Category: General

It’s good to be up in the mornings just before the sky begins to turn. It’s a bit like a huge lampshade, stretched very tight all round. The lamp-switch is one of those fade-on fade-off ones, and the bulb has come on very dim and lovely, no obvious colour yet, no reds or greens, still…

I am writing this piece soon after Vincent Nichols declared that the UK Government’s changes to the benefit system are “punitive” and a “disgrace.” Two strong words quietly spoken by a man about to be appointed Cardinal by the Pope.  Since then, twenty-seven Anglican bishops and sixteen other clergy have followed suit, accusing the Tory-led…

I run a creative writing workshop each fortnight in a psychiatric in-patient unit in Brent and always cycle there and back. One part of the route runs alongside the Grand Union canal, another part the Thames between Hammersmith and Wandsworth. On my way home one evening, just below Hammersmith Bridge, still in day-light, tide very…

This short piece is an allegory. Here is a link to it. It compares opposing ways of life, or mind-sets, or brain hemispheres. Place A is a fortress defending its inhabitants from reality and truth. Place B is wide open to these things and paralysed in consequence. While Place B seems more human than Place A,…

Here is the link to a short film : https://vimeo.com/76307847  It records – in my opinion beautifully – an evening event held in May this year, which combined live performances of new music and drama, an exhibition of photography, and a reading by me of some of my own poetry. The event marked my retirement from…

“Jason nameless fights despair” offers a kind of action-list for survival and is addressed to people losing hope. “Survival” is not meant just in the literal sense, hanging on, remaining animate, but in the sense of holding essential ground, of defending right principle and right action, and winning through, despite the lies, the seductive slogans,…