Here we go again
It seems about time that I started another blog on my site. I can’t quite say why, other than that I have some things to say which can probably be best said here rather than anywhere else. I find that...
View ArticleScattered thoughts about hatred and freedom
It’s not the main news item, but perhaps it should be. Today has brought us the spectacle of a man being jailed for two months for expressing views which the state finds unacceptable. He is not the...
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Eosturmonath
Easter is an interesting time, and an interesting word. What does it mean? Like so much of the rest of modern English, the word Easter has etymological roots in the Old English language, which in turn...
View ArticlePoets win prizes
Last Saturday was a very good day, because it was the day on which I collected the Wenlock Poetry Prize. Collecting poetry prizes is not something that happens to me very often - in fact, it has only...
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It's going to be busy
I’ve not written this blog for a while - or updated this site. It’s been a busy summer. But I’m in the middle of a general site cleanup now, and I’ll be finally finishing the process of transferring...
View ArticleCycles of stories
When R. S. Thomas, a truly great poet, one of my favourites, died in 2000, a memorial service was held for him at Westminster Abbey. One of the speakers at the service was the then Poet Laureate Andrew...
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The long walk through
A couple of weeks ago, I was forty years old. I’d known for a while that my wife was arranging a surprise to mark the occasion, but I hadn’t known quite what it would involve.I found out soon enough.A...
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Embroidery as subvertising
It’s been a month now since my first novel, The Wake, popped up on the website of Unbound, the innovative crowd-funding publisher. I’ve been meaning to write a series of blogs about it, but this is the...
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How to write a novel
I should say before I start: the title of this post is misleading. I have no idea how to write a novel, and so I could not begin to explain it to you. I have some idea about how novels shouldn’t be...
View ArticleThe Buckmaster Trilogy
Books do strange and unexpected and sometimes disturbing things, independent of their creators. It’s one of the saving joys of being a writer. Exhibit one: The Wake: a labour of love and strangeness...
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What would Ted...
What would Ted do? I have decided to walk away from social media. I’ve been building up to this for some time, and have been putting it off for...
View ArticleOn leaving
The EU referendum has turned out not to be about the EU at all. That, I think, is why the arguments have been so vicious. Those who would like us to remain in the EU keep trying to frighten or tempt us...
View ArticleThe afternoon afterIt’s been quite a day. Passions are running...
The afternoon afterIt’s been quite a day. Passions are running high. I hope, when they calm down, that people will beginning listening to each other, and being kind. People have complex reasons for...
View ArticleWaving from the BalconyToday, as I watched Jeremy Corbyn...
Waving from the BalconyToday, as I watched Jeremy Corbyn standing on a street in London with a microphone, blaming Margaret Thatcher for Britain’s decision to leave the EU, I couldn’t help but think of...
View ArticleThe grief of the elites
Eight years ago, in my book Real England, I wrote about a class divide I had been surprised to discover breaking out across the country:… there is [a] term that could be used about what is happening...
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