Thoughts about things I’ve written or read or heard or seen. An attempt to stay positive in a turbulent world.
Subscribe to the Column
Subscribe on Substack
Search the Column
Select
a Topic
Categories
Most Recent Articles
Ideas are NOT stories; and the Biblioteca Jardim
It becomes obvious if you write, but perhaps not if you don’t: ideas are not stories. Before I wrote or, at least, before I finished a novel, I didn’t grasp this fundamental fact because ideas, when they come (and I’ve no idea where they come from) are so exciting. They’re the fuel; the energy; the surge; the...Continue reading→
Men and Embroidery, and a belated apology
Inspired by this post about John Craske and his delicate life and delicate embroidery in a new book by Julia Blackburn, at dovegreyreader earlier this week, I’ve begun thinking about men and embroidery. My grandfather sewed: tapestry, I think, for chair and cushion covers, but I thought, horrible child that I was, that it was an unmanly...Continue reading→
Electoral Reform in the UK. And Inspiration.
On 5 May 2011 a referendum on electoral reform was held in the UK: 68% of us voted No; 32% (including me) voted Yes; the turnout was 42%. We weren’t collectively brave enough, or we were too frightened of change to vote Yes conclusively (or to vote at all). Last Thursday, 7 May 2015, a Conservative government was...Continue reading→
103 years on, Titanic; and the things that come unbidden when you write
One hundred and three years ago today more than 1,500 people died in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic when RMS Titanic hit the iceberg and then sank, in the early hours of 15 April. My great-grandmother, Nöel Rothes, was one of the lucky survivors and this year YOU Magazine in the Mail on Sunday has...Continue reading→
A time when women weren’t persons … and other equally unequal inequalities
In 1927 a group of Canadian women’s rights activists, including Emily Murphy, who was born 147 years ago today launched the Persons Case, which contended that women were qualified persons eligible to sit in the Senate. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that they were not (I wonder what the Supreme Court, in its wisdom, thought women were,...Continue reading→
The Brain in Love; and Jim Burge’s Burgeoning Promotional Videos for writers and artists
Dr Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist at Rutgers University, studies the brain, in love. She gave a glorious TED talk about it, here. I particularly loved Walt Whitman: Oh, I would stake all for you. and Emily Dickinson: Parting is all we need to know of Hell. and Dr Fisher herself: Anthropologists have never found a society that did not have love. And,...Continue reading→
Je Suis Charlie …
... one week on, what else is there to say but Je Suis Charlie and to stand with the murdered at Charlie Hebdo? Except Je Suis Ahmed.Continue reading→
Fog Island Mountains and Dr Atal Gawande, this year’s BBC Reith Lecturer
Michelle Bailat-Jones has written a beautiful novel called Fog Island Mountains. I’ve just posted a review of it here. The novel won the 2013 Christopher Doheny Award and I hope it goes on to sell, and so to affect, many many readers. It deserves to because it deals with the most serious event in our lives with eloquence, compassion, honesty...Continue reading→
Sequels, Literary Festivals and Natasha O’Farrell’s heavenly handbag
There have been some heart-warming reactions to The Dance of Love and several people have suggested I write a sequel, possibly set in the Depression and the lead-up to the Second World War because, they said, it would be fascinating to find out what happens next in the characters’ lives and how they do or don’t live...Continue reading→
Haworth Parsonage, Richard Flanagan and Anselm Keifer
In September we holidayed in England: we travelled north-west to Stratford (and saw a wonderful production of The Roaring Girl, a play about Mary Frith, an astonishing sixteenth-century woman who lived and dressed as a man, partly in defiance of her times to give herself freedom, partly so she could act as pimp, procurer and...Continue reading→