High Water Rising

17 Aug

Most if not all the major religions born of the neolithic revolutions – Hinduism, the Abrahamic faiths and the myths of Classical Greece – feature a Great Flood. “One hypothesis argues for a catastrophic deluge about 5600 BC from Mediterranean into Black Sea”, says … Read More »

From bitter searching of the heart

16 Jul

A villanelle has nineteen lines and just two rhyming sounds, in this case “ain” and “art”. Frank Scott’s Villanelle for Our Time was set to music by Leonard Cohen on one of his more unusual albums, Dear Heather. Years ago I heard Cohen tell BBC Front … Read More »

The man who turned into a sofa

22 Jun

Today on BBC Radio 4, told from the alternating perspectives of family members where dad is laid low by clinical depression: a moving and creative exploration in prose monologue and rhyming verse. It even ends well. One of those rarities … Read More »

His Purpleness …

21 Apr

… the impossible, the outrageously and stratospherically talented Artist Known as Prince has died this day. Sometimes it snows in April. I just heard someone on the radio offer that “he played guitar as well as Hendrix, wrote songs as … Read More »

Is Photoshop cheating?

1 Feb

was as likely to be let down by failure to control light at point of exposure as by failure to edit afterwards.) When challenged on their refusal to master the tools of their chosen craft, they’d tell me they were … Read More »