Cherished

8 Dec

I’ve been writing scathing posts for too long. Need to lighten up. There’s beauty in the world yet … A few years ago a Radio 4 Saturday slot had listeners sending in the stories behind cherished possessions, the things they’d … Read More »

Go ask Alice!

18 Nov

Few things musical exemplify more perfectly the acid-drenched clarion call to sixties hedonism than the west coast sounds of Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service. It’s a truth universally acknowledged that the greatest of these was Dead but … Read More »

Do geese see god?

9 Nov

do nine men interpret – nine men I nod. Thanks to Pete for this gem: a song by Weird Al Yankovic that’s not only a classy parody of Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues but whose every line is a palindrome.  

Buddha in the machine revisited

8 Nov

I’ve never doubted it’s possible to speak of personal things in an impersonal way, though I’m equally sure there are those who can’t tell the difference. Four years ago a cancer scare coincided with looming redundancy at Sheffield Hallam Uni. … Read More »

Suffragette

20 Oct

Is nothing sacred? It seems not even 007 is immune to the new trend of releasing movies on a Monday. So too with Suffragette, but any day of the week the latter was bound to disappoint. Yes, it conveys the … Read More »

Oregon shooting

2 Oct

A fairly decent response from Obama here on the dreadful news from Oregon. In thinking about weapons of death, let’s for a moment set aside the USA’s trillions of dollars spent on “keeping Americans safe” – a project whose side … Read More »