Tag: history

Let’s pretend we can get in the mind (or guts) of great artists, and consider how Anish Kapoor might translate the question, ‘What’s a time you followed your gut and it turned out to be exactly right?’ This is a blog preparing to see his new exhibition at the Hayward Gallery.

June 24, 2026

Let’s pretend we can get in the mind of great artists, and consider how Anish Kapoor might translate the question, ‘What’s a time you followed your gut and it turned out to be exactly right?’ This is a blog preparing to see his new exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. Following your gut to their source: … More Let’s pretend we can get in the mind (or guts) of great artists, and consider how Anish Kapoor might translate the question, ‘What’s a time you followed your gut and it turned out to be exactly right?’ This is a blog preparing to see his new exhibition at the Hayward Gallery.

The best advice is to be aware of and distrust the impulse, or the advice of others, that you be always in control of what you say and do, for it too often means that you surrender yourself to the controlling ideologies of the status quo, which is, often as not, embodied by that which demands your self-control. I think I learned this from Adam Nicolson’s characterisation of Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his ‘The Making of Poetry’ (2019)

June 22, 2026

The best advice is to be aware of and distrust the impulse, or the advice of others, that you be always in control of what you say and do, for it too often means that you surrender yourself to the controlling ideologies of the status quo, which is, often as not, embodied by that which … More The best advice is to be aware of and distrust the impulse, or the advice of others, that you be always in control of what you say and do, for it too often means that you surrender yourself to the controlling ideologies of the status quo, which is, often as not, embodied by that which demands your self-control. I think I learned this from Adam Nicolson’s characterisation of Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his ‘The Making of Poetry’ (2019)

When the subject is ‘seeing’, why exclude visual art, for that too allows us to ‘see’ in more than ways that are entirely visual. This blog is an explanation of why I go to art exhibitions. This is almost the same as explaining why I feel a need to prepare myself to see them. The pleasures and perils of researched prescience is however a subject in itself. This blog anticipates seeing the new ‘Zurbarán’ Exhibition at 12.00 midday to 13.30 (about) on Thursday 9th July. Will it change my world?

June 17, 2026

Explaining why I go to art exhibitions is almost the same as explaining why I feel a need to prepare myself to see them. The pleasures and perils of researched prescience is however a subject in itself. This blog anticipates seeing the new Zurbarán ExWhen the subject is ‘seeing’, why exclude visual art, for that … More When the subject is ‘seeing’, why exclude visual art, for that too allows us to ‘see’ in more than ways that are entirely visual. This blog is an explanation of why I go to art exhibitions. This is almost the same as explaining why I feel a need to prepare myself to see them. The pleasures and perils of researched prescience is however a subject in itself. This blog anticipates seeing the new ‘Zurbarán’ Exhibition at 12.00 midday to 13.30 (about) on Thursday 9th July. Will it change my world?

There is no need for magical thinking in order to find art ‘that you wish you could experience again for the first time’. Visit art enough and it must reinvent itself. This is a blog on preparing to visit London again for an art-binge-fest

June 11, 2026

It is time for another looking forward period and for some events preparing myself – where appropriate material exists for doing so (a play-script or catalogue already purchase). In those latter cases, I will blog in preparation, Here to announce my schedule (with Geoffee and Baz left behind for one night at home), under this … More There is no need for magical thinking in order to find art ‘that you wish you could experience again for the first time’. Visit art enough and it must reinvent itself. This is a blog on preparing to visit London again for an art-binge-fest

Look backwards to the history that you ought to make part of your own biography if you want to avoid political confusion.

June 10, 2026

I was just nearing 5 years of age when this magazine came out, still sold in pounds sterling at 4/- [4 shillings (20p now but what a large amount then)].This was the last edition of ‘Universities and Left Review’ (ULR) which became, together with ‘The New Reasoner’, the ‘New Left Review’ (NLR) in its next … More Look backwards to the history that you ought to make part of your own biography if you want to avoid political confusion.

Walking to the ‘The Playhouse’ at Horden from Warren St. to see Hamlet in the First Quarto

May 30, 2026

The walk was short but I didn’t know that when I parked up on Warren Street between Twelfth Street and Eleventh Street (pit villages and towns oft have numbered streets, lined on each sides by redbrick terraces, rather than names – perhaps to emphasise the fact that they housed such numbers of men, in the … More Walking to the ‘The Playhouse’ at Horden from Warren St. to see Hamlet in the First Quarto

‘What’s something you’d love to see in the future, but know you probably won’t live to witness?’ This question is stuck in the mud of illusion, for as Thomas Hardy said, in a work no-one ever reads, “if a way to the Better there be, it Begins with a Full Look at the Worst’.

May 26, 2026

‘What’s something you’d love to see in the future, but know you probably won’t live to witness?’ This question is stuck in the mud of illusion, for as Thomas Hardy said, in a work no-one ever reads, “if a way to the Better there be, it Begins with a Full Look at the Worst’. There … More ‘What’s something you’d love to see in the future, but know you probably won’t live to witness?’ This question is stuck in the mud of illusion, for as Thomas Hardy said, in a work no-one ever reads, “if a way to the Better there be, it Begins with a Full Look at the Worst’.

It is the kind of ‘moment’ that might be used as an answer to the title of James’ Baldwin’s novel ‘Tell Me How Long The Train’s Been Gone’, wherein moments have duration and measure in so many domains including measures of time and the quality, rather than quantity, of our attention to a phenomenon: the time scales, for instance, of narrative, history and self-awareness wherein ‘reality’ is at a premium.

May 25, 2026

In the loosest of uses of the word ‘moment’, I want to identify a ‘moment’ as that period of time over which I realised that reality is constantly reshaped by the means of its description. It is the kind of ‘moment’ that might be used as an answer to the title of James’ Baldwin’s novel … More It is the kind of ‘moment’ that might be used as an answer to the title of James’ Baldwin’s novel ‘Tell Me How Long The Train’s Been Gone’, wherein moments have duration and measure in so many domains including measures of time and the quality, rather than quantity, of our attention to a phenomenon: the time scales, for instance, of narrative, history and self-awareness wherein ‘reality’ is at a premium.

‘People stared at the narrow limits in front of them, until they neither saw nor heard the rumours at their own border’. Historical novels invent our interest in underrated lives; the likes of which might once have been lived by someone now forgotten, nevertheless. Is Bryher a neglected novelist in part for that reason? A case study based on their novel ‘Roman Wall’ (1955) and the borders of the ‘historical’ novel.

May 12, 2026

‘People stared at the narrow limits in front of them, until they neither saw nor heard the rumours at their own border’.[1] Historical novels invent our interest in underrated lives; the likes of which might once have been lived by someone now forgotten, nevertheless. Is Bryher a neglected novelist in part for that reason? A … More ‘People stared at the narrow limits in front of them, until they neither saw nor heard the rumours at their own border’. Historical novels invent our interest in underrated lives; the likes of which might once have been lived by someone now forgotten, nevertheless. Is Bryher a neglected novelist in part for that reason? A case study based on their novel ‘Roman Wall’ (1955) and the borders of the ‘historical’ novel.

What is ‘local’ and what is ‘custom’? Selecting for preservation is the practice of dominance not community. But who selects and who interprets what it means?

May 10, 2026

What is ‘local’ and what is ‘custom’: selecting for preservation is the practice of dominance not community. But who selects and who interprets what it means? Probably Wordsworth is the primary poet who turned his back as an individual artistic sensibility, and he, of course, was called the Egoistical Sublime by Keats,  on global trends, … More What is ‘local’ and what is ‘custom’? Selecting for preservation is the practice of dominance not community. But who selects and who interprets what it means?

Not to take action matters if you add to the ‘moral void’ around decisions about acknowledging atrocity or suffering. ‘Looking out for one’s personal advancement’ and the persistence of ‘the moral void’: this blog aims to look beyond, with the help of Stanley Cohen’s (2001) ‘States of Denial: Knowing About Atrocities and Suffering’, the conclusions of mid-twentieth century social science including those of Stanley Milgram and the studies of ‘passive bystanders’ prompted by the brutal murder of Kitty Genovese.

April 16, 2026

Not to take action matters if you add to the ‘moral void’ around decisions about acknowledging atrocity or suffering. ‘Looking out for one’s personal advancement’ and the persistence of ‘the moral void’: this blog aims to look beyond, with the help of Stanley Cohen’s (2001) States of Denial: Knowing About Atrocities and Suffering, the conclusions of … More Not to take action matters if you add to the ‘moral void’ around decisions about acknowledging atrocity or suffering. ‘Looking out for one’s personal advancement’ and the persistence of ‘the moral void’: this blog aims to look beyond, with the help of Stanley Cohen’s (2001) ‘States of Denial: Knowing About Atrocities and Suffering’, the conclusions of mid-twentieth century social science including those of Stanley Milgram and the studies of ‘passive bystanders’ prompted by the brutal murder of Kitty Genovese.