I posted this poem up on Facebook on July 3rd. Two weeks later, it had received 1,146 “Likes” and “Loves” and had been “shared” 5,210 times. The poem is by Michael Rosen and, in turn, he shared it on his own Facebook timeline and that separate posting was further shared many times.
Michael was originally commissioned to write this poem… continue reading
Tag the nation’s health
The 70th Birthday
… Parrot Speaks of Youth and Hope
Skelton’s parrot is a bird of paradise. But he mustn’t go on too long. If he has truth to tell in our storm, and wants to be heard, he has to be strategic. His cage is also his sanctuary.
… continue reading
… Boris Johnson Hies Abroad
There are many employers in the UK, as in other countries. They range from employers running large organisations to those who manage small teams, from people seeking to fill vacancies at various levels of a complex hierarchy, to leaders of small groups of adventurers who just need to trust one another in a hot spot.
And, whether or not… continue reading
Just Words
Forced to witness and live, day after day, this nation’s fraught and inept and demented progress towards Brexit – the unforgiveable false step, waste and wanton irrelevance of it, the tedium, obsessive delinquency, delusion, shame, the sheer disgraceful wrong and disaster of it – I retreat into words, not just for some slight relief, but in case they provide guidance… continue reading
I Came Running
When Theresa May, the UK’s Conservative Prime Minister, called an election for June 2017, her manifesto included an opportunity to repeal New Labour’s ban on fox hunting. The Conservatives had expected to increase their majority, which would have eased May’s ability to push through Brexit. Instead they lost it.
I came running. I’d heard
them earlier of course
the… continue reading
The History of the United Kingdom
Click here for a summary of this piece, consisting of just over 700 words. Are You Sitting Comfortably ? The history of the United Kingdom (whose every seam is under terrible stretch and strain just now) continues so fast, so scattered, so hurt, so incoherent, so unguided and ill-advised, that it is hard to keep up, hard to make sense… continue reading
… Lament at UK Election time 2017
I cannot just argue or disagree when my own country decides to throw itself into the sea. If Britain is an oak tree centuries old, then I am a leaf somewhere to one side, barely visible and increasingly wrinkled. But the great tree’s nature still courses through me and my short life adds its iota to… continue reading