Although I do not want to spend all my time looking backwards and I have already offered some thoughts on the past 18 months, I must not overlook some of the best things I have read on the net. It is, after all, from the net, in the form of email, blogs and links to …
Crabbe – Tale 15: Advice or, The Squire and The Priest
As we shall see, there is a sense in which this Tale follows on directly from Tale 14 - it too has as a central concern the effects upon a young man of having his conscience awakened. This raises again the question of the way in which certain Tales are grouped and the order in …
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American Idol 2011-12 and The Amazing Joshua
Long-term readers will know that I am fan of TV talent shows, especially those for singers, as reinvented by Messrs Cowell and Fuller some time ago. However of recent years I had become disenchanted, most especially by American Idol which has always been the benchmark, and has produced by much the highest quality of contestant …
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Crabbe – Tale 14: The Struggles of Conscience
The Struggles of Conscience forms one of that subset of The Tales concerned with the rise and fall of young men (other prominent examples include Tale 5, The Patron, Tale 11, Edward Shore and Tale 21, The Learned Boy). Although these tales are very different in their particular protagonists and their central issues, it is …
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Crabbe – Tale 13: Jesse and Colin (and an update)
I wrote of Tale 12 - Squire Thomas - on September 28th 2010, so my project of providing a commentary on Crabbe’s Tales is proving a protracted one, as I suspected it would! However in the 21 months since then, I have not just read the next Tale - I have read all the early …
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Anarchism in Short
This is a piece which I was in the middle of writing in October 2010 when illness intervened; it is therefore unfinished. But I didn't want to let the part I had written go to waste! A Very Short Introduction to Anarchism by Colin Ward differs from other books in the series in that the …
My Silence – Part 4:Kindling
Whilst I have read, or reread, many ‘real’ books in the past 20 months, the most significant development in my reading habits has been the acquisition of a Kindle. I do not intend in future to bother specifying in which format I am reading any particular book I discuss, but did want to spend some …
My Silence – Part 3: Eyes and Ears
Any account of the past 20 months which entirely omitted what I have been watching and listening to would be absurdly incomplete. On the other hand to produce any sort of detailed list, let alone decent exegesis, would not only be impossible because of my poor memory, but would mean that I never caught up! …
My Silence – Part 2: Fun and Games
There were 2 new occupations which started during my absence from blogging about which I must write. The first, and much the most significant in terms of time, was my involvement in the world of MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games - and that’s the last time I intend to type out that abbreviation in …
My Silence – Part One: Personal and Political
Anyone who follows or followed this blog can hardly have failed to notice that, with one exception, it has fallen silent since October 2010. Those who have followed it previously will also know that silences are a not uncommon occurrence and are a result of my depressive episodes. However, although 2011 was a very bad …
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