Ireland is replete with literary events and poetry readings. All literary events are literary, but not all of them are equal. O Bheal ( http://www.obheal.ie ) is a particularly good one, and it was a marvelously enjoyable evening for me. 1. Resistance is futile. You are made just so welcome. I am not a particularly … Continue reading Eight things about reading at O Bheal in Cork that everyone should know
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The Queen And I
The Queen (2006) Directed by Stephen Frears. With Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen, James Cromwell, Alex Jennings. The notion of any kind of hereditary monarchy simply incomprehensible to me. It is a system of government so riven with problems as to be potentially catastrophic for a country. This is why the UK have reduced the monarchy … Continue reading The Queen And I
Ten things Which didn’t Make Our Ten Day Stay in Alykes, Zakinthos Sheer Perfection
Caveat Emptor: THE WORST HOLIDAY OF OUR LIVES (*SEE NOTE BELOW*) We stayed ten days in Alykes, Zakinthos and it was 1. Drafty: The way the wind howled through the cracks between the windows and the doors during windy rainy nights and we were freezing and that no one checked on us after the … Continue reading Ten things Which didn’t Make Our Ten Day Stay in Alykes, Zakinthos Sheer Perfection
Karl Marx, Stephen Hawking, and the Rise of the Robots
One of the most common themes in Science Fiction movies, from Terminator flicks to the Cylons in Battlestar Galatica to the Matrix franchise, to the more thoughtful poetic philosophical Stanley Kubrickesque 2001, is the notion of the Earth being taken over by robots ( in the movie 2001, for a time the fate of the … Continue reading Karl Marx, Stephen Hawking, and the Rise of the Robots
No Belief Systems Remain Unharmed by These Blogs
I believe in blogging. I am often shocked what other bloggers endure in order to keep on blogging, in a forum wherein one supposedly can engage in some kind of free expression. The most obvious one is that of the Saudi Blogger Raif Badawi who was recently sentenced to 1000 lashes in Saudi Arabia for ‘cybercrime’ … Continue reading No Belief Systems Remain Unharmed by These Blogs
Charlie Hebdo Ate My Puppy
which is clearly not the case. Here is a picture of my ten week old puppy and she is zipping round our rented cottage like a pixie on amphetamines. Charlie never so much as laid a tooth on the little creature. To accuse him of doing such a thing (as I implied in the title) … Continue reading Charlie Hebdo Ate My Puppy
THEY READ EVERYTHING
GOOGLE’s BOOKWORMING EXPERIMENTS AND AI DEVELOPMENT I love reading. I read about 3 books a week. I know many people who read more, much more. Reading and writing goes back about thirty thousand years. The act of scribbling things down in various formats, from stone walls to tablets to wax to wood to paper to … Continue reading THEY READ EVERYTHING
The mad road from Karpacz to Jelenia Góra
Poland New Year 2015 Holidays were over. It was new Years Day 2015. We walked down the icy snowy road to the bus stop carrying or partly wheeling our baggage on the last day of our Christmas break to take a bus from Karpacz to Jelenia Góra. From there we would be getting a train on … Continue reading The mad road from Karpacz to Jelenia Góra
Pretty Woman Three Miles from the Czech Border
I am watching the movie Pretty Woman with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts. Gere is so stereotypically leading man material. However his tendency not to look directly at his interlocutor, this shy downward glance followed by his knowing smile is a little irritatingly condescending. That being said, his acting skills and his commanding presence overcomes … Continue reading Pretty Woman Three Miles from the Czech Border
Ursula K Le Guin’s Cracking Speech at the National Book Foundation Awards
Ursula K. Le Guin accepts the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at the 65th National Book Awards on November 19, 2014. A Brief Riveting Speech by a Mistress of Letters about the difference between writing for a market and writing for art. A few days back a brilliant … Continue reading Ursula K Le Guin’s Cracking Speech at the National Book Foundation Awards
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