I finished the first draft of my third sestina yesterday. I know, as with the first and second sestinas too, that I shall be doing some obsessive rewriting but it was a moment to mark in the silent days that…
May 2010: George Osborne, Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, was adamant that his policy was correct: cut the deficit straight away, begin the cuts immediately, cut government subsidies and shrink the public sector. Manufacturing and the rest of the private…
I suppose people get their kicks in different ways. For some, like these policemen in Bahrain, it is firing bullets at unarmed political protesters. For many others, driving in a fast car is the ultimate high and for many more…
I had good news regarding my poetry over the weekend. First my latest poem, The Great Escape, is published today in the Shot Glass Journal (Musepie Press see Links in the right hand column). Here is a sneak preview but…
Thanks Apollo if you had a hand in this. Sorry about the latest bullock sacrifice but we Southern English got fed up with a couple of cloudy days but it is all OK again now. Hope we don’t come across…
Today is strangely quiet here in Lewes, England. Overcast skies on a chilly May bank holiday when everyone wants Summer to arrive dancing. My small garden has done its best but a grey day remains just that, a grey day.…
There were two stars in the news for me last week. One was, of course, the inspirational Barrack Obama lighting up Europe on his beautifully choreographed tour but the other glittering personality of the week was a scientist, the amazingly…
In the Serbian village of Lazarevo a seemingly harmless and decrepid-looking old guy is shuffled away under arrest for some of the worst crimes committed in warfare since the Second World War. It seemed odd that this dithering figure could…
Who is the coolest kid on the block? Well Dave Cameron tries too hard and that is never cool. Barrack Obama is more at home with this sort of thing but then High Fives are an American thing after-all. Maybe…
Today is the day! Sitting here in my study I can tell – I just have to look out of the window at my small Lewes garden here in the UK and, yes, my rose Golden Celebration has come into…