Tag: writing

The ‘gnomic aperçu’ seemed once to be the quest of the literary academy. John Banville tells us that apparent words of arcane wisdom often turn out to be ‘academic writing at its most convoluted, most resistant and most sterile, the deathless products of the publish-or-perish academic treadmill’. [1]

February 8, 2025

It seems odd to take as the text behind a blog not a great work reviewed but the review itself. Nevertheless today I do just this. John Banville is a great reviewer – the grim and rather schoolmasterly distaste for orthodoxy in which he specialises makes him a resistible public speaker but a novelist of … More The ‘gnomic aperçu’ seemed once to be the quest of the literary academy. John Banville tells us that apparent words of arcane wisdom often turn out to be ‘academic writing at its most convoluted, most resistant and most sterile, the deathless products of the publish-or-perish academic treadmill’. [1]

Oscar Wilde is reported as saying the law ‘is an ass’, but was to find that some asses had incredible power to hurt.

February 6, 2025

Oscar Wilde is reported as saying the law ‘is an ass’ (as are many others – it is actually a misquotation of lawman Dogberry in Shakespeare’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing’), but was to find that some asses had incredible power to hurt. I was born in 1954. The law was part of a vast symbolic … More Oscar Wilde is reported as saying the law ‘is an ass’, but was to find that some asses had incredible power to hurt.

Check your inner monitor for ambivalence!

February 1, 2025

I get some news!The first thing IDo, without thoughtApparentlyIs carelesslyInterpret it. News that you receive oft takes a moment to interpret. Is it good? is it bad? Or is it somewhere in between. Perhaps the news contains a mixture of good, bad, or nuanced degrees between positive and negative interpretation as well as a mixture … More Check your inner monitor for ambivalence!

“They say retirement’s a time for leisure / But not necessarily for pleasure”.

January 22, 2025

They say retirement’s a time for leisureBut not necessarily for pleasure. The little iambic couplet I composed, with obligatory soft and feminine rhymes (don’t blame me though for the sexist nomenclature of the discourse of poetic technique where double rhymes are named both feminine and weak), for this sad blog is meant to look at … More “They say retirement’s a time for leisure / But not necessarily for pleasure”.

Fables for the age: The ambition of Tim Winton’s (2018) The Shepherd’s Hut London, Picador.

January 16, 2025

First published in Open university blog Tuesday, 10 July 2018, 15:06 Visible to anyone in the world Edited by Steve Bamlett, Wednesday, 11 July 2018, 07:42 Fables for the age: The ambition of Tim Winton’s (2018) The Shepherd’s Hut London, Picador. I read every word of Tim Winton as it falls (in the UK) from the press. … More Fables for the age: The ambition of Tim Winton’s (2018) The Shepherd’s Hut London, Picador.

‘When will I, will I be famous?’: A blog on the question of desired ‘fame’.

January 9, 2025

The song by Bros ‘When will I, will I be famous?’ with lyrics by Tom Watkins and Nicky Graham seems silly enough when it gets into your head like the ear worm it is. But I often find that seeing the lyrics in print rather changes how you read and interpret it, when not driven … More ‘When will I, will I be famous?’: A blog on the question of desired ‘fame’.

“If there were no time there would still be some / Sometimes, …. / :Cocooned in comfort where there’s no splendour”.

December 27, 2024

If there were no time there would still be someSometimes, wherein we would find time containedIn some special relationship with us:Cocooned in comfort where there’s no splendour. It does not surprise me that when I think of time I type some plangent iambic pentameters like those I typed above with echoes of the moment in … More “If there were no time there would still be some / Sometimes, …. / :Cocooned in comfort where there’s no splendour”.

Why reading matters more than just hearing stories. With the help of Father Ong, Rita Carter and, more than the rest, Jobo (Joanne).

December 10, 2024

Father Walter J. Ong shook my world in 1982 with his book Orality and Literacy, wherein he tried to show us why we, seeped in literacy (even if we cannot or will not read because the characters to be read would still surround us and puzzle us, with either their potential to polysemous mystery or … More Why reading matters more than just hearing stories. With the help of Father Ong, Rita Carter and, more than the rest, Jobo (Joanne).

We called it the Leonardo cartoon. We visited it every week.

December 1, 2024

Leonardo da Vinci (about 1499-1500) The Burlington House Cartoon.Charcoal (and wash?) heightened with white chalk on paper, mounted on canvas, 141.5 x 104.6 cm. Purchased with a special grant and contributions from the Art Fund, The Pilgrim Trust, and through a public appeal organised by the Art Fund, 1962. NG6337. Available at: https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/NG6337 There were … More We called it the Leonardo cartoon. We visited it every week.

‘Stop saying words, my sister whispered back. I want to hear the story’. This is a blog  on Ali Smith (2024) ‘Gliff ‘.

November 26, 2024

‘Stop saying words, my sister whispered back. I want to hear the story’.[1] The paradox may be that we express our identity in words and names not in the process of telling and hearing our stories. I think Ali Smith thinks that may be true of the configuration of sex/gender too. This is a blog  … More ‘Stop saying words, my sister whispered back. I want to hear the story’. This is a blog  on Ali Smith (2024) ‘Gliff ‘.

If mine own self contains multiples then night does not follow day, they are simultaneous and not necessarily in contest.

November 24, 2024

The idea that the surest thing on earth is that night follows day in indubitable sequence is so often invoked that it is the stock-in-trade of politicians, especially those involved of the hubris of building and defending nation states within expanding imperial boundaries and in the belief that might is right: note the words of … More If mine own self contains multiples then night does not follow day, they are simultaneous and not necessarily in contest.