celticman's blog

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001jw7l/we-need-to-talk-about-cosby-series-1-episode-1 https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0f50h4m/we-need-to-talk-about-cosby-series-1-episode-2 https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0f50jqx/we-need-to-talk-about-cosby-series-1-episode-3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0f50n4g/we-need-to-talk-about-cosby-series-1-episode-4 We Need to Talk About Cosby is a play on the title of Lionel Shriver’s...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001jnfb/the-mormons-are-coming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormons Yesterday, I said to Sean, Robin’s dad, I couldn’t get swimming because there were two ducks in the swimming pool. ‘Really!’ he replied. ‘No,’ spluttered five-year-old Robin and Tilly at the same time. Shaking their heads and running away with that bemused expression that means that means they know what they’re about. ‘He’s a liar,’ said...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeToo_movement I know a girl, a little girl, I think of her in that way because of her size. She’s tiny. She got raped. I know the rapist too. I also know his mum. She contacted me and asked me to stop calling him a rapist. ‘It was just one of those things,’ she said. ‘She panicked.’ The irony here is her daughter must have panicked too. Because she’d gone to the police alleging an acquaintance had raped her a few...

https://www.channel5.com/show/the-great-stink-of-1858/#main-content https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stink John Major: “Society needs to condemn a little more and understand a little less.” We all know where deregulation and a lack of cooperation take us. It allows us to put carbon into the air and gives our planet multiple sclerosis. That’s a deadly miasma which will be terminal for most of us. Coming to you soon. Britain 1858 is the...

Nobody tells you how much you’ll come to hate your book. Fight or flight. You freeze. You’re being held down and forced to read it again. Try a different font. Try reading it aloud. Give it time to settle. While I was waiting, I wrote a rough draft of the follow-up novel, Angel . Try primal screaming. It doesn’t work but it does annoy the neighbours. At least they know how you feel. The problem isn’t someone else’s. While you’re lining sentences...

Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry , has as its protagonist Elizabeth Zott, who shoots from the hip, and never fails to tell the reader why. The past is never past and all that. And in physics, as in life, nothing is ever lost. But Elizabeth Zott is a chemist. A first-class chemist. Physics may have created the atomic and hydrogen bombs. But it was chemistry and chemists that created our modern world. Elizabeth Zott is a genius, in the same way...

Channel 4, The Billionaires Who Made Our World. Bill Gates. https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-billionaires-who-made-our-world/on-demand/72330-002 ‘The Global Fund is one of the best and kindest thing people have ever done for one another. Our Foundation announces a $500 million grant to The Global Fund.’ Bill Gates. Dear Bill, I’m sure you don’t remember me, but your algorithm does. You ‘friended’ me on Twitter. That was before the other...

I might have read Margaret Elphinstone’s book, The Sea Road before. Everybody loves Vikings, especially President Putin. The Rus people, he claims, are directly descended from The Sea Road and not from the Asiatic hordes in the East. Another way of saying, white is right. White is might. Pass the longboat and invade Ukraine where it all began. I know what you’re thinking, Alzheimer’s. That’s what really scares me. Memory loss. Not being Valhalla...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001j079/the-shamima-begum-story Elie Wiesel: “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.” Near the end of The Shamima Begum Story, Josh Baker asked her a question we often hear: ‘What would you tell your fifteen-year-old self?’...

Putin vs The West, BBC 2, BBC iPlayer, Narrator Caroline Catz, Editor Toby Marter, Director Tim Stirzaker, and Series Producer Norma Percy. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0dlz7tz/putin-vs-the-west-series-1-1-my-backyard https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0dlzcrb/putin-vs-the-west-series-1-2-back-with-a-vengeance https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0dlzdwr/putin-vs-the-west-series-1-3-a-dangerous-path The Doomsday Clock sits 90...