celticman's blog

Damian Le Bas was born and bred a gypsy. We’ve all got ideas what that means. My middle name is Damain. I had to check if it’s spelled with an ‘a’ or ‘e’. I don’t use it much, but it’s there, lurking. Le Bas dedicates his book to his dad who died in 2017. His gypsy dad is my age, or would have been, if he hadn’t died. I’m pretty sure I’ve read this book before. Most books become mush in my head and I can usually pick out highlights that resonate...

Claire Mitchell and Zoe Venidtozzi (2025) How to Kill a Witch: A Guide for the patriarchy. ‘This book is dedicated to the people, mostly women, who were accused, tortured and executed as witches, and those who still face these unfounded accusations today.’ Claire Mitchell and Zoe Venidtozzi write about their ‘journey’ which began around 2020. What they wanted was a public apology and a memorial for those involved in these ‘historical outrages’...

I see dinosaurs every day. So do you. We call them birds. Hone addresses What We Don’t Know. What We Can, and What We’ll Never Know. He cites John Maynard Keynes Dictum: ‘When the facts change, I change my mind’. The study of fossils from tens of millions and millions of years ago is finite. The number of palaeontologists studying dinosaurs Hone suggests would comfortably fit in a research institute in the UK studying health. China has the...

I lost this book and found it, which added a bit of emotional heft. On the cover, Daniel Kahneman’s publishers remind of us of three things about Thinking, Fast and Slow based on print size. The International Bestseller, Winner of the Nobel Prize and quote, ‘a lifetime’s worth of wisdom’. On the 5 th November 2024, a large group of people got to place a small bet. They could bet on a narcissistic, psychopathic, rapist, tax dodging, cheating, dim...

Bobby White: seven marathons, seven continents in seven days. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c75e3dny5ygo I’ve been following Bobby White’s story. It helps that I know him. He’d walk past me in the street, but we played in the same team for a wee while. I also played against his dad, Bobby White. He was a great football player as well. And they’d a younger nephew and cousin. Bobby White, naturally. They all played centre forward for some...

You’re probably wondering why I’d want to be part of the audience in a case-study session with playwright and screenwriter, Stef Smith, since I’m neither playwright nor do I know who Stef Smith is or was. Yeh, well, writing is writing is my answer. I might learn something. I’m a Catholic. So it would be no great surprise to me if Jesus was sleeping off another resurrection in bed upstairs. While the Virgin Mary was poking around in the kitchen...

Unexpected death Sometimes, disappointment feels like embracing the unavoidable death you anticipated would come crashing through the roof of your room, only to find it had slipped in through the door. W.H. Auden (1907-73) Epitaph On A Tyrant Perfection of a kind, was what he was after, And the poetry he invented was easy to understand; He knew human folly like the back of his hand, And he was greatly interested in armies and fleets; When he...

You know this story which is part of the attraction. You get hurt and you get hard. Poet, Seamus Heaney pairs the theme. Pains become armour walking hand in hand with history. Rocky chases chickens and punches cold slabs of meat in a freezer while chasing his dream of becoming heavyweight boxing champion of the world. Djokovic after winning one of the most brutal Grand Slam finals in tennis history celebrates with a square of chocolate. I must...

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/harvey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_(1950_film) Our parents would have known who and what Harvey was. But don’t expect anybody under fifty. They might be vaguely familiar with James Stewart. He was the Tom Hanks of yesteryear and resident good guy. Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life (1944) is a regular at Christmas. James Stewart is such a perfect match to the ever-so amiable Elwood P. Dowd it’s...

The Big Issue is a fiver (£5) now. I can remember the shock and disbelieve it was £2. Then £2.50…and so on. My sister gave me this copy. She bought it from an Eastern European women from outside Asda. Like most folk that catch her eye and don’t look away, I usually just slip her £2 and say I don’t want the magazine. Win-win. But not for the magazine. There’s a guy on the bridge at the shopping centre. He’s there every day and plays some musical...