A ‘rolling description’ is where I post early on the day of an event and keep updating it as the experience I am trying to recount occurs. It is now 6.30 a.m on the 28th May and I am looking forward to friends Rob and Linda Goffee arriving(about 11 a.m. we think, to leave for … More It is joyful to visit mutual interests with friends. A rolling description of visiting The Laing Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, to see ‘Turner: Art, Industry & Nostalgia’, on Tuesday, 28 May 2024.

Erich Fromm distinguishes a healthy culture of ‘being’ from the diseased cultures obsessed by ‘having it all’. However you define ‘all’ in that phrase, it is the acme of a diseased culture ruled by individual greed alone. The psychoanalyst Erich Fromm was an iconoclast of amd from many traditions in which he was nevertheless embedded, … More Erich Fromm distinguishes a healthy culture of ‘being’ from the diseased cultures created by capitalist ideology, obsessed by individuals dreaming of ‘having it all’. However you define ‘all’ in that phrase, it is the acme of a diseased culture ruled by individual greed alone.

“Strictly speaking,” said Mr. Strict DyasDust, who spent his life correcting others, “this question is nonsense because it uses the word ‘practice’ as a verb whereas it is only a noun. Ask me, if I practise religion, or do not ask at all”. In the UK there probably are people who still care about the … More An Atlantic of a difference in ‘How I Practise as a person following a religion’ or ‘Practicing religion’. And then my answer!

Of course, having been born in 1954 and schooled in the sixties, I remember that time. My first computer was an early Amstrad bought in the 1990s. Even in the 1970s, I was subnitting essays at UCL in my own handwriting and using real books in real libraries. We now call that using hard copies. That fact … More X’d. From communication to controlling others in one social media application, once called Twitter. It did not need to be thus.

‘CALIBAN IS A MAN YOU SHOULD KNOW WELL. … He holds opinions about his rights; such foolishness he should overcome’.[1] This is a blog on Jack Hilton (with introductions  by Andrew McMillan & Jack Chadwick) [2024, but first published in 1935) Caliban Shrieks, Vintage Classics. Did Jack Hilton leave a legacy? If so, how should … More Consider legacy: the case of Jack Hilton’s ‘Caliban Shrieks’ (1935)

As he contemplated marriage, he wondered how he ended up like this. After all, he rather fancied the padre. Tennyson dreamed of a classical torso somewhat fragmented, Dickens just dreamed. Hanif Kureishi was just glad he was neither a soldier or a lawyer. Shakespeare dreamed of a Longshanks as if he too were part of … More The evolution of types: Men in focus. A photo-essay.

Minor Autopoesis: learning a lesson from Doctor Who. Autopoesis is a jargon term created from two Greek words to mean ‘self-making from within’. The Greek words are, as cited in Wikipedia, the words, αὐτo- (auto-) ‘self’, and ποίησις (poiesis) ‘creation, production’). For a time,  in art and literary criticism (in the 1990s) there was a … More Minor Autopoesis: learning a lesson from ‘Doctor Who’.

What does ‘positive impact’ mean? A story from another life not mine. Daniel wound his arms around himself and squeezed. Usually this kind of pressure seemed a kind of unctuous thing that created a flow of flesh and fat quivering through his body, as if the flesh around him were coiled like a snake, ready … More What does ‘positive impact’ mean? A story from another life not mine.