So lawyers do poetry now?

17 Dec

[ezcol_1half][/ezcol_1half] [ezcol_1half_end]Remember Martin Shrkeli? He launched Retrophin, a company that acquired rights to drugs for rare diseases, then ramped up their prices. One example was Thiola, used to treat a disease causing kidney stones. After it came into the Retrophin … Read More »

Reviews: Grandma; Red Rosa

16 Dec

Saw Grandma tonight and have to say I was underwhelmed. As vehicle for uncovering the high principles, low cunning and wrinkled foibles of septuagenarian feminist and hippie, academic and poet, lesbian and life-loving misanthrope, a picaresque day in the life … Read More »

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 »