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Continue reading →: Punk poetry
If you haven’t come across the punk poet, John Cooper Clark, you’re in for a treat. Here’s an example of his wit and verbal dexterity: I WROTE THE SONGS I wrote the songs that nearly made The bottom line of the hit parade Almost anthems, shoulda been hits Songs like……
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Continue reading →: Back to Poetry
This blog wanders down many lanes that have nothing to do with poetry. Except that everything has to do with poetry. It is a concise way of holding up a mirror to the world, exploring ideas and playing with language. Emotions are explored by neuroscientists, philosophers and poets because of…
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Continue reading →: Visual Art
Having become a curmudgeon, it behoves me to criticise art exhibitions that get my goat. One such travesty was the Lost in Narration art exhibition at the MAC in Belfast. A slow motion film following a rhino called Sudan wandering about with its armed protectors in the wilds of Kenya…
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Continue reading →: Life
The taking of a human life can serve many purposes. Revenge is the most understandable. A victim’s nearest and dearest would probably want to see the life of their loved one’s killer ended. A life for a life. The state might endorse that sentiment, but dress it up in judicial…
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Continue reading →: Clean Thursday
Easter is upon us and there are various customs and traditions associated with this religious festival. There is the welcome end to Lent’s fasting with gastronomic delights such as Simnel cake and hot cross buns. Clean Thursday is a Russian tradition to prepare the house for the Easter festivities with a…
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Continue reading →: All right thinking people
European response to migration has been fragmented. Germany’s Angela Merkel opened the borders to offer the hand of friendship to thousands of refugees fleeing war in the Middle East. The UK voted (37% of the electorate) to leave the EU in a referendum prompted by scare stories of unlimited emigration from…
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Continue reading →: Turkish referendum
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, failed to persuade two thirds of the Turkish parliament to grant him more powers. So he has instigated a referendum on 16 April on 18 amendments to the constitution. This would, in effect, transform Turkey from a parliamentary democracy to a presidential state. It would also…
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Continue reading →: Changing flights
United Airlines are in the news for dragging a passenger, Dr David Dao, off a flight to allow their own staff to take his seat. There is an assumption by airlines that some passengers won’t turn up for their flights, so they often overbook. In this case the flight was…
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Continue reading →: Memory – a new theory
It had been thought that our short-term memories were formed in the hippocampus and then ‘banked’ in the cortex. Recent research by the team at the Riken-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics has shown that the brain makes two memories simultaneously, one for the present and one for a lifetime. The researchers were…
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Continue reading →: National disaster
OK, I exaggerate. Picking three horses in the Grand National that did not finish in the first 6 past the post is hardly a disaster, but it has wiped out the stake money for my online gambling hobby. On the plus side, I was prompted to organise the sweepstake at work and…
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