There are books that don’t so much entertain as they haunt. They don’t ask for your approval, or even your sympathy - they simply step into the quietest room of your mind and sit there, uninvited, until you are forced to acknowledge them. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene is one of those … Continue reading What Remains After Love: A Reflection on The End of the Affair
Month: July 2025
The Ghosts That Britain Needed: A Reflection on Arthur Machen’s The Bowmen
I’ve always had a fondness for stories that creep in sideways. Not the grand, operatic ones that march on with banners flying, but the sort that slip in under the door, uninvited and half-mistaken for something real. Arthur Machen’s The Bowmen is precisely such a story - a modest tale of supernatural salvation that, with … Continue reading The Ghosts That Britain Needed: A Reflection on Arthur Machen’s The Bowmen
Stairway to Heaven and the Tunnel of Light: A Reflection on Bosch’s ‘Ascent of the Blessed’
Detail High time I talked about another piece of art. So… I’ve long maintained that heaven, if it exists, is probably not a harp-saturated cloudbank filled with recycled hymn lyrics and relatives you were secretly relieved had passed on. But then I stumbled - quite willingly - into Ascent of the Blessed, one of Bosch’s … Continue reading Stairway to Heaven and the Tunnel of Light: A Reflection on Bosch’s ‘Ascent of the Blessed’
A Cacophony of Creaks and Courage: On the Curious Brilliance of Hendrik Groen, 83¼ Years Old
I came to The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83¼ Years Old expecting the sort of gentle chuckle one lets out when a pensioner mistakes TikTok for a foot ointment. What I found instead was a revelation - less a book, more a quietly defiant act of civil disobedience, written in biro. If Alan Bennett’s … Continue reading A Cacophony of Creaks and Courage: On the Curious Brilliance of Hendrik Groen, 83¼ Years Old
A Soleful Misuse of Public Services: In Praise of the Cheesy-Footed Charlatan of Worthing
There are times in life when one must stop, take stock, and wonder if civilisation has, quite simply, had its day. That moment arrived for me this week in the form of a gentleman - and I use the term in its loosest, most elasticated sense - by the name of Richard Cove. A man … Continue reading A Soleful Misuse of Public Services: In Praise of the Cheesy-Footed Charlatan of Worthing
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