30
Dec
2020
Televisual Indigestion
Televisual Indigestion:Saturated with too many pieces of news, fake news, bad news, and the empty space of no news, I made the mistake of opening and viewing one of my Christmas presents, a DVD of Brave New World, with John Hurt being tortured before the final scene with the rats. Not what you might call... Read More
14
Aug
2020
Come, come, the bells do cry
I am sick, I must die. Lord have mercy upon us… Thomas Nashe wrote In Time of Pestilence at a time when the Plague of 1665 was decimating the population of London, and spreading to the rest of the country by means of imports of flea infested cloth and ships’ rats. The Great Fire of... Read More
18
Jul
2020
A Twitter of Linnets
A TWITTER OF LINNETS Today started with a twitter of linnets in the garden. The young have fledged and flown, but mummy and daddy linnet are high up in the maple tree tweeting their tweet/response. It’s driving the cat wild with excitement. Linnets are not uncommon here at this time of year. They’re what my... Read More
8
Jul
2020
Common Sense (or lack of it)
Reading the Independent on Monday, I was struck by a couple of items bizarre enough for me to wonder whether April 1st had been moved to mid-July and I just hadn’t heard. (You’re kidding me? Right?) A stag party of young men, celebrating in an Alpine hut, discovered a snake (or it discovered them) and... Read More
20
Jun
2020
Internet Woes.
I’ve had it with Zoom. It’s slow to connect, there’s no synchronisation, the sound’s poor and the heads that pop up on the screen are all at funny angles. If they look at the camera when they speak, that’s a blessing, but you have to take your eyes off your own screen to do that... Read More