Thoughts about things I’ve written or read or heard or seen. An attempt to stay positive in a turbulent world.
Recent Articles
Opening up set to blossom at home. But what about India (her vaccine generosity and her coronavirus surge)?
A beautiful blossom for our oh-so-close-to-lockdown-easing here in the UK. The Wayfaring Tree (Virburnum lantana): a sign you’re homeward bound. But spare a thought for India, home to the world’s largest coronavirus vaccine manufacturer, the Serum Institute of India (SII) but now also home to the worst surge in coronavirus since the pandemic began. It’s...Continue reading→
Stephen Lawrence Day, 22 April 2021
We will no longer ignore, the racism we all deplore. We will never forget Stephen Lawrence. Directed by Simon Frederick. Written by Simon Frederick, Marcus Jones & Max Cyrus. Narrated by Max Cyrus And, from the Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation website: Stephen Lawrence was born and grew up in south-east London, where he lived with his parents...Continue reading→
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: Bill Gates (& Gordon Brown)
In this Guardian review of Bill Gates’s How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, Gordon Brown writes: Success [in combating climate change] will come by demonstrating that the real power countries can wield to create a better world is not the power they can exercise over others but the power they can exercise with others. [my bold] Among other possibilities for...Continue reading→
A Valentine to the Earth: Terra Carta
On 11 January the Prince of Wales announced Terra Carta, Earth Charter, a Magna Carta for the twenty-first century: the basis of a recovery plan for nature, people and the planet. A valentine to the earth, I thought. He said: Humanity has made incredible progress over the past century, yet the cost of this progress has caused...Continue reading→
Feeling Low? Try karunavirus. Seriously.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been feeling pretty low about the state of our corona-contaminated world (not to mention other depressing events) so I went looking for something uplifting. And I found karunavirus. Seriously. Nothing to do with that virus; all to do with kindness, compassion, good news, good things and full of...Continue reading→
When This Is Over … and some Christmas Lights for the dark Winter Nights
When this is over, may we never again take for granted a handshake with a stranger, full shelves at the store, conversations with neighbours, a crowded theatre, Friday nights out, the taste of communion, a routine check-up, the school rush each morning, coffee with a friend, the stadium roaring, each deep breath, a boring Tuesday,...Continue reading→
Bookshop.org: an online bookshop that supports indie bookshops. And, ‘It’s easier to be a Dad, this morning … .’
Bookshop.org, as the Guardian articles below suggest, is exactly what the publishing world has been waiting for. Bookshop.org supports independent bookshops (it doesn’t undercut them, as the unmentionable does) and it makes it possible for independent bookshops to benefit from online sales wider than they, on their own websites, could reach. From this article: Bookshop.org is being...Continue reading→
October is Black History Month in the UK. But shouldn’t Black history be taught all the time?
Black History Month began in America as an annual History Week, in 1925. That year, Black historian Carter G. Woodson, the Father of Black History, announced Negro History Week: A celebration of a people that many in this country at the time believed had no place in history. February was chosen because it marked the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick...Continue reading→
The Doll Test and the heartbreakingly detrimental effects of segregation
In the 1940s, in America, Doctors Kenneth and Mamie Clark designed and conducted a series of tests known colloquially as The Doll Tests. Children between the ages of three and seven were asked to identify the race of the dolls and which colour they preferred. A majority of the children preferred the white doll and...Continue reading→
Deborah Alma’s Poetry Pharmacy: Poetry Prescriptions
Last week I had a telephone consultation with a pharmacist. Not an unusual thing to do in these corona-times, but this pharmacist doesn’t dispense drugs. Deborah Alma is a Poetry Pharmacist. Before corona I’d planned to go to The Poetry Pharmacy in Bishops Castle, in June. But by the end of March I realised I...Continue reading→
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