Tag: writing

You can’t breathe? Let me sell you some ‘air’. You have no money. That means you have no ‘demand’ for our air supply effectively. Can I sell your relatives a funeral?

January 7, 2026

Our ideas of what might be sold at a cost that allows for profit to its investors, rather than just payment for the technicians that discover and refine it from sources, has been deeply influenced by water. Consider this blog post (full post linked here) which posits that some people already pay to breathe air, … More You can’t breathe? Let me sell you some ‘air’. You have no money. That means you have no ‘demand’ for our air supply effectively. Can I sell your relatives a funeral?

Despite the literary establishment, biography can be done differently. Reflections on James Campbell (1991) ‘Talking at the Gates: A Life of James Baldwin’.

January 6, 2026

The white literary establishment once considered itself to be colour-blind, dealing equally with all writing free of categories such as ‘Black writing’, as distinguished from ‘White writing’, neither of which this establishment considered valid categorisations of the written literary text. For a literary biographer however it may be possible to tell the story of black … More Despite the literary establishment, biography can be done differently. Reflections on James Campbell (1991) ‘Talking at the Gates: A Life of James Baldwin’.

You get to build your perfect space for reading and writing. What’s it like? I think that for me the only answer I could supply would be that I should build a space that breaks down the boundaries we build around us to define our interior, even between reader and writer. This blog uses as a case study Timothy O’Grady (2025) ‘Monaghan’.

December 27, 2025

You get to build your perfect space for reading and writing. What’s it like? I think that for me the only answer I could supply would be that I should build a space that breaks down the boundaries we build around us to define our interior. Talking about his inspiration in writing To Anthony Cummins … More You get to build your perfect space for reading and writing. What’s it like? I think that for me the only answer I could supply would be that I should build a space that breaks down the boundaries we build around us to define our interior, even between reader and writer. This blog uses as a case study Timothy O’Grady (2025) ‘Monaghan’.

Who are the biggest influences in my life will be probably be both my emergent identity and its destiny!

December 24, 2025

My answer to this prompt question is vague, isn’t it? It deliberately employs an archaic usage of the word ‘who’ that has no clear referent but nevertheless does not explicitly ask a question? It is differentiated from tje conventional usage in the following Ai supplied dictionary definition: The archaic usage isn’t  quite complete for even … More Who are the biggest influences in my life will be probably be both my emergent identity and its destiny!

It was this blog, of course! It is on Peter Jefferies & Gregory Jusdanis ‘Alexandrian Sphinx: The Hidden Life of Constantine Cavafy’.

December 20, 2025

It was this blog, of course! How to write on a life, whose archival raw material is ‘marked by two conspicuous gaps – the relative absence of material regarding Constantine’s erotic life and his views of Muslim Egyptians’.[1] This is a blog on Peter Jefferies & Gregory Jusdanis Alexandrian Sphinx: The Hidden Life of Constantine … More It was this blog, of course! It is on Peter Jefferies & Gregory Jusdanis ‘Alexandrian Sphinx: The Hidden Life of Constantine Cavafy’.

‘For a long time, the mother thought life-changing moments were momentous. Entirely unambiguous’. This blog is a reflection of Bryan Washington (2025) ‘Palaver’ New York, Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

November 28, 2025

‘For a long time, the mother thought life-changing moments were momentous. Entirely unambiguous’.[1]  This beautiful, moving and comic line from Bryan Washington’s Palaver rhymes with one of his chosen epigrams for the novel by Akira the Hustler (ハスラーアキラ, Hasurā Akira) : ‘Our days are demarcated in the repetition of little goodbyes’. Prompt questions are so encouraging of … More ‘For a long time, the mother thought life-changing moments were momentous. Entirely unambiguous’. This blog is a reflection of Bryan Washington (2025) ‘Palaver’ New York, Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

Where is my favourite place? It is a ‘place’ we construct by inviting (perhaps even willing) the senses to respond as if they were elsewhere – in some other space and time than the present, rather than somewhere in the present function of the neural mechanisms of the brain. Hence my favourite place has no agency except that I can form within it – beware relying on it as if it had such power!

November 26, 2025

Where is my favourite place?  It is a place we construct by inviting (perhaps even willing) the senses to respond as if they were elsewhere – in some other space and time than the present, rather than somewhere in the present function of the neural mechanisms of the brain.  Hence my favour place has no … More Where is my favourite place? It is a ‘place’ we construct by inviting (perhaps even willing) the senses to respond as if they were elsewhere – in some other space and time than the present, rather than somewhere in the present function of the neural mechanisms of the brain. Hence my favourite place has no agency except that I can form within it – beware relying on it as if it had such power!

Wear colours as if they were things and contained emotion as well as expressing it, or, ‘if I were a fairy queen, I’d wear red and green’.

November 22, 2025

Wear colours as if they were things and contained emotion as well as expressing it, or, ‘if I were a fairy queen, I’d wear red and green’. There is some contention about whether the only personality who is allowed to be seen in ‘red and green’ is a ‘fairy queen’ or an ‘Irish queen’. Unfortunately … More Wear colours as if they were things and contained emotion as well as expressing it, or, ‘if I were a fairy queen, I’d wear red and green’.

Considered from the abyssal plain, beaches are but stages of plateaus’; ‘raised beaches’ becoming remoter from the sea that defines them, on the ascent of a mountain to an unreceptive sky. Considered from the holidaymaker’s planning efforts they are colonies to go to when the world is too hot from the engine oil of busy-ness being burnt in the polluted skies.

November 20, 2025

Considered from the abyssal plain, beaches are but stages of plateaus; ‘raised beaches’ becoming remoter from the sea that defines them, on the ascent of a mountain to an unreceptive sky. Considered from the holidaymaker’s planning efforts they are colonies to go to when the world is too hot from the engine oil of busy-ness … More Considered from the abyssal plain, beaches are but stages of plateaus’; ‘raised beaches’ becoming remoter from the sea that defines them, on the ascent of a mountain to an unreceptive sky. Considered from the holidaymaker’s planning efforts they are colonies to go to when the world is too hot from the engine oil of busy-ness being burnt in the polluted skies.

This is a blog on Murdoch’s Queer Poetry. Is it a layer of Queer History or the record of  a Psychosocial Anomaly? It is based on Iris Murdoch (ed. Anne Rowe, Miles Leeson, Rachel Hirschler & Frances White) [2025] ‘Poems from an Attic: Selected Poems 1936 – 1995’

November 19, 2025

One line in a poem of complicated love between women, written to Brigid Brophy, by Iris Murdoch reads: ‘Don’t  make of sex a basic category’. To her journal she committed the following reflection about herself: ‘It’s no good being a female queer, one must be a male one’: This is a blog on Murdoch’s Queer … More This is a blog on Murdoch’s Queer Poetry. Is it a layer of Queer History or the record of  a Psychosocial Anomaly? It is based on Iris Murdoch (ed. Anne Rowe, Miles Leeson, Rachel Hirschler & Frances White) [2025] ‘Poems from an Attic: Selected Poems 1936 – 1995’