Tag: writing

And yet, in humans, I know my love as rare / As any they belied with false compare.

March 18, 2026

I am fairly sure I have never received a ‘compliment’ in which I believed that formed itself in words and metaphors, for these things are essentially fictive and their truth at the same remove from simple belief as anything else significant that is still composed of fictions. We can’t live without fictions but we should … More And yet, in humans, I know my love as rare / As any they belied with false compare.

Each day I wish I could find the will to write things ‘technically harder’ than is the norm in order to give me significantly ‘better practice’ in writing. This blog examines as a case study: Rupert Brooke’s one-act play: ‘Lithuania’ to show whether he could, as Maurice Bowra claims he wanted to in writing it, forefront ‘the expression of character, not of personal feeling, …’.

March 17, 2026

Each day I wish I could find the will to write things ‘technically harder’ than is the norm in order to give me significantly ‘better practice’ in writing. This blog examines as a case study: Rupert Brooke’s one-act play: ‘Lithuania’ to show whether he could, as Maurice Bowra claims he wanted to in writing it, … More Each day I wish I could find the will to write things ‘technically harder’ than is the norm in order to give me significantly ‘better practice’ in writing. This blog examines as a case study: Rupert Brooke’s one-act play: ‘Lithuania’ to show whether he could, as Maurice Bowra claims he wanted to in writing it, forefront ‘the expression of character, not of personal feeling, …’.

I wish for that ‘extent of subtleties’ Virginia Woolf discerned in Vita Sackville-West’s ‘Passenger to Teheran’: ‘the sly, brooding thinking, evading Vita. The whole book is full of nooks and crannies, the very intimate things one says in print’.

March 16, 2026

I wish for that ‘extent of subtleties’ Virginia Woolf discerned in Vita Sackville-West’s Passenger to Teheran: ‘the sly, brooding thinking, evading Vita. The whole book is full of nooks and crannies, the very intimate things one says in print’. [1] You glance at the photograph of Vita Sackville-West, taken on her own camera en route … More I wish for that ‘extent of subtleties’ Virginia Woolf discerned in Vita Sackville-West’s ‘Passenger to Teheran’: ‘the sly, brooding thinking, evading Vita. The whole book is full of nooks and crannies, the very intimate things one says in print’.

Why we look at a ‘two-dimensional’ picture but watch a picture that contains movement.  The possible role of attentional features of vision.

March 13, 2026

Why we look at a ‘two-dimensional’ picture but watch a picture that contains movement.  The possible role of attentional features of vision. It seems entirely innocent to us to talk about ‘watching’ a film, TV or a ‘movie’ but we don’t often distinguish ‘watxhibg’ from a rather passive act of looking at or gazing at … More Why we look at a ‘two-dimensional’ picture but watch a picture that contains movement.  The possible role of attentional features of vision.

I learned last what I ought to have learned first: that things connect most when they separate. Transit, Transition & Transfusion: Chiharu Shiota: ‘Threads of Life’ and Yin Xiuzhen: ‘Heart to Heart’ at the Hayward Gallery.

March 7, 2026

I learned last what I ought to have learned first: that things connect most when they separate. Transit, Transition & Transfusion: Chiharu Shiota: Threads of Life and Yin Xiuzhen: Heart to Heart at the Hayward Gallery seen on the morning of the 5th March 2026. This is a prompt question response and a reflection on the dual exhibition currently … More I learned last what I ought to have learned first: that things connect most when they separate. Transit, Transition & Transfusion: Chiharu Shiota: ‘Threads of Life’ and Yin Xiuzhen: ‘Heart to Heart’ at the Hayward Gallery.

Does life bear telling, when what matters in life is inenarrable!

March 2, 2026

I have always loved words that fox the mind, Words of the archaic or rare-used kind. My life-story is inenarrable. I can’t tell you stuff I’m not capable Of telling either if I’m deficient In apt terms, or secretly efficient In hiding things I dare not let you see In case perchance you think badly … More Does life bear telling, when what matters in life is inenarrable!

The last thing you learned OUGHT always to be to distrust the learning that refuses to be open to change. Some thoughts about Kirill Serebrennikov’s film ‘The Student’.

March 1, 2026

The last thing you learned OUGHT always to be to distrust the learning that refuses to be open to change. Some thoughts about Kirill Serebrennikov’s film The Student. What if you discovered that every truth you will; ever need, sufficient to contest any other truth, except its own contradictions from the same source, was in … More The last thing you learned OUGHT always to be to distrust the learning that refuses to be open to change. Some thoughts about Kirill Serebrennikov’s film ‘The Student’.

When Wordsworth said that ‘perhaps’ he did ‘not want’ a Redeemer as a refuge, did he think this was a job he could do for himself. That indeed would be a DIY project to wonder at! This is a blog on the book by Colum McCann with Diane Foley (2024) ‘American Mother’ as a book of redemption through story-telling art.

February 26, 2026

Wordsworth was sometimes called an Egoist in religion, usually from an an extrapolation from the following ‘evidence’, although but from a sub-clause in his case against Unitarianism and plea for the staid doctrines of the Established Church. The Unitarian Henry Crabb Robinson in his 1812 journal reported that Wordsworth told him that: “I can feel … More When Wordsworth said that ‘perhaps’ he did ‘not want’ a Redeemer as a refuge, did he think this was a job he could do for himself. That indeed would be a DIY project to wonder at! This is a blog on the book by Colum McCann with Diane Foley (2024) ‘American Mother’ as a book of redemption through story-telling art.

This blog is about a debut novel that, in my view, examines deliberate and / or necessary complications of what we mean by ‘being clear’, especially in the pursuit of physical satisfaction to selves full of yearning. You may guess this concerns an art that takes aspiring men and boys mainly as its subject matter, the debut novel being ‘Jean’ by Madeleine Dunnigan.

February 25, 2026

This blog is about a debut novel that, in my view, examines deliberate and / or necessary complications of what we mean by ‘being clear’, especially in the pursuit of physical satisfaction to selves full of yearning. You may guess this concerns an art that takes aspiring men and boys mainly as its subject matter, … More This blog is about a debut novel that, in my view, examines deliberate and / or necessary complications of what we mean by ‘being clear’, especially in the pursuit of physical satisfaction to selves full of yearning. You may guess this concerns an art that takes aspiring men and boys mainly as its subject matter, the debut novel being ‘Jean’ by Madeleine Dunnigan.

The notion that I must have a book in me and write it. Some thoughts prompted by giving up on completing reading the whole of Sacha Coward’s ‘Queer as Folklore: The Hidden History of Myths and Monsters’.

February 23, 2026

The notion that I must have a book in me and write it. Some thoughts prompted by giving up on completing reading the whole of Sacha Coward’s (2024) ‘Queer as Folklore: The Hidden History of Myths and Monsters‘, Manchester, Manchester University Press. Sacha Coward is a beautiful man (even dressed as a Nordic mer-creature) and … More The notion that I must have a book in me and write it. Some thoughts prompted by giving up on completing reading the whole of Sacha Coward’s ‘Queer as Folklore: The Hidden History of Myths and Monsters’.