Tag: writing

Do we give up on one or all of the ‘words that bind us’ at our peril? It might be better to understand why words are multivalent: this is a blog on visiting the Magna Carta exhibition at Durham Cathedral on Wednesday 3rd September 2025.

September 3, 2025

Do we give up on one or all of the ‘words that bind us’ at our peril? It might be better to understand why words are multivalent: this is a blog on visiting the Magna Carta exhibition at Durham Cathedral on Wednesday 3rd September 2025. The exhibition runs from July 11 to November 2, 2025. “To no … More Do we give up on one or all of the ‘words that bind us’ at our peril? It might be better to understand why words are multivalent: this is a blog on visiting the Magna Carta exhibition at Durham Cathedral on Wednesday 3rd September 2025.

This is a blog on the rich novel that is Jonathan Buckley’s (2025) ‘One Boat’.

August 31, 2025

In metafiction, the narrator may make ad-hoc decisions about the nature of the fiction and adopt, if not fully implement, them in the very moment of narrating that fiction, as in the end of  Jonathan Buckley’s 2025 novel, One Boat where it appears that the narrator decides (on authoritative masculine persuasion) that her book is … More This is a blog on the rich novel that is Jonathan Buckley’s (2025) ‘One Boat’.

It was Jenny Saville’s new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London, ‘The Anatomy of Painting’.

August 22, 2025

In an interview with Sarah Howgate in the catalogue of the 2025 exhibition The Anatomy of Painting, Jenny Saville says that some part of her decisions and choices of method and technique as a painter is about freeing ‘up time to think about the way I’m applying paint – the mark-making, paint consistency and colour. … More It was Jenny Saville’s new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London, ‘The Anatomy of Painting’.

Somehow twilight at evening draws us to favour it. Why? After all it promises us nothing but the night, unless we hope to make the next day the first of the ‘rest of our life’!

August 18, 2025

Somehow twilight at evening draws us to favour it. Why? After all it promises us nothing but the night, unless we hope to make the next day the first of the ‘rest of our life’! When I was a student at University College London, I used to find myself walking through Russell Square to and … More Somehow twilight at evening draws us to favour it. Why? After all it promises us nothing but the night, unless we hope to make the next day the first of the ‘rest of our life’!

If I use the verb ‘to write’, do I really mean that what I write must or should endure

August 17, 2025

The best known quatrain of Persian Poetry, in stolid Victorian translation is that from what The Poetry Foundation calls the ‘Rubáiyát, his collection of hundreds of quatrains (or rubais), was first translated from Farsi into English in 1859 by Edward Fitzgerald’, attributed to Omar Khayyam. There are versions on versions of the quatrains translated, not least by Fitzgerald . … More If I use the verb ‘to write’, do I really mean that what I write must or should endure

On the Edinburgh book festival: why I still go and on whether I should keep going.                  

August 11, 2025

The Edinburgh Book Festival may be anybody’s kicking post for at least some of the time. For years, it was supported financially by Baillie Gifford with known assets in some very illiberal regimes and ethically if not legally (as far as we know) shady practices. That tie now severed, the right wing press led by … More On the Edinburgh book festival: why I still go and on whether I should keep going.                  

To carry is a moral task (not least because it demands nuanced and mature ethical grasp). Let’s hope I can be worthy of it in my remaining years.

August 6, 2025

The word ‘carry’ derives originally from the idea not on the personal capacity to bear something along with you on a journey but on the use of a ‘vehicle’ (‘from Latin “carrum” originally “two-wheeled Celtic war chariot), although the Celtic use itself bears the more difficult to reconcile association of “run”. Maybe the later etymology makes it … More To carry is a moral task (not least because it demands nuanced and mature ethical grasp). Let’s hope I can be worthy of it in my remaining years.

What act suffices as an ‘act of kindness’? Or is that the wrong question? This is a blog that is partially about Simon Armitage’s ‘Give’, first published in a collection in ‘Dead Sea Poems’ (1995).

July 24, 2025

From a film made to support schools teaching the poem Give by the BBC. See: https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/class-clips-video/articles/znd7t39 I happened upon a word on a wallThat said just ‘Give’: Give what? I thought, I giveEnough in taxes, in support of those Who claim to suffer more than me. Who knows?If someone could write on walls can’t they … More What act suffices as an ‘act of kindness’? Or is that the wrong question? This is a blog that is partially about Simon Armitage’s ‘Give’, first published in a collection in ‘Dead Sea Poems’ (1995).

A sonnet ‘stolen’ from Shakespeare: Mine is called ‘You with such power in sight, see nothing’.

July 23, 2025

The following sonnet uses all the rhymes (nearly) and much of the iambic line of metre that still work with modern pronunciation of the words – dignity for instance just won’t make sense today if pronounced ‘dignit-eye’ – from William Shakespeare’s ‘Sonnet 94: They that have power to hurt and will do none‘ (see it … More A sonnet ‘stolen’ from Shakespeare: Mine is called ‘You with such power in sight, see nothing’.

New directions in the queer novel. In a recent example from those written by the ‘best novelists’ of our time, William Rayfet Hunter’s debut novel ‘Sunstruck’ (2025), the story is often about the dual function of telling stories in society.

July 22, 2025

The job of the novel is not only to tell a story but to edit it to fit some kind of purpose that is its raison d’être. Yet simultaneously questioning its own purpose has also been a feature of the novel since its inception in the best novelists. In a recent example from those written … More New directions in the queer novel. In a recent example from those written by the ‘best novelists’ of our time, William Rayfet Hunter’s debut novel ‘Sunstruck’ (2025), the story is often about the dual function of telling stories in society.

Perhaps poetry has it both ways. The Golden Lads of Peter Forster, a Queer Engraver in Wood, seek adventure: Byron like Batman as we shall see. They do so though only in the ‘security’ that the poem that embodies them will last against wear and other thefts of time.

July 13, 2025

Perhaps poetry has it both ways. The Golden Lads of Peter Forster, a Queer Engraver in Wood, seek adventure: Byron like Batman as we shall see. They do so though only in the ‘security’ that the poem that embodies them will last against wear and other thefts of time. Forster’s Golden lads haunt The Folio … More Perhaps poetry has it both ways. The Golden Lads of Peter Forster, a Queer Engraver in Wood, seek adventure: Byron like Batman as we shall see. They do so though only in the ‘security’ that the poem that embodies them will last against wear and other thefts of time.

‘For our family and others like us, separation is an expression of love. Not just in the physical sense, but in the way we think’. This blog is a reflection on distance in memoirs after reading Tash Aw (2021) ‘Strangers on A Pier: Portrait of A Family’.

July 10, 2025

‘For our family and others like us, separation is an expression of love. Not just in the physical sense, but in the way we think’. [1] The obsession with a certain interpretation of attachment theory in Western culture was always in practice racist and a simplification of human neuro-flexibility. This blog is a reflection on … More ‘For our family and others like us, separation is an expression of love. Not just in the physical sense, but in the way we think’. This blog is a reflection on distance in memoirs after reading Tash Aw (2021) ‘Strangers on A Pier: Portrait of A Family’.