Category: General

I wonder when the point of exhaustion is reached, north of the border. By now, most people know what they will vote tomorrow and many have anyway already voted, casting their die. But some there will be who even now don’t know and may be agonising tonight. They may be the best of all the…

This short piece examines the topic of fundamentalism and offers some thoughts on its origins in human nature and behaviour. The piece opposes any notion that fundamentalism is limited to religious faith, or – for that matter – that false or idolatrous worship is limited to issues associated with religion. But there are principles that…

Morning, first thing.  Before packing and leaving, I booked some train tickets online, for another journey due in a week‘s time. I hate and still fumble at dealing online. I feel lonely and a bit panicky in the whole robotical procedure, with the pretend friendliness and informality of the words onscreen only adding to my…

This short piece explores the experience of being trapped in a category. Here is a link to it. In this case, the category is a medical one, medicine being a benevolent discipline which means only well. Yet still it can be painful and debilitating to be put in a box, even a benevolent one, and…

Last week-end, on Saturday 21st, mid-summer’s day, there was a demonstration in London involving 50,000 people. They were demonstrating against the “austerity cuts” of the UK’s Coalition Government. The police reported no arrests. It started just outside the BBC’s Broadcasting House and finished just outside the Houses of Parliament, two places closely associated with free…

I wrote “Travels of the Last Emperor” at different times over a period of around twenty years. It is made up of five poems of varying length. This spring 2014, a friend filmed me reading them in Mallorca, in an old monastery on top of a hill. You  can access the film here on You-tube.…