Arts
The Swaling, Part Forty Five
A Queen’s Messenger had called through the night with a letter. Unhelpfully, I was asleep under a bed at the time. My colleague, Natasha, took the call but, also unhelpfully, had gone work before I’d [more…]
Literature
20th Century
Jinnie’s Story, Chapter Eight
Jinnie woke up alone on Wednesday morning, the bolt that Fritz the porter had fitted on her bedroom door was obviously doing its job. Today was “meet the lecturers” day and for some reason, she [more…]
Arts
Always Worth Saying’s Question Time Review
Question Time 4th March 2021 Panel: Kwasi Kwarteng (Conservative) Lisa Nandy (Labour) Andy Palmer (Car industry executive) Theo Paphitis (Businessman) Miatta Fahnbulleh (Economist) Venue: London Puffin, as your humble author begins his modest review, you [more…]
Biography
Sailing my life away, part 9
I still scan comments on an article recently published because I enjoy the opportunity to have a dynamic exchange with folk of widely varying knowledge of the sea in a much less time-consuming way than [more…]
Arts
Rough Gardening In A Pandemic (Laying The Ground) RIP Norman
It’s no secret that, by now, we’re all heartily pissed off with this whole Covid business. I could write a litany of woes, some deeply personal, some widely shared and others purely observational that would, [more…]
Fiction
The Tortures of the Quarantined
Simon Marmeladov was in Greece learning Greek. Because Santorini tends to be rather hot in June, the lessons started at seven in the morning and finished at eleven. This arrangement suited Simon who had become [more…]
Fiction
The Man Who Played Ross – Chapter 9
January 1997 – Salisbury Plain It could have been anywhere, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, but this time it was Wiltshire. The C130 rattled the window frames as it passed 200 feet above the houses below, leaving [more…]
Animals
Larry’s Diary, Week Eighty Two
Monday At breakfast this morning Bozzie was still ecstatic from hitting the 15,000,000 vaccination target with yesterday’s announced numbers. He keeps muttering about doubters and distracters. He was asked why in some places they had [more…]
Book Review
Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War Part 5
The Corcyran Stasis as a Template for Civil Strife and War While one might characterise the main theme of Thucydides’ work to be the gradual breakdown of Athens, its constitution, character, morality and eventually its [more…]