JosieHolford

The Irish Airman and Time for a Flu Shot

Yeats wrote the poem "The Wild Swans at Coole" (see Game of Swans) in 1916 /17 when he was staying…

5 years ago

Decomposition

Decomposition I have a picture I took in Bombay of a beggar asleep on the pavement: grey-haired, wearing shorts and…

5 years ago

Game of Swans

A group of swans is a wedge when they're in flight, likely because of the shape a group of swans takes in…

5 years ago

Angela Brazil, the Tribal World of School and School Change

Scooterons-nous vite. It's Back to School with Angela Brazil Long before Harry Potter - and indeed long before all those…

5 years ago

All Hands Above Board for the Scuttlebutt

It's always fun when someone you know - a friend - has a book published. Here's Three Sheets to the…

5 years ago

For No Good Reason

I love this poem by Hans Magnus Enzensberger. It's a commentary on the fact that - even in the darkest…

5 years ago

Mustn’t Grumble

Mustn't Grumble We mustn’t grumble We have wireless and cable And there’s food in the shops. Beyoncé had a birthday and…

5 years ago

About Isms He was Never Wrong: George Orwell at the Café Royal

George Orwell had an interesting chance encounter with a blasé conspiracy theorist at the Café Royal in 1940. (See left). The young…

5 years ago

Pulp Fiction Surprise

Just over 20 years ago now a teacher walked into my office and said that he had just found a…

5 years ago

The Art Game

Friends in the UK who usually come to visit in August were prevented by an illness this year. Big disappointment,…

5 years ago

Wordsworth on the Rail Trail

There's a drainage ditch runs alongside the rail trail where we often take our morning stroll. It runs with water…

5 years ago

My Life Among the Spirit People

The Background One evening in the spring of 1919 a soldier in his uniform appeared at the front door of…

5 years ago

Angela Brazil – Rhymes With Dazzle – at Dunkirk

When intelligence officer Arthur Marshall was on the beach at Dunkirk in 1940 he turned to the work of Angela…

5 years ago

Scissors and a Glue Stick

When I first became a head of school I had this daft idea that I would make personalized cut-and-paste greetings…

5 years ago