Tag: history

‘Only connect’ said E.M. Forster but what madness results. This blog reflects on Roland Barthes [trans. Richard Howard] (2000) ‘Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography’.

April 28, 2025

‘Only connect’ said E.M. Forster but what madness results. Begin by making connections between these two photographs and then with them. Roland Barthes [trans. This blog reflects on Roland Barthes [trans. Richard Howard] (2000:3) Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, Vintage Press Edition. Connectivity was always a thing I valued – in the connection for instance … More ‘Only connect’ said E.M. Forster but what madness results. This blog reflects on Roland Barthes [trans. Richard Howard] (2000) ‘Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography’.

Voting may not often change anything, but we have to hope it might.

April 25, 2025

The answer is YES. but neither person nor party can give any guarantee of fulfilling any intentions you had in voting for them, even if you had any intentions. Indirect democratic politics is a blunt tool that is barely even a record of popular opinion and few ruling parties receive a majority of votes in … More Voting may not often change anything, but we have to hope it might.

The Art of the Pit Head Bath. Tom McGuinness: metamorphic artist

April 16, 2025

The Art of the Pit Head Bath. Joanna Drew (Arts Council of Great Britain – ACGB), Douglas Gray (art selector & essayist), Norman Siddall (British National Coal Board – NCB), Sir William Rees-Mogg (ACGB) & Dr John Kanefsky (essaysist) (1982: page 81) Coal: British Mining in Art 1680 -1980, London, The Arts Council of Great … More The Art of the Pit Head Bath. Tom McGuinness: metamorphic artist

Do Roads answer questions? In honour of a great photographer, Chris Killip

April 5, 2025

As I was sorting out my books again, I came across a book I bought at the Laing (pronounced ‘Laine’) Gallery in Newcastle when I visited the wonderful permanent exhibition there. It’s a huge book – the size newspapers used to be and made of a similar kind of paper. But how do you look … More Do Roads answer questions? In honour of a great photographer, Chris Killip

‘For the Mesopotamians, truth was not contained ….’: was their culture such a one that norms existed alongside happily alongside their contradiction, and repression was unnecessary. This blog reflects on a first reading of Selena Wisnom [2025] ‘The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of History’.

April 4, 2025

When Alexander Pope warned that ‘a little learning is a dangerous thing,’ he was warning that, since error lies everywhere, we need exposure to all the evidence that supports the one and only version of knowledge of the world that is the truth. The real danger is that there are so many statements that claim … More ‘For the Mesopotamians, truth was not contained ….’: was their culture such a one that norms existed alongside happily alongside their contradiction, and repression was unnecessary. This blog reflects on a first reading of Selena Wisnom [2025] ‘The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of History’.

Thomas Haller’s resurrection is his ‘lilac renaissance, his violet hour’.

April 3, 2025

Fritz Schein lives entirely in, and on as his means of living, ‘the art world’ of ‘spectacularity’ – a world of apparently random images and appearances that eschews the privacy of inner reflection by being in love with the still surface of mirrors. When the ‘great recluse’ Thomas Haller turns up at a show Schein knows … More Thomas Haller’s resurrection is his ‘lilac renaissance, his violet hour’.

‘When I were five, I wore a plastic sword’: my child hero then, not Hugh MacDiarmid’s hero in his ‘Hymn to Lenin’ [but confused with Shakespeare’s ‘Richard III’ in my childish brain].

March 19, 2025

When I were five, I wore a plastic swordTo make my fantasy of Shakie’s ‘DickThe Turd’, heroic tho’ a villain, boredOf bowing to lesser kings, cringing sick-With-fancies sycophants to restrainingRealities. To change the sad bad worldEven then was my aim: rid of feigningWe would, I’d ensure it, red flag unfurledMake level those peaks of  false … More ‘When I were five, I wore a plastic sword’: my child hero then, not Hugh MacDiarmid’s hero in his ‘Hymn to Lenin’ [but confused with Shakespeare’s ‘Richard III’ in my childish brain].

Celebrating the achievements of women through visibility: the means and the content of our celebration in Bishop Auckland Town Hall.

March 5, 2025

Celebrating the achievements of women through visibility: the means and the content of our celebration in Bishop Auckland Town Hall. Provincial venues continually stretch themselves as media of radical representation of supposedly silenced and supposedly invisible populations. Visibility is promoted as a political object in all kinds of ‘pride’ celebrations, that insist that the fact … More Celebrating the achievements of women through visibility: the means and the content of our celebration in Bishop Auckland Town Hall.

The danger of loaded words in questions.

March 3, 2025

Superstition is very often a word that is pre-loaded with value judgments. In mainstream modern usage, with justification in the use of it by the ancients and in the history of Christianity. Rarly and continuing internal disputes in Christian tradition is larded with name-calling (in which being ‘superstitious’ is a claim made against sects being … More The danger of loaded words in questions.

A blog on the beautiful new novel by Adrian Duncan ‘The Gorgeous Inertia of the Earth’ (2025)

February 7, 2025

‘…, and yet there is something in the form that does not make sense to me’.[1] The beautiful new novel by Adrian Duncan The Gorgeous Inertia of the Earth (2025) imagines a project in which the ‘history from within’ is sought of ‘selected sculptures’.[2]  That history in a novel extends to the people who work  … More A blog on the beautiful new novel by Adrian Duncan ‘The Gorgeous Inertia of the Earth’ (2025)