• Shadows on the Cave Wall

    I know what Plato meant when he said that we could not apprehend reality directly. Everything is an echo or a facsimile or obscured or misrepresented or a lie. We are islands unto ourselves and though we build bridges to each other’s habitats, we never actually cross to them. Love is our best word for… Know More

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  • Casting Bread Upon the Water

    I made the point some time ago that writing e-books was akin to putting messages in bottles on your desert island when what you really wanted was a full-size steamer to come by and save you (a book publisher). A friend muttered the other day that he did not want to broadcast his thoughts, implying… Know More

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  • Cheating Death

    As you will have read in the last blog, I am writing a novella about what happens when a man is given three months to live. Maybe this preoccupation with death is just my age. Close friends have died this last year. It’s a conundrum to have them alongside me one moment and then not,… Know More

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  • Easeful Death

    As a subject for a novella, proscribed time is very powerful. This is the common enough eventuality that you will know exactly how long you have to live. Until the surgeon tells you and you are in a care home or a hospice or you are finally returned to your bed for the last few… Know More

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  • “…two nations divided by a common language”

    This quote is likely to have issued from the lips of George Bernard Shaw and, of course, refers to Great Britain and the United States of America. Having watched, or had inflicted upon me, the election carousel for the American Presidency over the last few months, I become more aware how language causes cognitive and… Know More

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  • Prose Portal

    You might take a look at www.chronometerpublicatons.me which is my portal to books I have written. The Mondrian design presentss an instant summary of what I have to offer. The two novellas I have completed since I published Azimuth are yet to be added. They will supplement the range of genres. What you have is… Know More

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  • To be or not to be

    I love The Unicorn by Rilke, a fact I have mentioned before. It goes to the absolute essence of human credulity. O this is the animal that does not exist, But they didn’t know that, and dared nevertheless To love it…and Because they loved it, it came to be a…pure creature. They always left a… Know More

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  • The Great Unread

    In a recent tweet I coined a very Omar Khayyam type couplet: Our lives are kisses on the surface of the river, Tiny whorls that catch the light and then disappear It represents what faces us all; transiency. For the writer (there are previous blogs on this) the making of books is probably a spurious… Know More

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  • Volcanic Eruptions and Purple Prose

    I started a new novella the other day. It began well from a purely eyes down, words per minute point of view. Like most of the prose I write these days (as opposed to academic writing where I used to plan, make a flow chart, look for supportive and critical references, do drafts and finalise… Know More

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  • More Liberty from Insanity

    The title is only half in jest. As life imitates art so does an article on the BBC site proclaim that many writers would become mad, save for their art. I’ve never felt close to mad, even when I worked with mad folks I never felt any contagion. But I did write a blog to… Know More

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