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
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 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
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
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
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)
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.
A.C. Grayling’s pieces on moral dilemmas in The Guardian (later collected into various books) always impressed me. Witty, erudite, elegant, they anatomised the modern ethical landscape, and presented solutions that were often informed by references to classical literature. Grayling has had his detractors as a so-called media don, but it always seemed to me that… Continue reading Feet of Clay (2)
I began writing this post before the news broke today that Johann Hari had been suspended by The Independent, so much of what I was going to write is redundant now – read the Guardian article for the details. I have been a fan of Johann Hari for some time. I liked his style, and… Continue reading Feet of Clay
OK, I’m 56, I’m unfit, and I’m overweight. So I had a choice to make at the end of last month – do I renew my gym membership again, or try something else? I’m not a great fan of the gym, as I’ve mentioned before, so I decided to save my money, and try a… Continue reading Fartlek with Laura