Blogs

Lately, angry memories had popped up regarding bullies during my work life. Thinking about those situations through the context of hood-winking monsters on a personal ‘Odyssey’ is helping to see the whole truth. I couldn’t understand why I had never named these situations as bullying at the time. Now I think I didn’t call it bullying because I didn’t see myself as a victim. I saw them for what they were, incompetent, malignant malcontents. I was...

Seven Years in Tibet is a boy-own adventure with Brad Pitt playing Heinrich Harrer (I wasn’t available). Having being brought up with Escape from Colditz and Steve McQueen on a motorbike jumping over barbed wire in The Great Escape (on every Christmas) I had to keep reminding myself Harrer wasn’t British. He was a national champion Austrian skier and mountain climber who scaled the North face of the Eiger. One of the few members of the SA and SS...

Over the next three days, the road outside, and all the way around the block, is being dug up. Don’t know what for, but as a consequence, we have all had to move our cars from preferred spots as there is no parking. Walking home from the free car park, a routine is broken, and a new path appears. One of the signs you’re recovering nicely from whatever has ailed you, is that boredom sets in. Boredom and a mild panic about wasted hours and years...

Filed by Fletcher Moody — Literary Correspondent I was in Jackson, Mississippi, in June of 1963 to write a soft piece about the libraries of the New South for a quarterly that folded before it could run it, and I have never been able to make that errand seem like anything at all next to what the city became while I was in it. Medgar Evers was shot in the back as he stepped out of his car at his home a little after midnight on the twelfth. He was...

Went to see Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ this afternoon. It is colossal. It may just be cinematic genius. The Moray dolphins make a cameo appearance, what more proof is needed? Just the sound of it. Not a soundtrack; it is too unique and all-encompassing. Apparently, the musicians recreated ancient instruments, used metals, and panels of bronze to emulate bronze age sounds. The music races your heart and mind along with it, something...

I haven't really been following the World Cup to be honest. I'm glad England did well, because I'm English and I see no shame in coming third out of 48. I haven't been watching any actual football, but I have been keeping up with the reporting on the BBC website. I find the readers' comments very interesting, it's people watching at one remove. And I like people watchng. There was one comment which contained a phrase which is going to be my...

Samuel Beckett, Chekov, and Alan Shearer, were prone to muse about the particular being in the universal ball into the box. God preserve us from the waffle of Alan Shearer telling us—again—how it is and how it will be. Which makes us want to jump from a high window, or even a low one to avoid England’s favourite son. His English chums chortle and parrot the same 1966 spirit and all that shite, when and then and now. Roy Keane brought in to add a...

Have started to get horrible headaches in a Haar. Not that there are pleasant headaches, but these ones bring a certain crankiness in their wake. Suspect it’s something to do with the light. Although there is no direct sunlight, there is still the strength of the sun being diffused and dispersed through a gazillion tiny sea-water droplets, which makes for a too bright white wall of smir. It’s like a white-out of light. You can’t see where it...

"They were in the hallway, between the second and third bedrooms, when he saw the door. It was on the left side, set into the wall between the linen closet and the bathroom. A six-panel door, same as every other door in the house - same paint, same hardware, same brass knob. It was not remarkable. It was a door in a hallway in a house, and the only reason Philip stopped was that the floorplan in the listing had shown a linen closet here, and the...