Blogs

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000bh0j/storyville-one-child-nation I’ve been pondering the difference between affect and effect. The former is a verb. The latter is a noun and verb. The etymology of affect suggests it has its roots in ‘a little like love’. The effect of China’s implementation of a one-child policy for couples, men and women, in the early 1980s was nothing like love. It was a top-down, Communist Party, misogynistic policy...

Long story. I was in Dalmuir library yesterday. For some reason I wanted to check out Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Diaries . As you know Gramsci was leader of the Italian Communist Party. Gramsci writes about how capitalism mutates and appropriates art and literature to establish a cultural hegemony. If that sounds pretty long-winded it’s probably because I don’t understand it either. Gramsci did. And it’s increasingly relevant today. The working...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000b8p2/climategate-science-of-a-scandal Our ancestors believed that the sky was round and the earth was square, the sun and all the planets circled the earth. All these things were self-evident. When emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of Cambridge were hacked in 2009 the theory that global warming was a hoax gained credence and the sky really was round and the earth square...

Below the typeface of David Wilson’s name is the tag ‘The UK’s Leading Criminologist’. Fourteen other books written (or co-written) by Wilson about well-known criminals and criminal justice system are listed inside the cover. It was only when I had neared completion of the book, and the Chapter Theory into Practice: Interview with a Murderer, I realised this was a programme on Channel 4 that I’d watched. Here we had encapsulated everything...

I do hope you're not paddling in flood water but if you're dry inside - stay there and curl up with ABCtales to take your mind of the unncertain weather. There's so much to enjoy this week. A feast of poetry which made it very difficult to choose one to be poem of the week - but I've gone with Agnosticnun's stunning take on the IP: The Language of Dead Flowers https://www.abctales.com/story/agnosticnun/language-dead-flowers Prose is just as...