In the closing chapter of Augustus by John Williams, a novel I have just finished reading for the second time, I noticed yet another passage that I criminally overlooked on the first read. This quote appears in a letter written by the elderly and reflective emperor Octavius Caesar, to his friend, the historian and philosopher,…
Category: Art
A splitting headache
I enjoyed the captions that everybody submitted yesterday so much that I have decided to do it again today. Okay, are you ready? Here’s the picture: Please leave suggested captions in the comment section. Interestingly, this piece was created by the same artist as my last post, the very talented Sr. X. Last time I…
Stevie Wonder: The Video Game Soundtrack
When I first graduated from University, Ireland was in the middle of a complete economic meltdown and the prospects were not good. To distract myself from the misery of high unemployment and recession, I turned to music to keep me sane. I have always been a fan of Stevie Wonder’s music, so I figured I…
A Chance Meeting in Camden
On the walk to work the other morning, I caught a young lad doing a bit of spray-painting on a wall near the office. “That’s looking grand,” I remarked, “I’ll have to take a photograph when it’s finished.” “Thanks,” he said, ” It’s looking a lot better than it did yesterday. I went a bit…
New Art at Work
They’ve put some new artwork up around my building and I’m not sure if I like the stuff or hate it. I’ll leave some of it here and let you decide for yourselves. Tell me what you think.
Something I hope you’ll enjoy
It’s weird, as long as I’ve had this blog up and running (for over a year now), I’ve never posted anything music related. I thought I’d mix it up a bit, and so, I present To Kill a King with Choices. I know that I tend to avoid around 99% of the music videos that…
Time is the Enemy
I’m so busy at the moment that I just don’t have all the time I’d like to write. I’ll be going to Belgium this weekend, Budapest (for a stag party which I know I’ll be most certainly writing about) the next and then I have this Rock the Farm festival going on at the end of…
Star Wars Photoshop Action
I know it’s been a while since I published a new writing post but with the next trilogy of Star Wars movies just around the corner and news that Harrison “Han Solo” Ford recently broke his ankle on set at Pinewood Studios in the UK, I couldn’t resist having a spot of fun with some…
50 word story – Untitled
And that time she fell, the care they took to get her up again. Those old bones are softer than chalk, they said, but they had held through harder times. With what that man had put her through, at least we were gentle when we lowered her into the ground.
Don’t Grow Up
For the past few weeks, the weather in London has been – what the Irish would describe as – “desperate.” Making my way to the work, a few soggy mornings ago, I caught glance of this shop front and despite the soaked and depressing concrete grays of the city at this time of year, it…
Why Even Bother
Without trying to come across as too pompous – yet doing just that – I would like to share a section from the introduction to a “Condensation of Animal Farm” published by World Digest in January 1946 and in reference to the writings of George Orwell. It goes a little like this: (Mr Orwell) does not hesitate to criticize…
Insert End of an Era Cliché Here
I was in White City earlier this week and took a stroll by the building previously known as BBC Television Centre. With the vacant office lights off and the complex’s main entrance barricaded shut, I was put in mind of the occasion I visited the disused ship manufacturing district in Belfast City (referred to by…
Looking back on Galway
In the initial months of the Irish economic collapse, I lived like a down-and-out amongst the bohemians of Galway City. My hair was long, my clothes were scruffy and I had no greater aspirations in life above funding my next meal. As if things couldn’t get any worse, I joined a writing group. While, as a collective, the group…
Traveling better with Tubiquette
Even at the best of times, riding the Tube can be a labored and infuriating experience. And it’s not even the delays, cramped carriages or bronchiole clogging tunnels that’ll drive an otherwise sane person to screaming at non-English-speaking strangers, but more a confluence of small, regularly occurring, irritations; tourists standing on the left side of…
To Infinity and Beyond
According to its Amazon.co.uk receipt – archived in my Gmail inbox – I bought the thing nearly two years ago. Since then, I’ve moved house twice and it has occupied space – unread – on at least 3 different bookshelves. Finally, however, I’ve started reading Infinite Jest. Nearly two weeks in and just under 120…