Hopeful Beginning to the End
I could hear a church with hot pink doors purring as I walked towards it through the ‘wrong side of town’ in Gainsborough, East Midlands. So it was these pulsating vibrations that introduced me to the...
View ArticleAt Play 2012 South Hill Park Bracknell Exhibition Review
At Play 2012 South Hill Park, Bracknell. You wouldn’t automatically think of Bracknell as a hub for contemporary art in the South East, however it must be said that South Hill Park is a diamond in the...
View ArticleWhat Can We Learn From Medieval Torture Instruments?
In a work by Venetian artist Sebastiano Del Piombo titled The Martyrdom of St Agatha (1519), the talented painter captures excruciating pain in the face of St Agatha of Sicily. In the painting, St...
View ArticleThe Other Women
This week I had a very fortuitous encounter, an encounter that made me think a lot more about a topic that’s been playing on my mind for quite some time. I met two very interesting women, not only...
View ArticleKneejerks – Media and Instant Opinion
The media is a powerful force in everything that we do today. Newspapers are read on buses and trains as we travel from one place to another. The radio or television is turned on at breakfast and again...
View Article‘Step’ by Lynette Linton at the Theatre Royal Stratford East
I had thought that Lynette Linton’s ‘Step’ would speak to me in an equal and opposite manner. Knowing the character’s move from East London to a Middle Class University was a reversal of my own move it...
View ArticleNo truth’s a panacea
Just sometimes the big questions turn out not to be all that important. One such issue to get my goat lately is the battle between absolutists and relativists, each a pejorative from the opposite...
View ArticleI Hate a Challenge
‘Challenge’ is one of those words whose meaning has changed over the last few years. Or, to be more accurate, the implied meaning of the word has changed. My pocket Oxford Dictionary defines the word...
View ArticleAn Alien on the 4th July
Typical of a travel writer to beg, with pulverized platitudes of “get off the beaten track” nonsense but for the cynical British traveller in the US it’s not just important – it’s downright necessary!...
View ArticleThe Hand That Never Stopped Painting XXVIII
The Hand That Never Stopped Painting XXVIII’ by Struan Kennedy A sick joke is what many will say of Morten Viskum’s work and, if this is their opinion then so be it, however I would like to take the...
View ArticleSpeaking Across the Seas
I was lucky enough recently to have the opportunity to travel to Chile along with my missus. In our hotel room in Santiago one evening, whilst she was chatting on the mobile phone with her sister back...
View ArticleWhy does Pussy Riot matter?
Earlier this week, three members of the Pussy Riot feminist art and punk troupe were sentenced to two years imprisonment: Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Yekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alekhina. The charge...
View ArticleDiary of a Novelist; writing and the ‘Olympic Legacy’
This is the third in a series of articles following my experience and thoughts on the journey towards publication of my debut novel – The Greater Thief. The book, I’m told, is now at the printer’s;...
View ArticleWhen to stop Paying your Unpaid Dues
Whether its unpaid internships, expenses-only student films or being a volunteer administrator, doing work for no pay is a subject done to death. Equity has a Lo Pay/No Pay working party, the Old Vic...
View ArticleA writer’s life of uncertainty
There is a lot of “advice” out there for aspiring writers; some of which is incredibly helpful, some not so much. Dispensing advice is always tricky, particularly when writers try to answer the one big...
View ArticleThe Getaway Guide for Men – Rome!
The eternal city has more culture, romance and swarthiness than George Clooney and Penelope Cruz’s lovechild draped in Dolce & Gabbana. Even people who haven’t visited know this to be true and, for...
View ArticleThe Getaway Guide for Men – Paris!
“The only thing wrong with Paris is …” the cliché we all know and shamelessly love is not entirely unfounded. Parisians are renowned – even in the rest of France – for their acrimony over their sense...
View ArticleThe Changing of the Seasons – A Confession
The Changing of the Seasons – A Confession Something strange happens to me about this time of year. It’s always around September/October time as the last days of summer passes the baton to the first...
View ArticleSilent Scrutiny
I never will find comfort in this silence Where my every step is amplified No voices but stares cracked from eyelids And ears that do listen whilst their figures hide How is it possible to be...
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