Tag: dailyprompt

‘For a long time, the mother thought life-changing moments were momentous. Entirely unambiguous’. This blog is a reflection of Bryan Washington (2025) ‘Palaver’ New York, Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

November 28, 2025

‘For a long time, the mother thought life-changing moments were momentous. Entirely unambiguous’.[1]  This beautiful, moving and comic line from Bryan Washington’s Palaver rhymes with one of his chosen epigrams for the novel by Akira the Hustler (ハスラーアキラ, Hasurā Akira) : ‘Our days are demarcated in the repetition of little goodbyes’. Prompt questions are so encouraging of … More ‘For a long time, the mother thought life-changing moments were momentous. Entirely unambiguous’. This blog is a reflection of Bryan Washington (2025) ‘Palaver’ New York, Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

Where is my favourite place? It is a ‘place’ we construct by inviting (perhaps even willing) the senses to respond as if they were elsewhere – in some other space and time than the present, rather than somewhere in the present function of the neural mechanisms of the brain. Hence my favourite place has no agency except that I can form within it – beware relying on it as if it had such power!

November 26, 2025

Where is my favourite place?  It is a place we construct by inviting (perhaps even willing) the senses to respond as if they were elsewhere – in some other space and time than the present, rather than somewhere in the present function of the neural mechanisms of the brain.  Hence my favour place has no … More Where is my favourite place? It is a ‘place’ we construct by inviting (perhaps even willing) the senses to respond as if they were elsewhere – in some other space and time than the present, rather than somewhere in the present function of the neural mechanisms of the brain. Hence my favourite place has no agency except that I can form within it – beware relying on it as if it had such power!

“Boo only comes out at night”, so says Jem Finch in the 1962 film of ‘To Kill A Mocking Bird’. What does it take to make ‘darkness visible’. This is a blog preparing me to see the touring production of the play by Aaron Sorkin at the Lowry Theatre on 22nd January 2026.

November 25, 2025

Thrown to the pit of Hell, Satan in Paradise Lost looks around him: At once as far as Angels kenn he viewsThe dismal Situation waste and wilde,A Dungeon horrible, on all sides roundAs one great Furnace flam’d, yet from those flamesNo light, but rather darkness visibleServ’d onely to discover sights of woe,Regions of sorrow, doleful … More “Boo only comes out at night”, so says Jem Finch in the 1962 film of ‘To Kill A Mocking Bird’. What does it take to make ‘darkness visible’. This is a blog preparing me to see the touring production of the play by Aaron Sorkin at the Lowry Theatre on 22nd January 2026.

Wear colours as if they were things and contained emotion as well as expressing it, or, ‘if I were a fairy queen, I’d wear red and green’.

November 22, 2025

Wear colours as if they were things and contained emotion as well as expressing it, or, ‘if I were a fairy queen, I’d wear red and green’. There is some contention about whether the only personality who is allowed to be seen in ‘red and green’ is a ‘fairy queen’ or an ‘Irish queen’. Unfortunately … More Wear colours as if they were things and contained emotion as well as expressing it, or, ‘if I were a fairy queen, I’d wear red and green’.

Extra time. Isn’t that another way of invoking ‘…the respect / That makes calamity of so long life’.

November 21, 2025

Extra time. Isn’t that another way of invoking ‘…the respect / That makes calamity of so long life’. Asking himself whether he had rather ‘be’ or ‘not be’ (in short, die now by his own hand or continue living), Hamlet makes it clear that there is an angle (a ‘respect’) from which having ‘extra time’ would … More Extra time. Isn’t that another way of invoking ‘…the respect / That makes calamity of so long life’.

Considered from the abyssal plain, beaches are but stages of plateaus’; ‘raised beaches’ becoming remoter from the sea that defines them, on the ascent of a mountain to an unreceptive sky. Considered from the holidaymaker’s planning efforts they are colonies to go to when the world is too hot from the engine oil of busy-ness being burnt in the polluted skies.

November 20, 2025

Considered from the abyssal plain, beaches are but stages of plateaus; ‘raised beaches’ becoming remoter from the sea that defines them, on the ascent of a mountain to an unreceptive sky. Considered from the holidaymaker’s planning efforts they are colonies to go to when the world is too hot from the engine oil of busy-ness … More Considered from the abyssal plain, beaches are but stages of plateaus’; ‘raised beaches’ becoming remoter from the sea that defines them, on the ascent of a mountain to an unreceptive sky. Considered from the holidaymaker’s planning efforts they are colonies to go to when the world is too hot from the engine oil of busy-ness being burnt in the polluted skies.

Most of us favour only one animal – humans, and pretend to enjoy instead the slavery of the animals we willingly harm and subjugate to our will in order to feed, in every sense, our needs! Why are we so wrong?

November 14, 2025

Most of us favour only one animal – humans, and pretend to enjoy instead the slavery of the animals we willingly harm and subjugate to our will in order to feed, in every sense, our needs! Why are we so wrong? We all think we have a favourite animal and assume when we say this … More Most of us favour only one animal – humans, and pretend to enjoy instead the slavery of the animals we willingly harm and subjugate to our will in order to feed, in every sense, our needs! Why are we so wrong?

Never trust my Booker predictions! Yet ‘Flesh’ is a great winner of the 2025 prize.

November 11, 2025

Never trust my Booker predictions! Yet ‘Flesh’ is a great winner of the 2025 prize. In my last go at a prediction of the 2025 Booker [see this link], I placed David Szalay’s novel Flesh , 3rd out of the 6th. And now we find it has won. It is more than a worthy winner, … More Never trust my Booker predictions! Yet ‘Flesh’ is a great winner of the 2025 prize.

Making your mark from the offset: the fallacy of control. This blog is a reflection on Benjamin Myers’ new work, ‘Jesus Christ Kinski: A Novel about a Film about a Performance about Jesus’.

November 8, 2025

Making your mark from the offset: the fallacy of control. This blog is a reflection on Benjamin Myers’ new work, ‘Jesus Christ Kinski: A Novel about a Film about a Performance about Jesus‘. A quiet man reflects on a loud one, whose mouth is full of hubristic pretension and loudly scored swear words. How does … More Making your mark from the offset: the fallacy of control. This blog is a reflection on Benjamin Myers’ new work, ‘Jesus Christ Kinski: A Novel about a Film about a Performance about Jesus’.

My favourite subject was ‘Fainting in Coils’, of course!

November 7, 2025

The saddest character in Lewis Carroll’s repertoire of tragi-comic characters is the Mock-Turtle. While his friend the Gryphon carries his working-class aura abroad with him, making him feel himself  to be the equal of tyrannical Queens, the Mock-Turtle tries to blame his education for never rising from the great unwashed because ‘Washing’ was an ‘extra’ … More My favourite subject was ‘Fainting in Coils’, of course!

To the memory of John Burnside and in dear friendship for Joanne, I contemplate. the poet’s posthumous lines: ‘and everything they loved / is erstwhile, in the empire of forgetting: / …’

November 6, 2025

To the memory of John Burnside and in dear friendship for Joanne, I contemplate. the poet’s posthumous lines: ‘and everything they loved / is erstwhile, in the empire of forgetting: /  …’ [*] There is nothing that once were the objects of our lives that can be remembered in their entirety, hence the fact that … More To the memory of John Burnside and in dear friendship for Joanne, I contemplate. the poet’s posthumous lines: ‘and everything they loved / is erstwhile, in the empire of forgetting: / …’