The wrong tweet? Gary Lineker made an error in the tweet that had him cancelled from hosting Match of the Day on the BBC. Delivering her policy statement in the House of Commons, Home Secretary Suella Braverman declared that Britain was being ‘invaded by a huge influx of refugees.’ – there are a hundred million who want to come to […]
Poetry and people and the place of women
Poets are an elite species Where did the idea come that poets are a separate kind of human that is more aesthetically refined, sensitive, better educated and therefore part of an elite? Where did the idea come from that we can’t sing unless taught how to do it? Is this why some of us avoid trying to write poetry and […]
Freedom of Speech and truth-telling
The BBC Reith Lectures I listened to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Reith Lecture on Freedom of Speech on the BBC and I knew I was once again in a world of curiosity and questioning where books are open doors to the whole world. As Adichie said, the essential freedom to be creative is only possible if there is freedom of speech. […]
The Banshees of Inisherin
The Banshees of Inisherin was on at the local cinema the night after the Golden Globe event on TV. We decided to see it because Colin Farrell had won an award for his role in it. The film is set against the background noise of the guns of the Irish civil war. Innis Erin – Inisherin means the island of […]
Egypt’s COP27 and Zambia’s Kariba Dam
Disembarking at Cairo, we were confronted with an enormous billboard welcoming delegates to the COP27 climate conference. 40 000 delegates were meeting to discuss, among other things, the painful question of financial responsibility for fixing the climate crisis caused largely by the activities of developed countries. Visiting Egypt was a long-held dream. It was wonderful for many reasons, not least […]