in Edinburgh with Prints and Photographs: (2) Hidden ingenuity and affordances to thought and meaning in the Art of Printmaking.

A day in Edinburgh with Prints and Photographs: Exhibitions in National Galleries of Scotland: (2) Hidden ingenuity and affordances to thought and meaning in the Art of Printmaking (Part 2 of Edinburgh blog). For Part 1: A day in Edinburgh with Prints and Photographs: Exhibitions in National Galleries of Scotland: (1) Introduction; use this link. For … More A day in Edinburgh with Prints and Photographs: (2) Hidden ingenuity and affordances to thought and meaning in the Art of Printmaking.