It’s a while since I thought about a piece of music, so, let me remedy that. And it’s perhaps the wrong time of year for this piece, ah, but so what? I wrote this piece years ago after a freezing cold winter’s day at work. So, here we go. There’s something altogether mad about Winter. … Continue reading Vivaldi’s Winter – A Reflection in Three Movements
Tag: Life
Foundations Built on Sand: The Perils of Planning Without Infrastructure
Preface: Why I’m Writing This I didn’t set out to become some kind of armchair town planner, nor do I claim to possess a degree in civil engineering, but I do possess a pair of eyes, a memory, and a moderately reliable toilet. And in recent years, all three have been sorely tested. This piece … Continue reading Foundations Built on Sand: The Perils of Planning Without Infrastructure
Bogs, Beatrix, and the Bleak Sublime: A Lake District Lament
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a man in possession of a holiday must be in want of a breakdown. And so, with great dramatic flair and the sort of overpacked boot that could clothe a minor Balkan militia, I’m off to the Lake District - a land where Wordsworth wandered lonely as a … Continue reading Bogs, Beatrix, and the Bleak Sublime: A Lake District Lament
Bluebird and the Abyss: On Donald Campbell and the Art of Vanishing
“All men dream: but not equally.” – T. E. Lawrence “The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry I’ve always been haunted by that final film clip: the blue hull slicing across Coniston like a bullet skimming a baptismal font, … Continue reading Bluebird and the Abyss: On Donald Campbell and the Art of Vanishing
On the Road – Jack Kerouac and the Cult of Going Absolutely Nowhere Very Fast
I’ve never had the constitution for jazz. It makes me feel like I’m trapped in a lift with a methed-up trumpet and no discernible plot. And yet, somewhere in the post-war fug of America’s caffeine-sweating adolescence, Jack Kerouac managed to convince a generation that the meaning of life could be found in bebop, Benzedrine, and … Continue reading On the Road – Jack Kerouac and the Cult of Going Absolutely Nowhere Very Fast
Wording 