Sunday, 22 April 2018

'a moment in time', sunday 29th april, 7:00pm, southbank club, bristol bs3 1db

›
A number of local writers will present work on a theme of 'A Moment in Time' at this Writers Unchained event next Sunday. Please d...
Sunday, 18 March 2018

to russia with love

›
Social media is a strange place, these days - as unreal as Narnia, but with greater leverage over our real world than that magical land ...
Thursday, 1 March 2018

waiting for the gift of

›

twenty-seven word review of my favourite 1960s b-movie which i watched for, perhaps, the fifth time, plus some other films i watched during november, december, january and february

›
X: The Man With the X-Ray Eyes (1963, dir. Roger Corman, starring Ray Milland, Diane Van der Vlis). This Kennedy-era thriller – creepy, ...

twenty-seven word reviews of Deutschland 83 and The End of the F***king World

›
The End of the F***king World (Channel 4):  ‘Brit noir’, reminiscent of Sightseers (2012) ; similarly powered by a perverse love of dra...
Thursday, 21 December 2017

this time of transformation

›

twenty-seven word story about a philosophy undergraduate's rubbish shift at pizza express (with four hundred and sixty-eight words of notes)

›
Philosophy student, waiting tables. “I’m observing – admiring – myself as a waiter. Bad faith, Sartre says. Merde , admiring my bad faith no...
Wednesday, 1 November 2017

twenty-seven word reviews of films seen during august, september and october

›
The Raven  (1935, dir. Louis Friedlander, aka Lew Landers, starring Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff) - If your consultant’s other specialisms in...

twenty-seven word reviews of books read during august, september and october

›
Nnedi Okrafor’s  Binti.  Some great aliens in YA novella about Himba  girl (Namibia) leaving home (in various senses) for offworld uni. A f...
Saturday, 7 October 2017

write up! speak up! sun 15th october

›
I'll be doing two poems at Write Up! Speak Up! (a Wells Festival of Literature event) - the cormorant in South London one, and the Moby...
Saturday, 30 September 2017

twenty-seven words about helicopters and rainbows

›
I’m noticing helicopters, rainbows lately. Helicopters salient because militarism, war; rainbows because Genesis 9:11-17  = God undertake...
Tuesday, 12 September 2017

david foster wallace: where i was when i heard

›
If a public figure has been an inspiration to you, you’ll remember how and when you learned of their death, particularly if that death was ...
Friday, 1 September 2017

summer is over...

›
...and we are not yet saved ( Jeremiah 8:20 ).
Tuesday, 25 July 2017

twenty-seven word reviews of films seen since April

›
The Way Ahead (1945, dir. Carol Reed, starring David Niven, Stanley Holloway, William Hartnell).   Romanticised but open-ended portrait...

twenty-seven word reviews of books read since March

›
Nnedi Okorafor’s Lagoon .  Liked incursion of Nigerian folktale into Lagos-set SF; wanted to like more; found ‘putdownable’; polyphonic,...

twenty-seven word review of a noticeboard outside where the home-care agency used to be; empty for a while, this unit's since been redeveloped as an antique shop called 'Presence of the Past'

›
Walking past homecare office for years: glossy staff photos yellowing and faded.  Office closed, now – workers elderly, infirm themselv...

we need to judge widths all the time

›
Wednesday, 12 April 2017

twenty-seven word reviews of 'Britain in Focus' exhibition (Science & Media Museum, Bradford; with BBC4) and of photography collections by featured artists

›
Peter Mitchell, Mr and Mrs Hudson in Seacroft Green.  Leeds, 1974 .   update (July 2018): twitter conversation about Leeds, Peter Mitch...

twenty-seven word review of Martin's Parr's 'Boring Postcards' (London: Phaidon, 1999)

›
Butlins, Filey; M6 motorway; Cross Gates Arndale Centre, Leeds. Boring’s a misnomer; these are 1950s/ early 1960s dreams of modernity an...
Saturday, 1 April 2017

twenty-seven word reviews of films watched during March 2017

›
House of Mirth  (2000; dir. Terence Davies; starring Gillian Anderson)  - original novel’s probably good; film felt like a somewhat rou...
Wednesday, 1 March 2017

twenty-seven word reviews of books read during January and February 2017

›
Ursula Le Guin’s Wizard of Earthsea .  “Not many girls,” say daughter. True – wizards are all boys, girls do housework. “Female author th...
Wednesday, 1 January 1975

brezhnev

›
Okay, so let's begin this 'weblog' - I'm running this on Windows 75, which requires three steam operators who (I don't m...