Jetsam

Between

2011-12-10T11:12:00.001Z

Crossing the Millennium Bridge suspended from twin cities separate inseparable we pause an unreliable unrecreatable childhood memory recurs stepping plank to plank along Ryde pier neither sea nor land and watching the turbulent threatening water beneath disturbed a cormorant settles on a floating boom an artificial island in the

Borders

2011-11-27T09:57:00.001Z

The boundary's moved through the years north south, south north - people, sheep don't care: guards, thieves look much the same by any compass - but at night the lights destroy peace. When no-one looks borders vanish.

Thanks to all supporters - more needed

2011-02-24T17:54:00.000Z

There is another article in the Newcastle Chronicle today about Leonie and Stacey. Leonie said she was lured into coming to the UK in 2008 with promises of a better life. But when she arrived, the 29-year-old said she was forced into prostitution. The UK Border Agency and Immigration Tribunals turned down her application to stay in the UK. Now we are campaigning to ask the Home Secretary to

Hundreds back asylum seeker to stay on Tyneside

2011-02-20T15:48:00.000Z

Leonie and Stacey in their flat Under the headline Hundreds back asylum seeker to stay on Tyneside the local paper, the Evening Chronicle, had a full page feature on Leonie and Stacey and their fight to stay in the UK. Lots of petition forms and a good number of letter have already been sent. From the article: The 29-year-old was fleeing her African homeland when she was lured into coming to

Help save Leonie and Stacey Mendo

2011-02-18T08:39:00.000Z

Would you help keep Leonie Mendo and her daughter Stacey in the UK? Theresa May, MP, Home Secretary This is just a brief summary - there is more information in the letters. Leonie Mendo is from Cameroon. She came to the UK at the invitation of a man she met over the internet. He locked her up, abused her and forced her into prostitution. When she became pregnant she was discarded. Only then

Winter hearts

2010-12-21T19:42:00.000Z

finger-written on a rear windscreen in the snow: I you still visible next morning though slipped a bit sagged by gravity and a slight thaw: a metaphor

Two poems by Chris Carroll

2010-09-19T14:41:00.003+01:00

IOne enters sleepwith a sliver of hope:that fragile childhood threadstill connected to the wobbly toothand wakes to find it gone.IIFragments from a lost heartLife simpliciterGlimpses of passion and purposeFrom another worldFall as shadows Around the walls of this prison

Deportation

2010-08-28T10:05:00.004+01:00

Colnbrook Immigration Reception CentreDeportation Sunday morning early most homes still curtained-blind I saw a pair of shoes gaudy-gold giddy night-out for fun shoes some dozen yards apart a half-pint bitter glass abandoned unfinished a lost thin silver ring unconnected except by my morning walk. Tuesday morning later I recognised a shoe a grubby once-gold shoe footloosed but not free

Plus ça change

2010-05-12T08:16:00.002+01:00

I remember when Margaret Thatcher entered No. 10 with the words of St Francis of Assissi and Tony Blair to the sound of Things can only get better. Both in defiance of reality.This time it's strong and stable, working arrangements, and new politics.

Ludo

2010-05-12T08:11:00.003+01:00

Ready. set,hundred metre dash, offbefore you know,ready,ready,hit-drop-run-run.wait,waitrun, run, home. Againhit-drop-run-caughtout,oh,but, angled for thougha surprise,on the boardplaying chess from the insidenot sure where to moveor when, or why,or whether there’s pleasurein another piece capturedtill, didn’t see that coming,kicked feather-flight so highI can see the whole game nowevery racket

Pen

2010-02-08T16:32:00.003Z

A pen isnot a worda word isnot this shapethe shape isnot a soundthe sound isnot a thoughta thought isnot a pen.

Fountain

2010-01-17T19:19:00.006Z

Fountain Described by stylus into theparterre, a fountain: in designquatrefoil, lilypads perhaps,the waters of creation heldby a low concrete wall, its eye,a double Janus-head, addressedthe four corners of the round world,stone-blind. Its north face was carved asa child, the next a chimera,the third was that of a soldier,and the final was agèd, eachspouted limpid water as thoughit were given

Boxing Day

2009-12-26T09:37:00.003Z

Boxing DayThe future of flesh:bitter chocolateand sweet regret.

Passed

2009-09-27T12:20:00.007+01:00

sped past, trop vite,a boy, 10 or 11, white shirt, worriedface anxious, perhaps,to be home.Moments latera disturbance of the air.A death and a wake.

Against the prevailing

2009-09-01T09:58:00.001+01:00

When the wind dropsbody lightens,steps lengthen,home quicker, warmerbut, except to draw breath,feint, and come backall the harderthe wind never stops.

Quietly

2009-08-24T08:10:00.003+01:00

Hinges oiled.Doors no longersemaphore every movementaround the house.I leave youand returnunnoticed butthe floorboard betrays me.

Early morning

2009-06-27T13:28:00.001+01:00

Early. Walk to buy milk.Wind scuds the roadraises dust--devils forces tears to haul behind thempails-full of grief, fearof your death.Returning.Milk and bread.Sun warms my spineunshadows the blackbirds’aerial songbidding accepting – brick, privet, carsiridesce.Arc of the bridge connects.One walkone dayhome.

Material fact

2009-06-27T13:24:00.003+01:00

I can seesurfacesonlywhich, I see,is two metaphorsor three.

No poetry in pain

2009-02-15T12:28:00.002Z

No songno poem in painnor civilitythe herd move away.Flesh tears at the mindpitifies spirit.I lap alone atmy old pool of blameanger nesciencegrowing more thirstyfearing the house-beastmoving in the darkto kill. .

Hunger

2008-11-15T09:58:00.002Z

Sex, food and good winesatisfy and feedhunger. Power too.

Calling

2008-11-11T14:48:00.005Z

CallingThe ’phone rang in the funeraland we thought, from beyond, perhaps?a text to request a second chance?but no, just to say He’d be latethat day. Quite unnecessary.

She caught my eye

2008-10-22T07:46:00.002+01:00

She caught my eye and threw it back. I blinked blind-sided and caught out.

Reading fiction on the train

2008-10-10T15:55:00.003+01:00

Reading fiction on the train Through one frame an unreachableworld skims pastwards, speed imagesstasis, a plane pinned motionlessto sky, a man embalmed in smokepoised on his doorstep, travellingon the myth that destinationis boarded with beginnings, filmswatched backwards, having read the book.

Tactile paving

2008-10-10T15:53:00.004+01:00

Tactile paving is, no doubt,of benefit to those with partial sightand pitiless on us with gout.

Holy Cross Day

2008-09-14T09:39:00.000+01:00

Holy Cross DayWe are in red todayCrucifix hanging onWooden lectern where theWord is martyred again,Ineffectually.

Busy May

2008-06-01T16:28:00.003+01:00

Frederick Leighton, Flaming JuneAnd, at the beginning of June, I can say I've settled in with pleasure.I'm pretty regular at Christ Church, Walker, and at Common Ground where I've become volunteer volunteer co-ordinator (any enquiries, offers?).I've been to the Cluny, more than once, the Tyne, and the Free Trade; to the Laing Art Gallery; to Northern Stage (twice) and to the re-opening of the

Ascension

2008-05-02T07:32:00.005+01:00

May 1, and what has seemed like a bit of a holiday has now officially become unemployment. I'd better find an income from somewhere.Still, I celebrated the end of my contract with the C of E with a pint and a meal in the Bascule and taking an elderly lady shopping in Sainsbury's (but not in that order) and then by going to church in the morning.Just for a moment I had a sense of real time out, of

Not a vicar

2008-04-29T13:15:00.005+01:00

When he knew I was leaving a Pentecostalist minister, for whom I have a lot of respect, said,I trust that you can cope with the fall out of not being a vicar, as I suspect there is little support towards this major transition. It is a huge change to go through.Well, I'm sure I can cope but it's a kind thought. The reality has been a total lack of support while I was a vicar and so there's not

New life, new start, new questions

2008-04-25T10:53:00.003+01:00

It's a new start.I've moved from the small market town of Retford in rural Nottinghamshire to Newcastle upon Tyne, home of MadPriest and not so far from themethatisme.I've stopped being a vicar. I haven't yet sorted out a new identity, but I'm pretty sure it won't elide job and life quite so thoroughly.It will be strange, after almost 12 years, to squeeze the vicar out of me as water out of a

Eternity, Blake

2008-03-17T21:15:00.005Z

EternityHe who bends to himself a joyDoes the wingéd life destroy;But he who kisses the joy as it fliesLives in eternity’s sunrise.From Proverbs from HellNo bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.William Blake (1757-1827)

Ceaselessly

2008-01-05T14:14:00.000Z

Falling as rain fallson a mountainstorm, shower, mizzlewords cataract through ravinesstream across hillspour into the wide embrace of riversas wild woodcarvers gouge, plane, polish the landtill, with a child’s delight,dissolving in the indefinable, illimitable sea.Ceaselessly.

Infinity

2008-01-03T18:33:00.000Z

I cannotreach the end of words :when words are ended so am I.

Bigger brother than ever

2007-12-22T22:22:00.000Z

It is, I think, inevitable:WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion project to build the world's largest computer database of biometrics to give the government more ways to identify people at home and abroad, the Washington Post reported on Friday.The FBI has already started compiling digital images of faces, fingerprints and palm patterns in its systems, the paper said.In

When

2007-12-19T11:43:00.000Z

Balanced on sea-edge. Between. Land ground fine between duration and oblivion; unstable, edge-less. Sea sand turning underneath; an old new tide erases my mark.

The religious roots of torture

2007-11-29T21:45:00.000Z

William Schweiker has an article in Sightings (here) which, after expressing some bemusement that we should be debating torture in the twenty-first century, points to the religious roots of torture(see Martin Marty’s earlier article here).Less often observed is that the practice of waterboarding has roots in the Spanish Inquisition and parallels the persecution of Anabaptists during the

There is no

2007-11-29T10:04:00.000Z

there is nosymmetry in cloud, treasonlies in Heraklitus’ stream,needles are lost in a forest,words hobbled lame can these words live?spewed as unmetered seconds,as gamblers’ coin, not seedsbut stones kicked onto gravel. Once they spokeof their own volition conjuredjinni castles feasts juggledpuns joked with

Don't take holiday snaps

2007-11-26T21:39:00.000Z

The geographer Ghazi Falah was caught between Israel and the Arab world, John Gravios writes in the American Chronicle of Higher Education.Falah, with dual Israeli and Canadian citizenship, was held by the Shin Bet allegedly for spying until released after 23 days following a campaign by fellow geographers and other academics.He felt he was being questioned more about his academic career - and

Violence in decline

2007-11-17T19:54:00.001Z

A fascinating talk by Steven Pinker at The Edge on the long-term decline in violence - video and article.He addresses some of the reasons why violence has declined, and the equally puzzling question of why, given this fact, it doesn't feel like it.

Where do terrorists come from?

2007-11-13T20:00:00.000Z

There is an interesting article at The American called What Makes a Terrorist ,by Alan Krueger.First- not poverty or lack of education, though these have been fastened on as explanations.On the contrary, higher education is correlated with greater support for terrorism in research in certain Islamic countries. The indications are that actual terrorists are likely to be less poor and more

Raven

2007-11-12T20:04:00.000Z

The Anglican Covenant - a view from NZ

2007-11-04T16:06:00.000Z

Bishop Brian Carrell of Nelson, New Zealand, has posted a talk giving a considered overview of history and prospects for the dissolution of the Anglican Communion. (Here.)I share his list of centrifugal factors with which the Anglican Communion must cope, though these pull in different directions. For example, the need to address diversity in a post-modern world suggest the possibility of a

Pheonix church

2007-11-01T09:01:00.000Z

Grandmère Mimi said,But the church, as we know it, is moribund. A new thing will arise from the ashes of the old, but it will not look much like what we have now.Perhaps it's moribund. Though it's not dead yet. In fact it seems to have enough energy to squabble and fight in a very lively way.And the church 'as we know it' has surely always been passing away, it's just that each successive

The shrivelling of synod

2007-10-31T18:40:00.000Z

I think our Deanery Synod is dying on its feet. I know local synods depend very much on local leadership but I wonder whether this is a symptom of a wider tendency.All the important decisions are taken in the Deanery Standing Committee which scarcely reports to the Deanery Synod and is scarcely questioned. In fact in the past three Deanery Synods only one of them has conducted any deanery

Draft Anglican Covenant - TEC's Response

2007-10-29T11:49:00.000Z

The Executive Council of The Episcopal Church have published their formal response to The Draft Anglican covenant here.The TEC's response follows a wide consultation and is very sensitive to the differences of opinion this has thrown up. A draft (presumably) of the Church of England's response, by contrast, was leaked to the Daily Telegraph and headlined "C of E to empower foreign bishops".

Ordsall Churchyard Wildlife Group

2007-10-18T10:09:00.000+01:00

Ordsall Church has approximately three-acres of churchyard, now very largely full. About 10 years ago we set up a wildlife group to make a virtue of necessity: recognising that we couldn't maintain much of it which was already overgrown we looked to bring in more volunteers and, with regular but minimal intervention, enhance the the area for wildlife (mostly birds, small mammals, plants).The

Cryptic comment

2007-10-15T18:46:00.000+01:00

Do you think that, when you untie a knot, the string will have just one end?Then why, when untangling problems, do so many people seem to assume there is only one answer?

Plan B: an alternative to The Draft Anglican Covenant

2007-10-12T11:39:00.000+01:00

Six months ago it seemed that the Windsor process, and the covenant in particular, were the only serious games in town for rebuilding of Anglican Communion. Partly because there were no alternatives the stakes were very high: risk a covenant or risk no communion. Where would you place your bets? In the last few months a number of things have become clearer: the covenant is no longer seen as the

Doris Lessing

2007-10-11T19:20:00.001+01:00

Congratulations to Doris Lessing on the award of the Nobel prize for literature. She's a brilliant writer. And, even better, I loved her dismissive response, out shopping when the news was made public, and then telling everyone how the committee sent someone years ago to tell her they didn't like her work.

Andrew Plus: The Covenant is dead, but can we get back to square one?

2007-10-10T08:59:00.000+01:00

I believe this to be an accurate and balanced account of where the Covenant proposal has got to (October 2007):Andrew Plus: The Covenant is dead, but can we get back to square one?There are a couple of outstanding questions about the Covenant if we grant, as would seem to be the case, that it is dead as a regulatory scheme.1) Given the public endorsements it has had, can it really be allowed to

Wounderful Church

2007-10-04T12:03:00.000+01:00

I received an email today that was evidently written in a rush. It was full of mistypings including the phrase: 'wounderful church'.I think this is brilliant. The church full of wonder: in worship at its best and in ordinary, in its care for its members and shared prayer, in its ability to nurture holiness in pragmatic loving ways and to offer real service to the people it is set amongst.It is

The Seminar on Conflict Ecclesiology

2007-09-29T10:06:00.000+01:00

I have been invited to join the blog Seminar on Conflict Ecclesiology. I feel quite chuffed.It's rules are firm: start with a question without expressing one's own opinions. This is a hard discipline. I'm keen to tell, rather than to ask, it's why I'm such a bad teacher. And on the whole a blog is about telling the world - or the invisible unknowable other - who I am and what I think. It

Bounced by the Bishop

2007-08-18T13:17:00.001+01:00

I've been bounced off Bishop Alan Wilson's blog. Correction: no I haven't. A misunderstanding based on my hypersensitivity to the cryptic comments of bishops.And he very kindly enquired and cleared up my misapprehension. For which I am grateful, and my apologies to Bishop Alan for ever suggesting such a thing.

The word from Clonmacnoise

2007-08-16T08:54:00.000+01:00

The Archbishop of Armagh, the Most Reverend Alan Harper, preached at Clonmacnoise on the Feast Day of St Mary Magdalene 2007:I have somewhat to say on the present madness of the Anglican Communion and the Christian quest to appropriate and to live the life of resurrection. All here.He identified two 'boulders' to the resurrection life: bibliolatry and division and disunity in the Church.While

Weeping ash in a churchyard

2007-06-30T11:40:00.001+01:00

Weeping ash in a churchyard A century keeping vigil over those who need no vigilance, concealing the sweeping shadows, the day’s declension, the tolling year’s irrecoverable loss from Easter through a bitter Friday, one leafless limb yearning sunwards with no expectation, one arm consoling the stones – their names uninscribed, loving memories invalidated – slowly curling down to

2007-06-20T13:14:00.000+01:00

After a long gap:The Draft Anglican Covenant is still wandering around the world. Critical comments (in some detail as well as summaries) are on the MCU site: http://www.modchurchunion.org/Covenant.htm. Progress in the General Synod can be followed through Thinking Anglicans.There's also a paper on the way in which the Powers That Be are trying to bounce the decision through Communion by giving

David

2007-03-27T11:58:00.001+01:00

When he was in his teens he lined up his money in columns and on his bedside table to keep him warm at night. At twenty he strode around the globe keeping his feet firmly on the ground and his eyes fixed on the future. And at thirty he turned to study stately homes and old gravestones, the archaeology of penury and wealth. Forty felled him with passion: he threw order

Anglican Divorce

2007-03-21T22:13:00.000Z

An excellent and brief summary of TEC's divisions from the New York Times: LAURIE GOODSTEIN A Divide, and Maybe a Divorce[Extract]In many American churches, the divide on homosexuality is neither generational nor geographic, unlike the North/South split over slavery. Homosexuality is not the cause of the divide, just “the last straw,” said John L. Kater, a lecturer in Anglican Studies, at the

The branches break

2007-03-21T21:12:00.000Z

We have come, I think, to the parting of Anglican ways.The House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church (TEC) have declared: enough is enough. They refuse to allow unaccountable Primates to dictate terms; they refuse to countenance any longer the intrusion of other Bishops into their jurisdictions; they refuse the deal offered (or demanded) at Dar es Salaam; and they refuse to embed in TEC

Anglican Ecclesiology, and mine

2007-03-06T20:41:00.000Z

I suspect I'm fast heading away from the dominant note in tomorrow's Anglican ecclesiology.I think this note is: the higher up the hierarchy the closer to divine authority.On the contrary, I believe in the people of God - the ordinary people in the pew, the not sure and the over-definite, the tired and enthusiastic, and especially in the patient, quiet seeker after God. In the people I know and

I bought an antique scythe

2007-02-05T08:47:00.001Z

It's a long time since I posted anything, and much longer since I wrote a poem (other than haiku). So this is, I hope, a sign of a return to more writing after a long, dry period.I bought an antique scythe I bought an antique two-handed agricultural scythe. A joke: I looked as risible as death in the small shop’s mottled mirror and remembered through my child’s eyes, crow-sharp

Through a Glass, Darkly, Jeff Sharlet

2007-01-14T20:01:00.000Z

This article was published in Harper's magazine, though I first saw it on the Revealer.I found it a fascinating and well-written and disturbing account of US fundamentalist attitudes which both help show some of the differences between US Christian fundamentalists and other species of fundamentalisms, and some of the features common to the genus.The article is part of a forthcoming 'narrative

Beowulf

2006-12-31T13:25:00.000Z

Holiday reading: Seamus Heaney's Beowulf.It was a tremendous read - I read it out loud (mostly to myself) - a wonderfully powerful account of the hero Beowulf and his three battles against monsters. I loved the idea that Grendal's mum was more dangerous than Grendal himself.I also enjoyed the glimpses into an other world: of formal boasts, of status based in the capacity to give, of the culture

F.M. Mayor, The Rector's Daughter

2006-12-17T16:19:00.000Z

I found this book while browsing in a secondhand bookshop. I liked it for it's title (I'd heard of neither author or book before) and for the blurb on the back cover:It is about love: filial love and married love and extreme sexual passion, and about the anguish, despair and intermittent bliss of every hopeless relationship between man and woman.It's been a slow read. The book is really about

Kite Haiku

2006-12-04T12:15:00.000Z

Primary colourssplash the slate sky; thin strings tiedun earth to green sea.Dream kite drank the sky,ripped my fingers for freedom,dragged me off my feet.Unreliablewinds: my kite lifts, loops, crashes,snaps my hopes in sand.Picked up. Patched up. Climbhigh on a steady breeze:lift my heart again.You smile, feint, escape,soar away. I stand limp-stringed,dropped, directionless.

Thud

2006-11-27T18:08:00.000Z

A delightful read - Terry Patchett's Thud is very funny and made me laugh out loud again and again. A depression-buster if ever there was one. How he manages to be so consistently entertaining book after book I have no idea. I take my hat off to him.

Jo's Haiku

2006-11-27T18:07:00.000Z

Free will or destined? Oh Pandora’s paradox! The serpent’s tongue flicks.Joanna Bagshaw

Anglican Covenant

2006-11-19T18:49:00.000Z

At long last - well, it feels as though it's taken ages to get the words right and all approved - the response of the Modern Churchperson's Union to the proposal for an Anglican Covenant has been sent off.The summary is here, and the full report is accessible through the same page. My contribution is 'Covenant and Government'.It's gone both to the Anglican Consultative Council who will, we trust

Too many funerals

2006-11-16T12:18:00.000Z

I've done five funerals in ten days. I've done more, and I know some colleagues do this and more as normal, but it's too many. I'm funeraled-out (and I've two more next week).Each had their moments, though. It was the first time I've arranged a funeral entirely by email; and the first time the words of committal were entirely drowned out by a piper. (Hint: if you have a piper at a crematorium

Poppies

2006-11-14T12:46:00.000Z

Blood-troubled ground grewpoppies. Poppy country stillcommands bloody graves.Autumnal colour,gold, copper, brass shavings, bronze:a hard time of year.

Endings are beginnings are endings

2006-11-13T21:11:00.000Z

It struck me that, if you were to write a novel on a blog, you should start at the end and work back. Readers would hit it at whatever point the story had got to, and then read on, which is of course backwards.But anyway, endings and beginnings are indistiguishable. How about:Japonica closed the door behind her and stepped out into the early morning. No-one was around and every single early

Eight invisible things

2006-11-10T12:06:00.000Z

Eight imperceptible things we can't live without:TimeLoveGodSelfChildhoodConsciousnessWhat's over the horizonDeath

Day out in Lincoln

2006-11-09T18:48:00.000Z

An excellent day out in Lincoln - this is a view of the Cathedral from the Castle. All credit to the photographer, Joanna Bagshaw.We had an hour's guided tour round the Cathdral which was informative and genial (a small group, being November).The Castle includes the Georgian and Victorian prison. Religion looms large. The chapel is a highlight, designed to enable prisoners to be preached at

one heart and mind

2006-11-09T09:31:00.000Z

I regularly use the phrase 'let us pray with one heart and mind' (it's in the prayer book I use).And it's been worrying me.As an aspiration I have no problem with it. It seems to me right, even a spiritual duty, that we should struggle towards personal integrity of life (body, mind and soul), and towards integrity of our life with the will and Spirit of God (always recognising that this is an

Why Haiku?

2006-11-08T07:48:00.000Z

Why haiku? Because,like hand-made sweets, each mouthfulhas a new flavour.Now is alreadypast. We build giant's castleson flimsy moments.

Haiku

2006-11-07T09:27:00.000Z

Poems in scatteredfragments, each word a half-rhymein search of a pair.A vault full of keysin all varieties; nonewill unlock this door.

More Haiku

2006-11-03T08:04:00.000Z

Legal learning wasnot a piece of cake, the bestteachers taught taut tort.This cat didn't hunt,it slept. And for Sunday lunchcaught Yorkshire puddings.Brittle days return -leaves snap, paths scrunch, breath freezes -words break between us.

Stern review

2006-10-31T18:01:00.000Z

Oh well, I suppose it takes an economist to provide sufficient reasons for change in the face of global warning; the moral and scientific arguments have been clearly insufficient.But in the coverage of the Stern review that I've read I haven't seen discussion of related political issues (I know it'll be there, I haven't looked very hard) . It will be politicians who take the most critical

Keeping vigil

2006-10-30T20:14:00.000Z

He was once a well built man, compassionate, intelligent, gentle, with a sense of humour that sparkled in his eyes and a long, distinguished record of civic service of which he was deservedly proud. In the hospital bed he was thin, uncomprehending, his hand regularly rising to touch the bridge of his nose and fall back again. His breathing was difficult, the skin of his chin hung down like a

Funeral story

2006-10-23T20:41:00.000+01:00

And a couple of stories today:The funeral director told me they'd been at a cemetery doing a burial when someone jumped into the funeral car (keys left in because they were swapping drivers) and drove off in it at high speed, leaving the mourners open mouthed and stranded.And a story from the life of the lady buried today. She was born in 1907 and grew up on a farm. As a child her father had

Harvest of Sorrow

2006-10-23T18:52:00.000+01:00

Robert Conquest The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivisation and the Terror-Famine (Pimlico, 2002; first published 1986).Published before the fall of the Berlin wall and the Soviet Union this study has (according to its 2002 Preface) been vindicated by subsequent access to the archives.This is an excellent study. Conquest travels steadily and carefully through the available evidence to

Haiku

2006-10-23T18:39:00.000+01:00

She wore her storieslike jewellery; we found themas we cleared her flat. Buried in bedclothes,curled up, foetal, an old mancries for his mummy.

Attitudes to torture

2006-10-20T08:24:00.000+01:00

A BBC survey of global attitudes to torture showed 59% opposed; 29% in favour in some circumstances; 12% didn't know.Should we be pleased, or horrified? There were marked differences by country: countries most accepting of torture included Iraq (42%), the Philippines (40%), Indonesia (40%), Russia (37%) and China (37%). Those most opposed were Italy (81%), Australia, France, Canada, the UK and

Haiku

2006-10-20T08:16:00.000+01:00

An eighty percentchance of rain; tomorrow isonly probable.Photographs torn up,memories maimed; I am leftwith storyless frames.

Two Haiku

2006-10-17T07:50:00.000+01:00

Mice live fast. No breathfor poems. Just for basics:birth, food, sex, birth, death.Autumn's gilt tarnishedto parchment; pauper winterspits ice at my door.

Mrs Spelling

2006-10-13T15:32:00.000+01:00

I knew Mrs Spelling for the last ten years of her life. Next week I will take her funeral but she deserves an obituary of sorts on a medium she never grasped.She was always Mrs Spelling to me, never Edith. It was strange to see her in hospital or the home (such a misnomer) and to hear her called Edith or Edie. Even ten years ago she was odd. She had an obsession with money - not so much with

Only now

2006-10-12T10:38:00.000+01:00

Dan Simmons, Olympos (brilliant, energetic, completely off the wall, like going through a hole into someone's nightmare, highly reccommended - though I would distance myself from his characterisation of Muslims as world-destroying fanatics). Anyway, he has Orphu of Io say:'What is reality except a standing quantum wavefront collapsing through probability states? ... How does the human mind work