Blogs

Storyville, The Gene Revolution: Changing Human Nature, BBC 4, BBC iPlayer, director Adam Bolt.

Posted by celticman on Sat, 01 Feb 2020

In November 2018, reports suggested that scientist in China had altered the DNA of twin girls using CRISPR CAS 9 bio-technology. It would be the first time in history that humans edited the genetic code of future generations. DNA is usually referred to as the building blocks of life. RNA is DNA’s close cousin. If DNA is god’s handwriting on the world, RNA is god’s signature. CRISPR CAS 9 is a counterfeit RNA of god’s signature. A tweet from...

Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point

Posted by Insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Fri, 31 Jan 2020

Posted by Philip Sidney on Fri, 31 Jan 2020 We made it through January! Goodness knows what the future holds - seems like a good time to look back. Scent is a great memory jerker so here is a whiff of the sea and the forest to stir up the past: Story of the week left me in pieces and reminded me how every house has a story - an inspiration point in itself - a beautifully drawn piece from Fatboy74 https://www.abctales.com/story/fatboy74/there-was...

Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point.

Posted by Philip Sidney on Fri, 31 Jan 2020

We made it through January! Goodness knows what the future holds - seems like a good time to look back. Scent is a great memory jerker so here is a whiff of the sea and the forest to stir up the past: Story of the week left me in pieces and reminded me how every house has a story - an inspiration point in itself - a beautifully drawn piece from Fatboy74 https://www.abctales.com/story/fatboy74/there-was-house-and-there-was-sea-2 Poem of the week...

Crown of Eggshell by Rachel Deering (onemorething). Out Now!

Posted by Insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Thu, 30 Jan 2020

I'm very pleased to announce the publication by Cerasus Poetry of Rachel Deering's 'Crown of Eggshell' ‘In the myth of me, I am geese in flight...’ This flock of poems features cuckoos, blackbirds, owls, magpies, ortolans, starlings, nightingales, canaries, auks, larks, jays, goldfinches, sparrows, thrushes, swallows and swifts. Their presence recurs over both land and sea, sometimes in the company of capricious gods, beneath the celestial...

CERASUS POETRY OLYMPICS

Posted by Insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Wed, 29 Jan 2020

Giving this a little bump for anyone who hasn't seen it yet: The 2020 Cerasus Poetry Olympics is a competition that will run over 6 qualifying heats in July-August 2020. The competition is open to all who pay the £5 entry fee and submit a batch of 6 poems before the closing date of midnight BST at the end of 30th June 2020. On payment of the fee, you will be randomly allocated a country name, which will identify you during the course of the...

John Ferguson 1/12/1929—11/1/2020

Posted by celticman on Tue, 28 Jan 2020

I remember when John Ferguson slipped me twenty-quid and I went to the Oasis with the cash. My older brother Stephen—or SEV, as pre-Banksie, he liked to artistically daub on walls or doors— married his daughter Emily. Or wee Emily. I didn’t remember how small she was until I saw her today. Platform shoes of the kind that Elton John wore to play the part of Tommy, and sing Pinball Wizard , took Emily up to the glorious height of about five-foot (...

Elizabeth Strout (2017) Anything is Possible.

Posted by celticman on Sat, 25 Jan 2020

Elizabeth Strout is an internationally and critically acclaimed bestselling author of My Name is Lucy Barton. Lucy Barton, as a stock character, is also an author who writes mostly about farm life in Angash, Illinois. How her family were so desperately poor they ate scraps out of dump trucks and were shunned. The first chance she got to get away she took it. Later she became a successful writer in New York. The maxim ‘write what you know’ seems...

Story and Poem of the Week and Inspiration Point

Posted by Insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Fri, 24 Jan 2020

Again, another hard week for decisions owing to us being snowed under with brilliant stuff - basically, for prose, read the concluding parts of Milo by Talo Segura, the ongoing wonderfulness of drew_gummerson's A piece of Ass, Terrence Oblong's Island Hideaway - and this week's Story of the Week goes to artofminima's series which doesn't seem to have a name, but the latest part is called A Beautiful Truce. Poem of the Week goes to Ewan for his...

Robert A. Caro (1990 [2006)] The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume 2, Means of Ascent.

Posted by celticman on Thu, 23 Jan 2020

On page 402, towards the end of this second volume of the rise and rise of Lyndon Johnson, Robert A.Caro offers an insight into the former President’s personality. 'For a President to preserve as a personal memento a photograph showing the notorious Box 13 in the possession of his political allies—a photograph which by implication provides that someone was indeed in a positon to stuff it—is startling in itself. For him to display the photograph...

Billy Connolly: Portrait of a Lifetime, BBC 4, BBC iPlayer

Posted by celticman on Mon, 20 Jan 2020

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0535lq5/billy-connolly-portrait-of-a-lifetime Billy Connolly might well be Scotland’s greatest export after whisky. Both ITV and BBC are competing to squeeze the last dregs of life out of The Big Yin. I’ve checked, he’s not dead yet. But he does have motor- neurone disease and he’s coming up for seventy-five. He said it himself, other people’s success tend to form an inverted U-shaped curve. His success is...

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