Adventures in Everyday Madness Continuing
THE PIPER Stealing souls (Summer 1966) “For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment; I am the Lord. And the blood shall be to you for... Continue Reading →
At the top of our house sits the attic. It is a part of our home in the same way that deeply forgotten thoughts are a part of our lives. It houses (it warehouses) those things that are no longer relevant to our current lives: old records, VHS videos, children's Christmas presents (old ones), books,... Continue Reading →
My childhood was dominated by memories of The King. Elvis Presley, Aaron to be more precise. My mother was in love. She was smitten with this hip-shaking, breath-taking, king of Rock and Roll. We were the family from The Commitments who could not conceive that there was anything better than the lip-curling kid from Tupelo,... Continue Reading →
It was the freezing air that tried to enter. For a moment he stood, transfixed by what had taken place. The world had changed and it was waiting for him. One small step and he was through the door. He wore only flimsy slippers, worn away to the bone. He wanted to turn back. He... Continue Reading →
If anyone had told him about climate change in the past, he would have scoffed. 'Tree-huggers,' he would have muttered. These days, that was different. He was awake again. A full bladder told him that he not only had to visit the lavatory, but that he was getting older. This happened to men past a... Continue Reading →
The thing about coincidences is that they do tend to happen, if only by coincidence. Take my daughter's bike for example; as somebody did the other day. In the great pantheon of stealing, bike theft comes in at a very low ranking. If Aristotle was to pronounce upon it, he would state that bikes... Continue Reading →
The problem with tragedy is that it never has a happy ending. Tragedy ends in death. It starts with a bad decision, leads on to disgrace and downfall, scrapes you through a period of suffering that appears never likely to end before there is a realisation, ‘Fuck, that’s what I did wrong’ or, ‘Fuck, I... Continue Reading →
'England is sick, and...English literature must save it. The Churches have failed, and social remedies being slow, English literature now has a triple function: still, I suppose, to delight and instruct us, but also, above all, to save our souls and to heal the State.' George Gordon Professor of Literature Oxford University 1922 During the... Continue Reading →
It seems strange that I should get so far into (and out of) a teaching career without having read this play. To be fair, although I started off teaching A Level, a lot of what I have done since is the bread and butter stuff of secondary qualifications. The tall and the short of it... Continue Reading →
