15.10.23

CHANGING THE RHETORIC OF MOUNTAIN BIKING

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I have been a cyclist for some 40 years as an adult.  I have never been without a bike or two in my shed, somewhere.  That's becaus...

DOES RELIGION DRIVE MEN MAD?

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  THE IMPLACABLE NATURE OF THE IDEA I   observe, as many do, the unfolding disaster in Gaza and thoughts emerge unbidden in my mind. I wonde...
18.6.23

THE GREAT CORMAC McCARTHY PASSES 16TH JUNE 2023

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26.3.23

ME AND BOB DYLAN

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Me ’n Bob Dylan.  Me’n Bob Dylan first got together in 1975.  We met through an intermediary, a tiny, moustachioed Geordie accountant called...
23.10.22

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  I saw this recently on the 'Recommendo' newsletter.  It looks like a good set of questions. Twitter thread of self-fulfillment que...
1.10.22

The Irresistible Rise of Helen DeWitt-Currently this Blog's favourite author!

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 'Lightning Rods'. Published 2011. Started 16.8.22-Finished 31.8.22 Thoughts?  Beautifully written.  Remarkably funny.  Huge degree ...

A Polemic on the current practice of Social Work with Children and Families

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The primary object of social work is to create a society where it has no need to exist.   Right away we are approaching  a battle.  A battle...
5.3.22

WALTER REDFERN ON PUNS/PICTURESQUE TOUR OF THE ENGLISH LAKES/THE RUSSIAN INVASION OF UKRAINE

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RESISTANCE. BY SIMON ARMITAGE It’s war again: a family    carries its family out of a pranged house       under a burning thatch. The ne...
17.1.22

A library the internet can’t get enough of!

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Every year or so, the library in the photograph above — with stacks of books piled high and buttery lamplight aglow — resurfaces on the inte...
16.1.22

I'm back!

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 Ok Happy and Healthy 2022.  May your dreams fall like feathers of glory around you as they come to beautiful fruition! I've been away. ...

First Edition of 'The House at Pooh Corner' with charming Shepard illustration of Winnie playing a balalaika

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9.1.22

From my Poem 'The Twenty One insights'.

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Now he cast his nets at my request, and all he said reeked of naked truth. ‘First, wake up!  And sniff the guiding wind, the teaching that i...
18.9.21

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ACTUAL CREATIVE MOMENT-TIM ROUGHGARDEN

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Sometimes we walk in the moments history is born and made.  As Tim Roughgarden states below introducing his new lecture series-now is such a...
9.7.21

Response to a piece in the Sunday Times by Matthew Syed

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 Matthew Syed seems one of the more insightful journalists working for the Murdochs though I continue to have obvious problems with Journali...
22.4.21

Epistemological Standpoints (Mark Fisher Project)

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Georg Lukacs History & Class Consciousness III: The Standpoint of the Proletariat 5 Thus man has become the measure of all (societal) t...
16.3.21

Essay4th! H P Lovecraft and the Art of Supernatural horror-Lovecraft's great Essay: Supernatural horror in Literature.

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 A mere 46 years old at the time of his death in 1937, Lovecraft is the father of what came to be known as Weird Fiction.   Lovecraft's ...

ENDNOTES FOR 2020

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“In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time – none, zero.” — Charlie Mung...
21.11.20

DECEMBER NOTES

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MONTAIGNE:  Given the subject matter, “Of Experience” has about it a remarkably buoyant magnitude. Take, for instance, the following passage...
3.10.20

‘Meaning and melancholia: Life in the age of bewilderment.’ Review of important book by Christopher Bollas by my bestie, Professor Jim Davis

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  ‘Meaning and melancholia: Life in the age of bewilderment.’ Routledge 2018 By Christopher Bollas.  Reviewed by Jim Dav...