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Monthly Archives: September 2003
domestic violence
I’m meant to be writing something deadly funny about the Swedish euro referendum today, but got distracted by the front page of the tabloid Expressen, which had a bizarre story of domestic violence I had never come across before. Continue reading
Posted in Travel notes
Comments Off on domestic violence
But why is it in English?
One reason I tend to write and think so much about the war — apart from believing that it may turn out to have been a mistake of 1914 proportions — is that the blogs I read are overwhelmingly American … Continue reading Continue reading
Posted in Blather
7 Comments
Idleness, stupidity and cowardice
These are, when I come to think of it, the main reasons for my lack of success in life. I’ve just finished two long magazine pieces, and should have spent yesterday writing a book outline. Instead, I sat down to … Continue reading Continue reading
Posted in Journalism, OOo
2 Comments
A silly limerick
inspired by the quite extraordinary organ of a a hedgehog seen on a David Attenborough video: A hedgehog, when cursed with insomnia, said, “Dear, poets have sung their encomnia to food and to sleep, and the joys of a heap … Continue reading Continue reading
Posted in Blather
3 Comments
a lost orthography
In 1561, a man named John Veron published a book called the Frutefull Treatise of Predestination and Providence … against the Swynysche Gruntings of the Atheystes and Epicures of Oure Time. Not much hope of finding tht on Amazon, I … Continue reading Continue reading
A cliché walks
I had occasion yesterday to ring Colm Toibin in Dublin. I asked him a fairly complicated question about the historical background to modern Irish self-understanding. He paused for about 30 seconds, and then spoke in well-structured paragraphs, arranged around a … Continue reading Continue reading
Posted in Journalism
2 Comments
Thought for the day
“Sometimes it’s better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness” I doubt I could get that into the Daily Mail’s slot for heartwarming things the grandchildren say. Continue reading
Posted in Blather
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Absolutely Fabulous
I didn’t make this up, honest.Early this year, just before my son Alfie was born, I had lunch with one of my old bosses, a very glamorous mother of two. She had some advice for me about giving birth, woman … Continue reading Continue reading
Posted in Journalism
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