Tag: writing

In a historical novel, you can ‘meet’ people supposed in those fictions to be famous AND those who are or ‘were’ so in ‘real’ life simultaneously. In Neil Blakemore’s 2025 novel ‘Objects Of Desire’, the character named Christopher Isherwood says that people want fame: ‘So that they can become monsters and make others feel bad, and no one will dare challenge them’.

November 3, 2025

In a historical novel, you can ‘meet’ people supposed in those fictions to be famous AND those who are or ‘were’ so in ‘real’ life simultaneously. In Neil Blakemore’s 2025 novel Objects Of Desire, the character named Christopher Isherwood says that people want fame: ‘So that they can become monsters and make others feel bad, … More In a historical novel, you can ‘meet’ people supposed in those fictions to be famous AND those who are or ‘were’ so in ‘real’ life simultaneously. In Neil Blakemore’s 2025 novel ‘Objects Of Desire’, the character named Christopher Isherwood says that people want fame: ‘So that they can become monsters and make others feel bad, and no one will dare challenge them’.

This blog documents reflection on a visit, and reading afterwards about, ‘Gilbert & George: 21st Century Pictures’ in the London South Bank, The Hayward Gallery on 22nd October 2025 at 10.30 a.m.

November 2, 2025

What might Gilbert & George mean when they said in 1986 in What Our Art Means (and republished by them in the catalogue of this exhibition in 2025) that it is intended ‘to speak across the barriers of knowledge directly to People about their Life, and not about their knowledge of art’.[1] This blog documents … More This blog documents reflection on a visit, and reading afterwards about, ‘Gilbert & George: 21st Century Pictures’ in the London South Bank, The Hayward Gallery on 22nd October 2025 at 10.30 a.m.

This blog is written after seeing Anton Chekhov’s ‘The Seagull’ as adapted by Michael Poulton at The Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh on Wednesday 29th October at 2.30 p.m.

October 31, 2025

This blog is written after seeing Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull as adapted by Michael Poulton at The Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh on Wednesday 29th October at 2.30 p.m. Let’s start with the fact that John Poulton calls this version of The Seagull not a translation but an adaption. Nevertheless in his programme note he makes it … More This blog is written after seeing Anton Chekhov’s ‘The Seagull’ as adapted by Michael Poulton at The Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh on Wednesday 29th October at 2.30 p.m.

October 21st 2025: The first day of my birthday treats ends earlier than planned: Mea Culpa!

October 25, 2025

October 21st 2025: The first day of my birthday treats ends earlier than planned: Mea Culpa! I started this blog on the 21st October and its now the 24th and so backlogged with diary like blog reports. However, it helps to organise my brain to do them. On the 21st, I wrote this after an … More October 21st 2025: The first day of my birthday treats ends earlier than planned: Mea Culpa!

A speculative blog on Kiran Desai’s ‘The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny’. My Booker winner.

October 17, 2025

At one point in the latter parts of The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny two women, Babita and Sonia, alone in separate rooms in a huge mansion from the Portuguese era in Goa, an era established from 1510, that has all the characteristics of a Gothic Castle of Otranto, speak between the sound-porous walls of … More A speculative blog on Kiran Desai’s ‘The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny’. My Booker winner.

Can ‘principles define how you live’ if you live in the world as it is. This blog looks at this by examining a recent (and edited) play text of George Bernard Shaw’s ‘Mrs Warren’s Profession’, which we see live-streamed on 23rd October at the Gala Theatre Durham.

October 6, 2025

Can ‘principles define how you live’, if you live in the world as it is. This blog looks at this by examining a recent (and edited) play text of George Bernard Shaw’s ‘Mrs Warren’s Profession’, which we see live-streamed on 23rd October at the Gala Theatre Durham. Geoff and I will be seeing this play … More Can ‘principles define how you live’ if you live in the world as it is. This blog looks at this by examining a recent (and edited) play text of George Bernard Shaw’s ‘Mrs Warren’s Profession’, which we see live-streamed on 23rd October at the Gala Theatre Durham.

The appreciation of art is not a matter of ‘personal choice’ or ‘favour’; it is a duty. This is so not only for its maker but its reading, for reading is, in part, co-making.

October 2, 2025

The appreciation of art is not a matter of ‘personal choice’ or ‘favour’; it is a duty. This is so not only for its maker but its reading, for reading is, in part, co-making. Duty, of course, does not exclude personal pleasure if it does exclude banal ideas of choice between pleasures. The quotation and … More The appreciation of art is not a matter of ‘personal choice’ or ‘favour’; it is a duty. This is so not only for its maker but its reading, for reading is, in part, co-making.

‘The departed are yet to arrive / … / but the roads are all laid out: /’ There is no ideal time to pay more attention to the details past than the death that inevitably defines a ‘life’ and picks out its salient meaning. This is a blog referring to a first reading of Simon Armitage (2025) ‘New Cemetery’.

September 30, 2025

‘The departed are yet to arrive / … / but the roads are all laid out: /’ [1] There is no ideal time to pay more attention to the details past than the death that inevitably defines a ‘life’ and picks out its salient meaning. This is a blog referring to a first reading of … More ‘The departed are yet to arrive / … / but the roads are all laid out: /’ There is no ideal time to pay more attention to the details past than the death that inevitably defines a ‘life’ and picks out its salient meaning. This is a blog referring to a first reading of Simon Armitage (2025) ‘New Cemetery’.

‘“Twa Boabs”, the man laughs. “A matching pair!”’ You wait forever for a queer Ayrshire Scottish artist intent on rivaling the phallocentric Robert Burns, then ‘Two Roberts’ come at once. This is a blog on Damian Barr (2025) ‘The Two Roberts’.

September 21, 2025

‘“Twa Boabs”, the man laughs. “A matching pair!”’[1] You wait forever for a queer Ayrshire Scottish artist intent on rivaling the phallocentric Robert Burns, then ‘Two Roberts’ come at once. This is a blog on Damian Barr (2025) The Two Roberts, Edinburgh, Canongate. The power of Damian Barr’s novel The Two Roberts lies in its … More ‘“Twa Boabs”, the man laughs. “A matching pair!”’ You wait forever for a queer Ayrshire Scottish artist intent on rivaling the phallocentric Robert Burns, then ‘Two Roberts’ come at once. This is a blog on Damian Barr (2025) ‘The Two Roberts’.

The best piece of advice is to read Arundhati Roy’s ‘Mother Mary Comes To me’ as soon as possible. This is a blog on that with a note on re-reading Freud’s ‘A Child Is Being Beaten’.

September 18, 2025

The best piece of advice is to read Arundhati Roy’s ‘Mother Mary Comes To Me‘ as soon as possible. There is an episode in Arundhati Roy’s 2025 memoir Mother Mary Comes To Me in which her brother, having brought home a school report saying he was an ‘average student’, is seen by her taken into … More The best piece of advice is to read Arundhati Roy’s ‘Mother Mary Comes To me’ as soon as possible. This is a blog on that with a note on re-reading Freud’s ‘A Child Is Being Beaten’.

Topics are so aery a thing that you are only ever ‘informed about’ them, but as for ‘subjects’: only they can ‘inform’ one.

September 10, 2025

Topics are so aery a thing that you are only ever ‘informed about’ them, but as for ‘subjects’: only they can ‘inform’ one. As so often, this question attracted me not because I have anything substantial to say about it in answer but because so much of its terminology has had importance to me in … More Topics are so aery a thing that you are only ever ‘informed about’ them, but as for ‘subjects’: only they can ‘inform’ one.