While many other people were busy celebrating ‘the wedding of the year’, I took a day off in Nottingham and revisited places that haven’t changed for centuries, although the areas around them have altered so much in 30 years that I had difficulty identifying any connection with the time I spent here in the Seventies.
At the castle I found this stone as part of a large display of inlaid decorated paving in the gallery forecourt: 
The abstracts have been published for the sessions at the It Gives Us the Other poetry and translation conference & workday to be held in Nottingham in April.
I suspect some people will wonder who on earth I am and what I’m doing leading a workshop there, so they’ll Google my name and some of them will end up here. (Although I don’t think there’s anything on this blog that explicitly says who I am, the Googlebots are cunning little spiders and have managed to make the connection.)
So, just so that things are made a little easier and a little clearer, I’m gathering together a few relevant posts here:
Continue reading “‘it gives us the other’”
I missed the story in the Guardian on March 6th about our “growing lifespan”. (I do think ‘growing’ is a strange adjective: surely ‘increasing’ would be better?)
Anyway, I came across the story today after reading the bemusing phrase:
The lifespan of the average British person increases by five hours a day.
on the BBC website.
Reading that made me suddenly feel tired.
Continue reading “not born yesterday”
Occasional unfortunate juxtapositions of headlines or adverts and news stories can’t be avoided, particularly online when there may be no one person in charge of a page design and layout.
Even so, I was shocked to see the front page of today’s UK Metro digital edition.
There’s a huge, attention-grabbing photo of devastation caused by the earthquake in Japan, and right below it an advert for Pokémon Everywhere which claims that “over 150 new pokémon have arrived in the UK”.
Continue reading “tact in advertising”
Despite being as ready as any of my classmates to chant the rhyme –
Latin is a language as dead as dead can be;
It killed the ancient Romans, and now it’s killing me.
– Latin was actually my favourite school subject and I have long believed it was the most useful subject I studied.
Continue reading ““it killed the ancient romans…””
don't confuse the narrator 