Deer caught in a storm. Olympic runners wreathed in smiles. Sea captains smelling of salt. Fish floundering. Songs. The sun in the eyes on a day when no sunshine was forecast. Patience. Leg warmers made of synthetic wools. Pink biros no one uses. The demi-john filled with old plastic bits-and-pieces and used as a door-stop….
The wide, wide world
When I was a teenager I had to stop thinking about the terrible suffering and torture of animals around the world. I found the sheer weight of the feeling of the immensity of it all crushed me. Now when I read humanity still chasing after money in their billions, still converting the free gift of…
When we are lost…
Laughter is more than a friend. It is a personality we can always count on because it is ourselves, it is a voice we can always understand, a sense we can feel throughout our bodies, a need that brings its own fulfillment. There is in laughters the relaxed knowledge of our own mortality, the sheer…
Dry Stone Walls
Having an old cottage in the county of Cornwall brings with it some challenges, in the main trying to make a home that was built two hundred and fifty years ago for dirt poor farm labourers who were supposed to be out in the fields all day, into a modern home. But there are some…
What Is Freedom For?
Most concepts have many facets. For the most part thinkers have seen freedom as a challenge, based on a natural urge to impose some ethical structure upon the actions of human beings. In fact thinkers down the ages have concentrated on these actions as have governments as they emerged as necessary forms of control upon…
Ink
There is something about ink that beats ballpoint pens every time; the smell is different, the pens are a lot different and far more beautiful, and the whole filling procedure and seeing the ink flow into the page and how different papers soak up the ink differently are things that perhaps only a professional calligrapher…
Apostille
Very few of you will know what this is. Those of you who are lawyers will know very well. But apparently I need one which may or may not be painful but will certainly cost some money. We all know about document verification of whatever sort be they official to Government or business (or both)…
Excalibur
So many knights; so many stories of better times. Well no, not better just easier to fathom. You have a deadly dragon and you are a knight who has taken an oath and off you go. Evil this, good that. The world is not like that there are very few instances of good and very…
Magic Wands
Traditionally they come in many shapes and sizes and varying degrees or reality (and with CGI, I imagine invisible/transparent DNA reading wands will become more prevalent in the years ahead) but they all have one thing in common. They are wielded. They are a hand tool. Why? I am sure someone, somewhere has thought of…
Cartoons
At last the cartoons are being drawn for A Brief History Of Lies. Calvin Innes whom I met at linked-in is reading the manuscript as I write and the cartoons will be with me before the end of January. This leaves me the task to typesetting around them, and seeking a new proof which usually…