Tag: news

Innocence is not the condition of childhood- rather it is inability to control the heart or stop it from being overwhelmed. This blog is an attempt to prepare myself to see a revival of Chekhov’s ‘The Seagull’ at The Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh on Wednesday 29th October at 2.30 p.m.

October 28, 2025

Innocence is not the condition of childhood- rather it is inability to control the heart or stop it from being overwhelmed. This truth is embedded in the reflexive nature of Chekhov’s great play The Sea-Gull. In Act IV of The Sea-Gull, we hear of the stage in a country estate’s garden that in Act I … More Innocence is not the condition of childhood- rather it is inability to control the heart or stop it from being overwhelmed. This blog is an attempt to prepare myself to see a revival of Chekhov’s ‘The Seagull’ at The Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh on Wednesday 29th October at 2.30 p.m.

Being curious about questions you never thought you’d ask! A way of preparing to see a new play: seeing James Graham’s ‘Make It Happen’ at The Festival Theatre Edinburgh on the 9 August 2025, 2.30 p.m.

August 1, 2025

Being curious about questions you never thought you’d ask! Can the ghost of an eighteenth-century Scottish liberal moral philosopher save capitalism from its own contradictions and from the reputation cast back on him by neoliberal followers from Margaret Thatcher to Fred ‘The Shred’ Goodwin, the notorious Chief Executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland and … More Being curious about questions you never thought you’d ask! A way of preparing to see a new play: seeing James Graham’s ‘Make It Happen’ at The Festival Theatre Edinburgh on the 9 August 2025, 2.30 p.m.

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.

Putting my head above the parapet again, if only for a gesture: ‘a GREEN thought in a GREEN shade’.

April 15, 2025

Describe one positive change you have made in your life I suppose a large part of my life previously has been committed to politics, having joined the Labour Party for the first time in my teens but I suppose that my politics may have faded in my life after I left the Party. I did … More Putting my head above the parapet again, if only for a gesture: ‘a GREEN thought in a GREEN shade’.

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.

‘Would You Let Yourself In’ : Leigh Bowery’s inclusively exclusive or exclusively inclusive dilemma and other contradictions inside Leigh’s outside keeps us outside his inside. This is my blog reflecting on visiting the new Leigh Bowery exhibition at Tate Modern with the help of it the Tate’s  publication Alice Chasey (Ed.) [2025] ‘Leigh Bowery!’

March 1, 2025

‘Would You Let Yourself In’ : Leigh Bowery’s inclusively exclusive or exclusively inclusive dilemma and other contradictions inside Leigh’s outside keeps us outside his inside. This is my blog reflecting on visiting the new Leigh Bowery exhibition at Tate Modern with the help of it the Tate’s  publication Alice Chasey (Senior Ed.) [2025]  Leigh Bowery! … More ‘Would You Let Yourself In’ : Leigh Bowery’s inclusively exclusive or exclusively inclusive dilemma and other contradictions inside Leigh’s outside keeps us outside his inside. This is my blog reflecting on visiting the new Leigh Bowery exhibition at Tate Modern with the help of it the Tate’s  publication Alice Chasey (Ed.) [2025] ‘Leigh Bowery!’

‘Education, Education, Education’ seemed good rhetoric to Tony Blair, whatever he meant by it. So let’s stay with its advantages as three sustainable objects.

February 22, 2025

Fighting for a historic third term in government, Tony Blair drove to his constituency in Sedgefield and said that his three-pronged object of political desire remained ‘Education, Education, Education’, without using the by then much mocked word. Here is what he said: Education has been, is and will be the driving mission of a New … More ‘Education, Education, Education’ seemed good rhetoric to Tony Blair, whatever he meant by it. So let’s stay with its advantages as three sustainable objects.

‘You find me fallen back for a spring, and I have every reason to believe that a vigorous leap will shortly be the result’. Even when we are rich in time and capacity for thought and feeling, why do we tend to be so miserly with it?

February 9, 2025

Budgets are, you might think, something business corporations or Governments have. In both cases they balance real or expected (or predicted) income or revenue against real or expected (or predicted) expenditure in order to be able to plan to meet their goals whilst remaining fiscally in the balance, over at least an acceptable period of … More ‘You find me fallen back for a spring, and I have every reason to believe that a vigorous leap will shortly be the result’. Even when we are rich in time and capacity for thought and feeling, why do we tend to be so miserly with it?

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” Or do they?

February 5, 2025

There are good reasons for avoiding this question. I am 70, but though there is roughly a 21 year gap between my birth date and that of my parents, that gap matters so little now they are gone. At 70, they were though still doing line-dancing and facing the world in retirement. Yet, as I … More “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” Or do they?

Handling the Trump syndrome: Never allow anyone the power to make or change law on their own

February 4, 2025

The Executive Order in the US Constitution allows one man (there’d never yet been a woman) to make Executive Orders with the force of law. Donald Trump signed 36 during his first week in Office. The possession in one person to make or change law is not thought of as possible in the idea of … More Handling the Trump syndrome: Never allow anyone the power to make or change law on their own