preparing a new paddock

There is land across the road that has been contested for many years, it is poisoned from earlier periods of mining and the dumping of various wastes and is heavily contaminated in places with arsenic amongst other things.  It has also become home to a vast and expanding colony of Japanese knotweed.  It was owned …

The Hoe, the Barbican and Ale

It is funny what you learn, or maybe remember. On a train travelling to the south west longing for privacy I am interrupted by three revelers returning from a drinking birthday celebration at the Tom Cobley, a pub outside Exeter. One of the best pubs in the world I am told and we talk about …

Afghanistan, Allegory, the Kite Runner and Knowledge

I watched the Kite Runner, the film directed by Marc Forster (2007).  I’ve not read the book but from the comments of various people who had read it I was expecting something very different, something more.  I experienced the film as profoundly allegorical, relating a story of America’s involvement in Afghanistan prior to the current …

for example

Sheffield has a plethora of Edwardian terraced houses.  Street after street of them with more or less ornate decorative features.  I came across these windows recently.  They are on three houses each one separated by only one other house in the same terrace.  They are amongst the few that I’ve seen where the window furnishing …