celticman's blog

Billy Moore, a working-class Liverpudlian, was born into poverty in 1973. He doted on his mum and hated his drunken dad for beating his mum, when he was a child. He too was bullied, but learned to use his fists, gave out some beatings. Joined the group of schoolboy bullies. Matriculated in theft and drug taking and graduated to Liverpool’s Young Offenders, were ironically, he ended up a lifetime later. There are lots of books out there about...

Writers are told, never start with the weather. Paul Lynch starts with the weather in his debut novel, Red Sky in the Morning. Prophet Song, Lynch’s latest award-winning novel, starts with the night weather and a knocking on the door. ‘The night has come and she has not heard the knocking, standing at the window, looking out at the garden. How the dark gathers without sound the cherry trees. It gathers the last of the leaves and the leaves do...

Yellowface wowed me and as a reader (and sometimes writer) I’m not easily wowed. It offers both an insider and outsider account of the publishing industry masquerading as satire. Everyone that had hoped to have something published by the big four publishing companies, get an agent, or somehow get something published online or in print, should read Yellowface. The setup is simple. Imagine Jesus was hanging about Galilee. Judas comes visiting and...

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-little-stranger/on-demand/48945-001 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Stranger_(film) I’ve read a few of Sarah Walter’s books, but, as usual, with holes in my memories, I can’t remember much about them. Her other books and translation to screen include Tipping the Velvet (1998), Affinity (1999), and Fingersmith (2002). I haven’t read Affinity . Waters is celebrated for her ability to weave intricate...

Poetry frightens me a bit. It’s just so complicated. But when you get it right, as Bex Hainsworth had done in Walrussey , it sounds simple. Like many of the writers of poetry on ABCtales—where her pseudonym was Mistaken Magic—she got ‘cherried’. A poem being especially worthy of attention. She followed the usual route of Poem of the week. Nobody really cares about that stuff, but it’s nice at the time. A little fill-up before going back to...

Patrick Radden Keefe is an award-winning author of Empire of Pain . Before I read his book I hadn’t heard of the billionaire Sackler family and how they created an opioid addiction factory (Purdue Pharmacy) that killed tens of thousands and made them obscenely wealthy. I had, however, heard of the moron’s moron and former President Donald J.Trump. I’m a Trump watcher. It baffles me that 74 million Americans voted for him in 2020. And it...

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/petite-maman/on-demand/74620-001 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petite_Maman Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady blindsided me. It was one of those films where you hold your breath because it’s pretty much perfect. I hoped Petite Maman would be a similar experience. It wasn’t. Petite Maman aligns with the film’s theme. It involves a young girl exploring her mother’s past and forming connections across different...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/video/detail/B0885DCCF8/ref=atv_hm_hom_c_OI67r7_20_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_to_Be_Normal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Tennant Mad to Be Normal is great fun. David Tennant plays gallus as fuck, Scottish, psychiatrist, R.D.Laing. Familiar territory for Tennant. His first major TV role was Campbell Bain in the BBC Scotland drama series Takin' Over the Asylum (1994). Here he’s got a promotion to a...

Before I read this book, I thought like Erik Larson there was a direct line between the sinking of the Lusitania and the United States joining the war on the side of the Allies, much the same as happened at Pearl Harbour. But the Lusitania was sunk by German U-20 7 th May 1915. But the United States maintained a policy of neutrality despite German U-Boats sinking tens of thousands of tons of shipping and killing American citizens until the...

Saltburn wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Upstairs Downstairs, Brideshead Revisited, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Murder on the Dance Floor can go and take a good fuck to themselves as far as I’m concerned. What did you think? Notes. It’s a bit of a mishmash. Plot (2008 Film) for example follows Charles Ryder's relationship with the Flyte family, particularly his close friendship with the charismatic but troubled Sebastian Flyte, and the...