Stacey Abrams 10 Steps Campaign lists the 10 Steps to Autocracy & Authoritarianism. It’s terrifying that the Orange One is so very close to completing all 10 steps in the US, but we in the UK shouldn’t be complacent in the face of Reform and/or Restore. However, Abrams has a plan to combat these steps. Her 10 Steps to Freedom & Power show us what we can do.
Hope
See HadesTown and Cry (in a good way)
A couple of weeks ago my other half took me to Hadestown. Both of us are somewhat beyond our allotted three score years and ten so we were expecting to be deafened by the music (we’d read that we would be …). So, first of all, never believe what people say/write about a thing until you’ve experienced it for yourself (we weren’t once deafened) and, secondly (but this really should be first) whatever your age, go to Hadestown whenever it’s on near you.
Now A Major Motion Picture, a novel by Peter Wise: for Christmas
If you’re wondering what to buy for the readers in your life for Christmas, can I suggest a gloriously-funny, poignant, heartfelt, beautifully-written novel about the hopes and dreams, ambitions and desires of an unknown screenwriter who gets a call from an Oscar-winning director and dares to believe that, this time, one of his screenplays will … Read More
DAISY REFLECTIONS
Sometimes all I want to do is stand and stare …
In Retrospect, Simon Armitage
In Retrospect The world asks a great deal of the poppies, insists they carry the wounds of war and shoulder the weight of remembrance. Such flimsy, wavering plants; we painted their flowers the colour of blood and punched dark holes in their heads as if bullets had passed through, then trimmed them with green sprigs … Read More
Hidden Histories with Nova Reid
Nova Reid, producer, author, truthseeker and all-round remarkable Black woman, has made a podcast with Audible about other remarkable and unsung Black women: women who not only survived enslavement and unimaginable racism, but who thrived. It’s called Hidden Histories and, as Nova says, it explores the lives of: Pioneers, journalists, and rule-breakers – remarkable figures … Read More
A Valentine to Life: What Does It Feel Like? Sophie Kinsella
Unlike forty-five million people worldwide, I’d never read a Sophie Kinsella novel until I picked up What Does It Feel Like? in my local bookshop a couple of weeks ago. But if, like me, you’re not one of the forty-five million and you think you might never be: read this one. It’s funny. It’s optimistic. … Read More
A Blessing for our times
Jan Richardson wrote this Blessing for her blog The Advent Door in 2014. It’s included in her book Circle of Grace published in 2015. Elsewhere Richardson talks about wild and stubborn hope. I love that phrase. A friend of mine sent Blessing when the World is Ending to me a few days ago. It feels … Read More