“Swallows”, George Szirtes
George Szirtes is a poet who writes both children’s and grown-up verse. His book “How To Be A Tiger” neatly shows how ostensibly children’s verse can be as valuable as…
“The Menace From Ennis”, a lost classic from Sonny Knowles
The singer Sonny Knowles “known as The Window Cleaner to his fans,”, a staple of the Irish showband scene, has died. Via Wikipedia I came across this, which I screenshotted…
“November Woods”, Arnold Bax
Back during the summer heatwave I included Arnold Bax’s “Summer Music” in a seasonally appropriate playlist. Here via YouTube is a piece for this season: Bax himself disavowed programmatic…
November 12th 1988: Two contrasting letters from Kingsley Amis
In “The Letters of Kingsley Amis”, edited by Zachary Leader, we find two contrasting and yet in their own way characteristic letters from Kingsley Amis from this day thirty years…
The strange tale of Furia Infernalis
I have only read a little of John Wright’s “The Naming of the Shrew” but already this is the third extract I have found blog-post worthy. I had never heard of Furia…
Monday Monster Movie: King Kong vs Godzilla (1962)
“The sleep of reason brings forth monsters.” – Francisco Goya
Arthur Benjamin speed calculation video
I’m not an almighty fan of TED talks, which can reek of solutionism and can privilege a certain slick, clickbait-y style of communicating in which sleekly presented ideas drown out less sexy…
For Jakow Trachtenberg
For Jakow Trachtenberg The embers of bitterness did not burn in you. The machinery of mathematics did not cease in you. The days of hell did not rob you of…
Séamus Sweeney 