One childhood ritual during the days between Christmas and the return to school was the day trip to London. The main purpose was the January sales and the destination: “the London shops”. Swindon had a department store – McIlroys on Regent Street (it even had those amazing overhead wire and pulley cash railway systems that transported money and sales slips…
“That woman is pursued by demons,” Wally Brigley, the Board chair, declared as he settled into Tim Endibel’s office, plonked his Starbucks cup down on the desk, and eyed the package of mince pies on the coffee table. “Have one,” Tim said. Wally didn’t hesitate, unwrapping the cellophane and taking a bite. “So, what did our Vonnie Braydune want this…
“You look about as festive as a radish sandwich,” Midge had said. And she wasn’t wrong—Tim Endibel, co-head of Wayward St. Etheldreda’s Academy, was in no kind of holiday mood. Three days before winter break, the sounds of the holiday concert rehearsal drifted up the stairwell, a cheery backdrop to his gloom. Tim sat at his desk, dispirited and utterly…
“We were young and we were keen; Europe was in flames, and we were ready for whatever came.” “I used to think that war would make one braver, harder—but instead, it only makes one tired. The glamour of it wears off quickly when you’re pulling bodies from the wreckage.” Train to Nowhere by Anita Leslie Anita Leslie’s Train to Nowhere…
When I was in the emergency room last year having busted my elbow, a nurse asked whether I had ever broken anything else. I expect she was probing to see whether I had acquired that oldies’ habit of throwing yourself to available floors and sidewalks.. I had a ready and precise answer; “Yes. I broke my arm on November 5th,…
Most of us have done it at some point or another – accidentally locked ourselves out of the house. Raymond Carver’s poem tells a quite simple ordinary story but it becomes so much more. Read it to see what he does. He’s locked himself out and of course it’s raining and the people who have the spare key are away.…
Thanks to the #1970 Club, I’ve spent the spare moments of the past week immersed in The Female Eunuch and all things Germaine (rock groupie, celebrity, author, Shakespearian scholar, wrecking ball, rainforest protector, fearless truth-teller) Greer. I borrowed the book from the library, got stuck in, and then started on the videos of talks, interviews, appearances via YouTube. Not being…
Thanks to the #1970 Club, I have a new mog in my life and a new literary best friend in Mog the Forgetful Cat. “Once there was a cat called Mog. She lived with a family called Thomas. Mog was nice but not very clever. She didn’t understand a lot of things. A lot of other things she forgot. She…
The #1970 Club is starting tomorrow (October 14th) and I’m prepared with some reading and re-reading. 1970 offers a rich literary landscape, from Germaine Greer and Graham Greene to children’s classics like Mr. Gumpy. It ranges from Sexual Politics and Mog, the Forgetful Cat, to works by Susan Hill, Shel Silverstein, Iris Murdoch, and Toni Morrison, alongside Ruth Rendell, Robertson…
How Do They Live with Themselves? This was the question Roger Rosenblatt asked in The New York Times regarding the tobacco industry executives who lied to Congress about what they knew to be true. It is now a question we must ask of the leaders of major medical organizations, such as the AAP, AMA, and Endocrine Society, as well as…
“The pleasure [of motoring] is seeing Nature as I could in no other way see it; my car having ‘tops’, I get Nature framed —and picture after the other delights my artistic eye.” * Henri Matisse is famous for his paintings of views through the windows of hotel rooms, studios, and houses. This is a landscape triptych through the windscreen…
We’ve been lucky with the weather in NYC this September. Many bright, warm days The aftermath of the powerful hurricane that has devastated areas of the South East is now giving us a little rain. Not so lucky there where hurricane Helene was deadly across five states after making landfall on Thursday. Some of the worst flooding the South has…
In Meaning Loss, Sanje Ratnavale has written a practical and timely contribution to an important debate that all schools should be having. It’s about curriculum and reimagining the sense of purpose that has too often become mired and muddled by ideological squabbles and all-out hot button culture wars. But first – a digression: Consider the now familiar tale of a…
Our friend Carol said we just had to read David Sedaris in the September 9, 2024, New Yorker – “The Hem of His Garment about his audience with the Pope. It was hilarious, she said, and so it was. It’s an irreverent and self-deprecating account of the Pope’s invitation to comedians to visit the Vatican. And – because they are comedians…
The 2024 harvest moon is September 17th. First a poem courtesy of the Daily Poem at The Paris Review – from August 28. Time Is a Graceless Enemy, but Purls as It Comes and Goes I’m winding down. The daylight is winding down. Only the night is wound up tight. And ticking with unpaused breath. Sweet night, sweet, steady, reliable,…