Wild wine that sets the wisest man to sing…
“Ah, drink again This river that is the taker-away of pain, And the giver-back of beauty!” – Edna St. Vincent Millay Why do writers drink? asks Blake [...]
Michael Douglas: A Clerihew
To help celebrate Michael Douglas’ discovery, announced in yesterday’s Guardian, that throat cancer is caused – and cured – by cunnilingus, we offer [...]
Self-Help Books: I
I was thinking about self-help books last weekend. I’ve long been interested in them, both as a buyer and a prospective publisher. Self-help books have given me more [...]
An iconic irony
So, Charles Krafft – his Disasterware, including seemingly sardonic anti-Nazi ceramic creations, hailed as iconic for years – is outed as a Holocaust denier. Red faces [...]
“History claimed them…”
Lives shaped by large, historical events can end up trapped in them forever. This was certainly true in the past, but I wonder whether it still applies in the present, when [...]
A faith in the ineffable…
A Guardian article discusses the volume of unread books and the merits of the blank page: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2013/feb/18/unread-unreadable-books The [...]
Valentine’s Day Oracle – The Shining Ones
Phædriades – the shining ones – a pair of cliffs enclosing the sacred site of Delphi, centre of the Hellenic world, and place of Apollo’s temple where [...]
Uncensored
Although politicians play lip service to our right to freedom of expression, political censorship in the West exists, is growing, and must be resisted. The latest examples [...]