Was this face the face That every day under his household roof Did keep ten thousand men? Was this the face That like the sun did make beholders wink? … A brittle glory shineth in this face. As brittle as the glory is the face. To the cinema, and the next day to the theatre,Read More
Zugzwang is a favourite word of mine. It’s a German term, meaning ‘compulsion to move’, but it was adopted into English in the early 1900s through chess. Zugzwang is a position on the chess board where you are still in the game, with a number of moves available to you, every one of which loses.Read More
There’s a scene in Primary Colors (1998), one of my favourite American movies, that keeps coming back to me as I read about the current presidential race in the USA. Jack Stanton, a Southern governor in pursuit of the Democratic nomination for president, is beset by scandal. His great strength is his empathy with ordinaryRead More
I’ve been watching the general election with a mixture of fascination, horror, bewilderment and exhilaration. I disagree with all those who thought it was a dull campaign – it may have been very stage managed, but that is because elections are won on television, not on soapboxes, as a survey of which media most influencedRead More
There is a quaint timber-framed building a couple of doors down from where I live in Rochester High Street. It was, until recently, the incongruous home of an alternative therapies centre entitled Rainbow Healing. It offered tarot card readings, Reiki workshops, holistic health solutions, and lots of candles. It was one of a number ofRead More