Make it New
Slack blogging around here of late, but I haven’t been completely idle. There was a blog for my Modernism students, which is still current, and available here. New posts to follow shortly.
Author Archive
Thunder Demons
Back in November last year, my birthday weekend was spent in Amsterdam. We chose Amsterdam because we’d never been there, and because my friend Dipika Mukherjee was hosting the European launch of her novel Thunder Demons there. Dipika is professor of linguistics at Chicago and Shanghai universities, an affiliated Fellow at the International Institute of… Continue reading Thunder Demons
Mayer Hersh
Yesterday was graduation day at Edge Hill for students in my department. It was great to see them all together, in their academic robes, and to be part of the ceremony. This year’s ceremony was different to most, in that we awarded an honorary degree to Mayer Hersh. As a survivor of Auschwitz, he would… Continue reading Mayer Hersh
Ways of Seeing
To the Burgess to see Kathleen Jamie talk about her new book of essays, Sightlines. I have long admired Jamie’s poetry, but in the essay form, I think she has found her true métier. The previous volume of short prose pieces, Findings, was a delight from start to finish: Sightlines is better. Both titles give… Continue reading Ways of Seeing
Silver Seas
It’s already March, and I haven’t posted this year. I haven’t been completely in hibernation, though – in fact, I’ve quite a lot to report on, so I will start by offering some thoughts on a gig attended last night, and I’ll try to pick out some highlights from the last few months in subsequent… Continue reading Silver Seas
The Tie That Binds
The first time I ever got paid for writing something was in 1985. I’d forgotten about it until yesterday when I found myself in a dusty corner of Manchester University library faced with a long shelf containing bound volumes of The Times Educational Supplement from the sixties to the nineties. I remembered writing a piece… Continue reading The Tie That Binds
David Lodge
To the Whitworth, to see David Lodge talk about his new novel, based on the tangled love-life of H.G. Wells. I’ve admired Lodge for decades – Changing Places is one of the great comic novels, and certainly one of the top three examples of campus fiction ever written, I think. Lodge also wrote The Art… Continue reading David Lodge
Roma Tearne
To the place everyone now calls the Burgess for a Manchester Literature Festival event with Roma Tearne. She was reading from her most-recently published novel, The Swimmer, and talking about her career, her novels, her other activities as an artist and film-maker, and, inevitably, about her views on Sri Lanka. She left her native country… Continue reading Roma Tearne
My Motorway Reading (2)
I’ve posted before about the fatuous and often bizarre language used by companies to describe what they do. The slogans and mission statements often use ‘solutions’ as a catch-all term, and tend to pomposity when describing the most mundane matters. I observed a cracker today, on a van belonging to a company I hadn’t heard… Continue reading My Motorway Reading (2)
Far out, man.
I spotted this poster whilst enjoying an excellent Warsteiner at Mary and Archie’s yesterday. I took a picture on my rather basic phone, which is rubbish, so I found a better version here. It’s a poster for Cream’s farewell gig, at the Royal Albert Hall, in November 1968. It’s fascinating for several reasons. The groovy… Continue reading Far out, man.