A World for Literalists
Words can be terribly slippery. William Empson in his seminal work on ambiguity from 1930 described the effect of these semantic slips as being either āwitty or deceitfulā; you can look on the effect of ambiguity as providing interpretive freedom but also the chance theyāll simply steer you in the wrong direction. Poetic language pivots […]
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Forcing myself to write today. Having one of those dips in productivity that come with a dip in confidence. Wish I had some elaborate psychological explanation for it but itās all pretty mundane. The blogging isnāt going great. Terrible numbers, even for work like my Farage piece which I thought was pretty strong. Very little […]
Continue ReadingConga!
I should probably not blog when Iām angry, but nothing rankles me more than a bully. Punch up not down is my guiding mantra, and Iām always happy to swing a fist to help the underdog. But onto this blogpost and the fact that the lockdown has easedā¦ I write this ahead of whatever Johnson […]
Continue ReadingExercising Mr Invective [Explicit]
Itās a warm lazy Saturday so I thought Iād give my brain a bit of a workout and paddle it around that husk of nothingness floating in a sea of irrelevance that is Nigel Farage. I drew a cartoon yesterday in a fit ofā¦ well, āpiqueā isnāt the right word. It makes it sound too […]
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From Warlord to V.E. Day…
Today is the seventy-fifth anniversary of V.E. Day and another chance to reflect on how I have something wrong with my brainā¦ I always feel like these around these big commemorations. The fact that World War 2 lasted about six years means that thereās always another landmark divisible by 5 around the corner. If weāre […]
Continue ReadingThoughts About Ending the Lockdown…
17.55. Had an early tea (dinner for those in the south) and Iām back at my desk with the window open, a slight breeze blowing, the birds singing. It would be so very calming except for the sound of the neighbourās grandkids splashing and screaming in their paddling poolā¦ Iām not sure why Iām writing […]
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The Amazing Generosity of Rishi Sunak
So I checkedā¦ I checked to see Iād be eligible for any of the help the government have so generously offered the self-employed for the past/ongoing three months of lockdown. And, I admit, at first, I was blinded by the chancellorās delivery. I believed Rishi Sunak when he stepped up those many weeks ago and […]
Continue Reading#DrawDominicCummings
Iāve always loved optical illusions and visual puns. I especially like those paints that involve a face made from other objects, such as Giuseppe Arcimboldoās Vertumnus, which is a painting of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf the rednoseā¦ Sorry, I mean: Rudolf II. He did others but thatās probably the most famous. This was my […]
Continue ReadingSex and the Single Data Modeller
The news that Professor Neil Ferguson has been crunching something more than the numbers during lockdown means I need to stick a new post-it on my monitor to remind me that itās ānone of my bloody businessā. Itās the business of certain newspapers, though, who seem to take great delight in having found somebody displaying […]
Continue ReadingThere Are No Miracles
Once upon a time, when I was less grey but significantly more unhappy, I used to be a computer programmer. Well, I say āprogrammerā but I was probably one step away from a hacker; little more than a one-man-band who would write software to order, bypassing all the formal training Iād been taught at university […]
Continue ReadingOn Book Shaming
So I find myself sitting here wondering how I would feel if Michael Gove had a book by David Icke on his shelfā¦ Probably more worried, if Iām honest. Icke doesnāt write out of any respected tradition except that of the seers and mystics who have always been around making a pretty penny from the […]
Continue ReadingOne Month Update
Just finished one piece and Iām about to go and grab some food before I pen something for the blog. So, in the meantime, I thought Iād quickly write an update on this experiment in caffeine-fuelled creativity. Iām now over one month into this project. During that time, I have noticeably increased my caffeine intake […]
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