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Greed, Rich & Riots
Published on 2011-08-12 09:08:00
Greed is the sine non qua of our society. Back in the openly greedy days of the power-shouldered eighties, when lunch was for wimps and greed was a healthy appetite, through the caring nineties, and the naughty noughties, the avarice for more has never declined. The gap between the haves, and, in Bush's words, the have-mores, and the have-nothings has increased exponentially; within countries, between countries.Do we need to look at examples of greed from those who believe themselves so privileg [..]
The Most Unlikely Agent ZigZag
Published on 2011-07-26 07:06:00
Eddie Chapman was the most extraordinary WWII spy you will never have heard of. Were he a fictional character, you would not find him credible.I met him while browsing a second-hand book shop where my attention was drawn to his existence by a book entitled Agent Zigzag by Ben Macintyre. Implausible title, improbable character, I thought. A wannabe blockbuster, I thought, till I read the blurb where I discovered it was reprint for World Book Night 2011; to quote: 'one of 40,000 copies printed of [..]
Bastard
Published on 2011-07-13 02:11:00
I have known of Rupert Murdoch and his methods since he took over The Times in 1981.I was a new group head in Leo Burnett, the advertising agency, and the paper was one of my accounts. I wrote the line ' Have you ever wished you were better informed?' Sounds clunky now, but we didn't have Wikipedia in those days. (And schoolboys called William ran round in ragged flannel shorts with a catapult stuffed in their pockets.)Brian Todd (if I remember correctly) was the marketing manager. A chain-smoki [..]
Giggles
Published on 2011-07-01 01:08:00
Sue, as in ex, had a bad fall yesterday. She, along with friend, Mary, daughter, Em, and grandchildren, Amy and Katie, was going for a picnic when she tripped over a protruding fire hydrant cover. According to Em, she lay motionless for a couple of m
Cockney: or Town Meets Country
Published on 2011-06-23 07:30:00
I am a collector of dictionaries, particularly any relating to slang. One reason being you come across unlikely little gems like this, lifted from a compilation by Michelle Lovric in The Scoundrel's Dictionary.To quote:COCKNEYA nickname given to the
Alone in Berlin
Published on 2011-06-17 10:47:00
The problem of reviewing books is, when you stumble upon a gem, your immediate instinct is to lend it to all and sundry with the result that you find myself having to write the review without the book to hand.*Such is the case of Alone in Berli
Bang Goes My Knighthood
Published on 2011-05-02 03:40:00
Given the ecstatic news of Will’s and Kate’s wedding, it seem sacrilegious to write on any topic other than the nuptials. Certainly the UK papers are still full of the Royal news: Where is the honeymoon? How much is costing? Will they use the mis
Mentors, Guides and Gandalf [Grand Elf for the illiterate]
Published on 2011-04-15 04:33:00
I posted this comment on the excellent service offered to writers, and I have taken advantage of what is on offer so I speak from experience, by BubbleCow, and it seemed to me a point worthy of wider interest:My personal gripe from my former career (
Whither Confidence?
Published on 2011-04-13 01:33:00
Let's start, like all indifferent news articles, with a platitude: personal confidence is as wobbly as a jelly set before a gang of children at a street party to celebrate a royal wedding. [ I expect a call from one of the tabloids any minute now aft
Emotive Language
Published on 2011-03-26 03:36:00
I am sitting at my computer; I have been since 5.30 a.m., listening to BBC Radio 4, thanks to a neat widget, while scanning the papers online or staring down the road opposite that leads the eye out to sea.So the scene is established.To the point: I
Three Very Different Novels
Published on 2011-02-28 04:56:00
I continue to dip in and out Perec's Life: A User's Manual as and when ordered by the doctor for my general sense of well-being.There is no such sense of holiday dalliance with Murakami's The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, a book I read last month. This inv
Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety
Published on 2011-02-17 11:39:00
On the back of reading Hilary Mantel's Beyond Black, I have just about finished her A Place of Greater Safety.It is an historical, factually- based work charting the rise and eventual fall of the heads of the main characters involved in the Fre
Old Farts Smell the Best
Published on 2011-02-09 07:26:00
I have hit a wall. Not literally, obviously, or I would be a flattened sort of creature with fingers of rubber. My writing has collapsed into a litter of consonants and vowels that drift across the carpet to clutter in the corners ( how I love allite
Sir Richard Dearlove - Tom Phillips?
Published on 2011-01-27 03:10:00
This article on Sir Richard Dearlove's evidence to the Chilcot inquiry caught my eye in the Guardian this morning, to quote:Never let it be said that Britain's spies do not have a sense of humour. Ninety-three pages of evidence (pdf) given in private
The Blue Tit Faction
Published on 2011-01-13 06:12:00
One of the few pleasures among my duties as a tempaculturalist is to watch with the same fascination of the cats, though perhaps not their appetite, (see final pic in my last post), the antics of the gang of little masked bandits who mount relentless
Country Matters
Published on 2011-01-11 11:09:00
This week I am house-sitting for Stuart and Gabrielle, professional permaculturalists, in La Haute Houssais, Brittany, a hamlet so small it is easy to drive straight through and never notice it in your rear view mirror.While here, I am also chicken-s
Santa Amy
Published on 2010-12-29 04:41:00
Overhead on Christmas morning, Katie, aged two, sitting up in bed addressing her still sleeping sister."Thank you, Amy," she said. "Oh, thank you, Amy. Thank you. Oh Amy, thank you."Katie had discovered the stocking at the foot of her bed.
Frozen Fingers
Published on 2010-12-20 04:31:00
You may wonder why I have not posted recently but I find it difficult to type with fingers frozen to the keyboard. So instead of a blog, a couple of tracks on the subject currently closest to my wrists.
Life: A User's Manual, Georges Perec
Published on 2010-12-09 04:40:00
I smell like poo. Allegedly.It was my birthday recently and I woke to a big dump of snow together with the information that I smell like poo. This news was sung to me over the phone by a gleeful Amy. It made my snowbound day.So wrapped in layers of c
Appreciation or Appropriation?
Published on 2010-11-25 11:23:00
It’s blog time again. Though I do sometimes wonder why I bother. According to the stats for this blog, the reason why most people arrive here by a very curly mile is because they are searching on Google for the term ‘CurlyWurly’. So much for my
Hiliary Mantel, Beyond Black
Published on 2010-11-08 05:27:00
Just because Ms Mantel won the Booker prize in 2009 with Wolf Hall is no good reason for me to read it immediately. In fact, the opposite; it's a good reason for not reading it immediately. I haven't read Ms Mantel before and feel the need to get to
That Was the Weekend That Was
Published on 2010-11-04 00:27:00
I had a truly fabbie weekend. Sue, as in ex, roasted half a pig with crackling of such cracklyness Gordon Ramsay would have awarded it an expletive explosion of a volume that would equate to three stars in the more demur world of Michelin.I salivate
All Souls, All Saints
Published on 2010-10-27 07:38:00
I have watched the growth of what I believed was the American import of Hallowe'en with cynicism, thinking, like Father's Day, it was created to give the retail trade another spurious event to promote. However, a tiny bit of research reveals the trad