So - I was planning to give you a lengthy rant in the form of an anecdote. Yesterday was the Day. The day when some person or algorithm decided it was my turn to be told that my National Insurance number was about to be frozen...
How do you organise your appointments? Recently I was on the phone trying to arrange when to meet someone (isn’t this a nice new custom? Meeting people?) and I said something like “I’ll check the diary… or the calendar…” In other words, I might need to...
Dear readers I am afraid this has been a busy week, so no post. Instead I shall copy and paste this poem, which I have more or less decided to learn. What do you think? The Daniel Jazz By Vachel Lindsay Inscribed to Isadora Bennett LET the singer train the audience to...
I think it’s in “That Hideous Strength” that CS Lewis introduces a couple who share a liking for “weather” – not “good” weather, but weather in general. What sensible people, and of course they’re British. In similar vein, Jacob Rees-Mogg’s book “The Victorians” comments on...
I might have posted this week on how pleasant (albeit chilly) it is to eat breakfast at newly-reopened cafés along Beeston High St, but this blog has spent a year trying to keep off the subject of coronavirus, so I won’t. Instead, here is a...
Next month a man named Richard Sharp (not the character written by Bernard Cornwell and played by Sean Bean) takes over as Chairman of the BBC’s Board of Governors. Paragraph 20(2) of the Corporation’s Charter says: In accordance with article 3 (independence of the BBC), each member...
Dear all It hadn't quite escaped my notice that no one had commented on any of my posts since August, but then three people told me that they'd attempted to do so and not been permitted to do so. (Thank you, Clint, Judith and Mark. My apologies...
I am very conscious that in writing this blog, I am treading on sensitive ground on which I am unqualified to set foot. As with my previous posts on JK Rowling and trans issues, I am educating myself, and it’s a slow work in progress. I...
Please read the PS, but in the meantime: Some of you may remember that my favourite Diana Wynne Jones quote is: "All power corrupts, but we need electricity." It's very true. Some months ago, I wrote the following, intending to use it in a blog: Recently our central...
Since writing Part One, I’ve realised how ignorant I am on this topic – not completely ignorant, and also not neutral, but in need of a great deal of further inquiry. (Please don’t use the word “re-education.") I’ve got some work to do, and it...