Fight by Nikola Stanković I first worked with my friend, the Serbian artist Nikola Stanković, in 2018, when I opened a virtual art gallery, Glinka Gallery, in the virtual world of Second Life: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Seaforth/85/198/29 Nikola Stanković’s outstanding paintings formed our first exhibition there, where I was impressed by the variety of techniques he uses, from…

Tony, a French friend, recently sent me an illustrated French novel by a novelist that I was embarrassed to admit that I had never heard of, Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894 – 1961). I googled him, as you do, and discovered that he is not only regarded as one of the greatest French novelists of the 20th…

I’m very pleased with this portrait taken just before Christmas by the excellent Brighton photographer David Myers. He had a vision and pursued it with real energy and enthusiasm. So much so that I went from self-conscious man waiting to be shot to the person you see here. David said he wanted to capture a…

I bought my first laptop last year as a luxurious add-on to the desktop computer that sits in the office room where I spend most of my writing days here at home in Lewes, UK. I suppose I should confess that I have been envious of all those lucky people that I’ve seen over the…

I was, as they used to say in Manchester, dead chuffed to have one of my poems published in the latest edition of the distinguished British literary journal, Acumen. The poem was a remembered moment, an epiphany, in fact, when, at the age of around eleven, I had my first pair of glasses to correct…

T.S. Eliot’s masterpiece is 100 years old this year and I am preparing to read the complete poem online in the virtual world known as Secondlife to mark the centenary of its publication. Yes, virtual worlds really do support writers and writing, even more importantly, we get an international audience to poetry events there which…

Me in October 2011 (left) and then in October 2021 (right) photographs by David Stacey The first portrait photograph of me was honest, I thought, no frills, just me as I was that day. sitting in front of the Georgian fireplace in my Lewes home. It was as true an image as photography can deliver….

I am thinking about the women and girls of Afghanistan. Was this really the best the world could have done for them? These twenty years of corrupt and ineffectual Afghan governments seemed better than the terrible Taliban regime that proceeded them, and there was some hope that international assistance, not just guns and soldiers, could…

I have been reluctant to post my blogs over the last few months of lockdown and its aftermath here in Lewes, UK. I didn’t feel I had much to add to the millions of comments about the pandemic over the last eighteen months as I am convinced that no one would be interested in what…

The hot days of the summer lockdown here in the UK have passed but now it’s second time round for the covid-19 precautions and, in classic English autumn style, it has been raining and, more importantly, it has got cold. No excuse to stop my fitness regime though. Back in July I started doing 25…

Titian: Perseus and Andromeda (about 1554-6) Perseus and Andromeda Nude in chains on the rocks she’s picture-perfect. Titian’s Andromeda displayed for us mortals, for hungry beasts, and for Perseus who dives seaward dressed-to-kill in pink and gold robes to slaughter the slavering monster. He’s a boy-hero, pointing his scimitar, playing the man-of-action awed by the…

Artemisia Gentileschi at The National Gallery, London. Artemisia: Judith beheading Holofernes (1613-1614) Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Last week I went to the new exhibition at London’s National Gallery. It is the first major exhibition in Britain of the magnificent Baroque paintings by the Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi (1593 – 1654), who, still relatively unknown in this…

When I moved into my house here in Lewes, the door was red. It was OK, but not great – one of those shades of red that wasn’t quite confident enough to be either red or pink. Anyway, it was fine and I would’ve stuck with it if it hadn’t needed a new letterbox and…

LOVE DEATH AND DESIRE Titian’s Six Masterpieces reunited after over 400 years 10 August 2020: I was socially distanced at The National Gallery in London In early March this year, I was looking forward to going to see the National Gallery’s much anticipated Titian exhibition Love Death and Desire. The great Italian Renaissance painter’s six…

In July this year, while the UK was still locked down, I was challenged by a friend on Facebook to do the 25 Day Pushup Challenge and, because I can’t resist challenges, I did it. The idea was to do 25 pushups every day for 25 days, to film the process and to post it…

Troy myth and reality. At the beginning of 2020, I spent a week in Naples and visited the fateful ruins at Pompeii where you have to think about the disaster that befell the folks there in in the year 79 AD when the volcano Vesuvius erupted. Little did I know then that the year 2020…

How I survived lockdown. I have finally got round to writing a blog now that, wisely or foolishly, the great British lockdown is being eased. Until now, I haven’t quite managed to write about this, the strangest of times. I was last on here in February for the launch of my poetry collection, Remembering Blue,…

Colin Bell reading Remembering Blue I read from my latest book, my debut poetry collection Remembering Blue at my local pub, the Elephant & Castle, here in Lewes UK – it was a lovely event with a great and receptive audience. Luckily, or not, depending on your opinion, someone was there to video my performance….

My third published book, is a poetry collection, Remembering Blue and, as we enter the new year, I shall be letting you know about scheduled events plants for it, including readings, reviews and various appearances already booked. So keep tuned if you would like to follow me and my little book’s progress. In these troubled…

Home page for Muse-Pie Press I am thrilled to be the new Featured Poet International for American poetry publisher, Muse-Pie Press, producers of the three highly-respected poetry journals: Fibonacci poetry specialist, The Fib Review; short-form poetry publishers, Shot Glass Journal; and the spoken-word magazine, Bent Ear Journal. I have had a few short poems published…

My paternal grandmother, my father and myself, aged 10. Most people regard me as a typical Englishman, but, in reality I am, like many people born in the British Isles, a mixture of English, Scottish and Irish. It just happens that I grew up in Sussex in Southern England, with my father, Andy, who was…

I’ve been trying to get back to full fitness now for twenty months, nearly two years, after a difficult eight or so years of ill-health. A brain haemorrhage in 2008, and a pulmonary embolism a few years later, in 2013/14, left me pretty winded and it’s was often effort enough to walk, let alone run,…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQUZ7d1Rsbo There are two poems about Adam and Eve in my new poetry collection, Remembering Blue, this one, Eve, came together as a little film made in my home town of Lewes, UK. Maybe I’m a bit obsessed by our earliest, or maybe-not ancestors. There was always something that interested me about the fall from…

I went to one of those boarding schools where pupils were expected to pray every day even when the act of praying was, to me at least, a bit of a mystery. We spend what seemed like hours, (but what was probably only around ten minutes) on our knees in the dormitory every night before…

Last week, as part of the ‘virtual’ exhibition, Remembering Blue, at my ‘virtual’ gallery, Glinka Gallery, I took part in a wonderful event with the ever-inventive ‘virtual’ dance company, The Sway & Dance Troupe. OK, what’s all this stuff about ‘virtual’? The creativity and originality of virtual worlds are not celebrated enough in the ‘real’…

I was sad to hear of Peter Fonda’s death, not just because he starred in Easy Rider, one of my favourite films, or just because he was unusual for a Hollywood star (in those days) to take an active role in the counter revolution of the late 1960s, but also because I have personal memories…

My Youtube page. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzkTPtxAMuo Colin Bell reading Haiku A few years ago I started to record myself reading some of my poems but also poetry by greater people than me. I moved away from this idea when I ran into computer problems and then forgot about these little videos until I revived my account at…

The first page in my new poetry collection, Remembering Blue My debut poetry collection is called Remembering Blue after a line in the opening poem, Haiku. The poem was my first attempt at writing in this difficult Japanese short-form poetry style. I’m still not sure if I fulfil all the demands of Haiku traditionalists, but…