The Observer | Review | Observer review: Urban Grimshaw and the Shed Crew by Bernard Hare According to this book, there is an underclass of feral children in Britain. I trained as a teacher in Leeds nearly thirty years ago, and in the tough secondary modern where I did my teaching practice, I could have… Continue reading Feral Children again
Normblog on the Name gameThe very great and good Norman Geras – an honorary Mancunian – has the excellent Roosevelt Brighton as his West Indian cricketer name, and the very exotic Lambretta Metformin as his Star wars name. Actually, I’m a bit in the dark on Star Wars as I am one of the three… Continue reading Normblog on the name game
There’s an entertaining thread on the Mark Radcliffe show at the moment. He’s playing that game that we’ve all done where you create a name from certain elements, and the name is then your porn star name or somesuch. My porn star name (my first pet plus the street name of my first address) is… Continue reading What’s in a name?
EducationGuardian.co.uk | Research | How The Waste Land was done You’d have thought it would be difficult to say anything new about The Waste Land but Prof Rainey appears to have done the impossible. In doing so, he has managed to confirm what I suspect many people have felt – that the poem is not… Continue reading How The Waste Land was done
CultureSpace: I Blog, Therefore I AmThis is interesting – suggesting how identities in cyberspace are being shaped by the blogging phenomenon. I read today that there are about 4 million active blogs and millions more that have been started but then fallen into disuse, rather like the diaries we all used to start on January… Continue reading I Blog, Therefore I Am
Easily Distracted � Sample syllabi Just came across this – it looks like it could be a great course. I’d sign up…
Memex 1.1 The great John Naughton shares my frustration with corporate slogans. As he points out, consultants are paid huge wodges of money for this dross – you wonder why the companies concerned never seem to follow up by asking their clients if the slogans made an impression.
Curtis Bowman: Theodore DalrympleHere’s an interesting blog piece (what IS the word for a small section of a blog? – entry perhaps?) on Theodore Dalrymple (who would have guessed that’s a pseudonym?) whose writings I have often been intrigued by. Curtis Bowman is not unsympathetic, but objects to TD’s dogmatism. I know what he means,… Continue reading Theodore Dalrymple
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Nothing but the truthMore here from Jonathan Coe on BS Johnson. Coe makes the point that Johnson used the novel as a form, which might contain anything, including autobiography. The novel, in this view, doesn’t have to be fiction. In that sense, Johnson compares to the early heroes of… Continue reading Coe on Johnson
Guardian Unlimited Books | Special Reports | Top prize for biography of writer who won no glory This is good to see. The Samuel Johnson Prize has been awarded to the obscenely talented Jonathan Coe for his biography of the almost forgotten – but not now – experimental novelist of the sixties, BS Johnson. His… Continue reading B.S. Johnson triumph