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Monthly Archives: May 2020

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. The barnacles are scraped off British men-of-war twice a year..5 — The Nelson Evening Mail, Thursday, September 6 1906 . Wicca is the fastest-growing religion in the UK after Islam. The Dutch term for a sex buddy is ‘seksbuddy’. George I and his prime minister conversed officially in dog Latin. Irish 6th-formers know what The Communist Manifesto is […]

My first Carr

On my personal discovery of eccentric English novelist (and teacher, and artist, and airman, and footballer) JL Carr, the night before what would have been his 108th birthday. — For The Critic

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. In the United States only one about one building in three thousand is even nominally fire-proof. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Thursday, March 14 1907 . Ellis Paz has become the first man in history to be awarded a doctorate by the University of Oxford while wearing just his pants. Matthew Perry once entered a Vanilla Ice lookalike […]

Aguê the Sinister, also called Azizan

Among the Ewe people of Togo (formerly Togoland), the village of Bé lies at the foot of the Tokoin plateau, between a stagnant lagoon and a sacred wood, the meagre remnant of an ancient equatorial forest that once covered the south of the country in its entirety. Here, the animist bokonon priests and priestesses of the python cult worship the forces of […]

Two thoughts – for Robert Twigger

. ‘A man on a straight path never got lost.’ — Idries Shah . ‘The trouble with the straight and the narrow ..Is it’s so thin, I keep sliding off to the side.’ — Jason Spaceman .

Strength and honour

A love letter to 20 years of watching Gladiator. — For The Critic

NEWS AT A GLANCE

. One’s past is what one is. It is the only way by which people should be judged. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Wednesday, August 29 1906 . Globalisation is going into reverse. The (great) auk became extinct because he forgot how to fly. Your underpants contain cellulose. In the medieval period, walking through a labyrinth or […]

May Day, May Day…

A lockdown letter from Colombo. — For The Critic