Gift for a shutterbug

25 Dec

[ezcol_1half]Because they hang onto my every word, so know every detail of my passion for photography, down to the mid focal length gap in my lens collection, and because they love and admire me so, Rhianna (18) and Charis (15) … Read More »

Escher! Get your ass up here

21 Dec

[ezcol_1half][/ezcol_1half] [ezcol_1half_end]I saw this, originating in the New Yorker, on FB just this morning. An Escher admirer for forty years and more, how could I resist? We don’t need this information to appreciate the New Yorker humour but as it … Read More »

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 »