I wrote the following in 1999, when I was a teacher at Merchant Taylors’ School. It has deplorable stylistic shortcomings, but I am giving it prominence here in anticipation of the August 21 eclipse in North America, to which I … Continue reading The Darkening
Although I love theatre in general and musical theatre in particular, I am not the kind of person who reads Variety or The Stage and keeps up with every new development. Like many people, I don’t even have the time … Continue reading Hamilton
You know what? What? I’m really happy. What? You know. Don’t you sometimes think that you should just come out and say it? I mean, we don’t give ourselves the chance do we? Just to say it. I am happy. … Continue reading How to be happy in a sad, sad world
As a bulwark against the constant tide of information and comment pouring in from facebook, twitter, YouTube, Instagram and all, and in an attempt to regain a bit of time from the world, I resolved that in 2017 I would … Continue reading Like it’s 1991
Upgoer 5 is a description of a Saturn 5 rocket created by xkcd.com artist Randall Munroe. See here: For this, he uses a vocabulary that consists of no more than ‘ten hundred’ words. The following piece uses no more than … Continue reading Brexit – Upgoer 5
Imagine some futuristic dystopian state where permission must be sought from the authorities if you plan to have sex. You’ll remember that in George Orwell’s 1984 Julia and Winston have to sneak away to an unpoliced proletarian hideout in order … Continue reading Sexual Risk
A: Wait, wait. What? Q: You heard. Don’t get all like that about it. A: You can’t be serious! After all that you’ve said? Q: I am. I think. A: But people have been supporting you, agreeing with you, swayed … Continue reading Remains
So shock horror news of the day (it’s probably an ancient story actually, but it came up on my facebook feed today) is that the Queen of Pop, Beyoncé has her Ivypark t-shirts made in a sweatshop where the workers … Continue reading T-shirts
The Times reports that the BBC is considering whether it needs to diversify its religious coverage, fearing that it may be too Christian. Lord Hall, the director-general, is considering findings that show there is a disproportionate amount of programming by … Continue reading Disproportionate
3D printing is all the rage, isn’t it? Haven’t you heard? What it does is, it’s like an inkjet printer, which works by squirting tiny blobs of ink at a piece of paper to, you know, print things, except that … Continue reading Things
