I was looking about some of the dark corners of this site last night and discovered that my first blog or ‘plog’ entry was dated 18-10-2005 – nearly 20 years ago! Back then i was still living in London, was about to release my first collection of poems ’27 Watt’ and started the website as … Read more
Well I am a bit of a tree nerd and my latest fascination is with gymnosperms, all kinds, but trees especially. I see them as an interesting kind of ancient artefact of the Mesozoic, and the times before there were really any leafy or flowery trees. They have some funny characteristics, like their odd cones … Read more
I have been living in retrospective nostalgia for the life n times of George Orwell this last week, when I read Homage to Catalonia, and discovered the very good BBC Arena documentary which interviews dozens of interesting and important characters from his life, who were still alive at the time (1983 but also with snippets … Read more
I wrote this in a break during a recent zen retreat: All is one. This lies at the root of spiritual metaphysics – of the kind i know – and in a sense the story ends there. But let’s unpack it a little. What is the nature of “One” ? Well, One is God, but … Read more
My love of david Berman continues, as i sift through the riches of his old blog, menthol mountains and his reddit history. I feel like i’m following a trail of literary crumbs, among the broken bottles and party hats, long after the party has gone quiet. I keep missing the party. Just this morning watching … Read more
I hang out on debateanatheist on reddit, trying to be satisfied, but something’s just missing y’know? i can’t tell when i lost the ability to be satisfied by logic. Now i need some crazy to feel like life has a meaning. I’m hooked on the mystery like a drug. Sure i love physics, but even … Read more
I really should be putting my blogs on substack or medium or one of those other places. but i’m happy loafing here in my homebrew website, hiding away from the world. I’m writing this having loaded up an old computer that i haven’t really used much since about August 2020.. i see my documents folder … Read more
Hello friends. Have been through what feels like another round of frying-pan-fire, with cars breaking unexpectedly (quick pushing onto median strips at lights with other cars waiting), songs going out into the world without much fanfare, money on the mind, and as usual the riot menagerie of dogs, kids, and chickens, with 17 new babies … Read more
Feeling a bit light this evening so i think i can talk about it.. the slow pull. Maybe it is just the advancing years, the lengthening shadows. The dough, folded and folded again, to make a millefeuille. The complexifying of every little thing and yet — an increasing vagueness, a thinning out, a diminishing opacity. … Read more
In around 2009 I started a twitter account to get what seemed a direct line to gossip coming out of parliament house. In those days there didn’t seem to be any trolls. But it quickly got sordid. Soon i had my first exposure to what is really a kind of psychological warfare using images and … Read more
I’ve recently discovered I’m living near to a Buddhist temple that seems to have its main links going towards the Burmese Buddhist tradition, with an enormous golden Buddha statue at its heart. It has a beautiful smaller shrine around the back with a marble Buddha surrounded by a small collection of interesting statues in different … Read more