I’ve moved on again at the gym this week with a new programme that sees me graduating back – at last – to free weights. It’s been a long time – pre-haemorrhage days – since I’ve been allowed to get…
I felt guilty this morning about the poet Anne Stevenson. Guilty for a moment and then not at all. Was it disrespectful, I wondered briefly, to keep her inspired book of poetry in the loo? I always keep a book…
Luis Martinez I need a haircut. It’s not just that I’m vain though that has quite a lot to do with it. No it’s more because I’ve been spoiled. Five years ago, I used to live in a small Sussex…
I wrote a poem, The Blueberry Cage, after a particularly idyllic July day when I was on holiday in New Jersey, USA, in 2011. Today the poem is published online by Every Day Poets, that hard-working publisher that uploads a…
I’m in a rush today so apologies to all my readers. Today is no breakfast, no coffee and last night was no alcohol. I’m off to the gym, feeling remarkably cheerful, for my fitness assessment after the first period of…
The African rhino is now an endangered species. There is an Asian tradition, a totally misguided one, that ground rhino horn is a cure for cancer. It isn’t. Asia’s economy is booming. Rhino poaching in Africa is booming. Rhino horn…
Where are we now? Indeed. Where are we? For anyone like me who’s grown up with David Bowie, it is an apt question. There were so many hopes when Ziggie first learned to play guitar and when we all thought…
Sometimes I just get days like this. I guess I’m not alone. I have been struggling this morning – getting up was a major challenge, breakfast was long and lingering, today’s projects, including writing the daily blog, put off for…
At least two of the people I celebrated Twelfth Night with this year are artists and they just also happen to be married. David and Dawn Stacey are, I think, a talented pair. I have one of Dawn’s paintings on…
Nick Clegg, George Osborne, David Cameron I’ve been worried, as have many of you I’m sure, about the way our leaders here in Europe have been handling the economy. I don’t vote Conservative and never have but, even if I…