Halfway through the first month of 2026, I'm just about waking up. For me January started in a different country, then on my return home I got the ol' man-flu. Various dislocations from the norm. Now, though, I've managed to get a paper diary, which means the year has permission to actually begin. Still, the… Continue reading So Give Me Coffee and TV
These words (Latin for ‘Behold the man’) come from a tragic moment in Jesus’ biography. In painters’ renderings of the moment, Pilate’s hands are often open towards Jesus, directing our eyes to Him, as if to say: “what has he done? What have we done?”
Of the bird called carduelis carduelis, there are hundreds of very clear appearances in religious and secular art - if you fancy some better-researched renaissance info, Herbert Friedmann has the book for you, called The Symbolic Goldfinch. But I didn’t know about any of this when I wrote a poem, years ago, one morning.
The album opener is ‘Kingfishers Catch Fire’, a song I've been trying to harness for years. Though it got a 2020 update, the lyric was mostly written in 2014, whirling out of me with caffeinated ease in a single session...
Featuring my Bristol Bucket List, Gerard Manley Hopkins and a brand spanking new song of mine.
Featuring thoughts on Michael Kiwanuka, Lord Kitchener, record stores and some other things I've been enjoying in 2019.
We go to cinemas for a different view of the world we live in, or to visit an imagined world and escape the laws by which this one's bound. Like the best films, Mati Diop's Grand Prix-winning film Atlantics satisfies both longings.
In which my post-sleep brain comes to life in the company of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's genius; we consider the internal monologue of St Cecilia; and my new music project is announced.
When I last launched a recording project, Prince and Bowie were alive, and the 90s weren't back in fashion yet. Times's changed, my friends.
Culture Me Up 