A typical Antifa demonstrator’s protest experience as told through a Spotify playlist

A typical Antifa demonstrator’s protest experience as told through a Spotify playlist “Come out and Play” – The Offspring . “I Wanna Be Heard” – Social Unrest “Fuck the USA” – The Exploited “Resisting Tyrannical Government” – Propagandhi “Kill the President” – The Offspring “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” – Dead Kennedys “And We Fight” –…

Morewell

Keep the Aspidistra Flying – George Orwell (1936) After my review of George Orwell: A Literary Life last week, I decided to Google-up on what’s going on in the Orwell universe as of late. One link follows  another and, as these things tend to play themselves out, I am now registered to attend an all day conference on the author’s work…

This week in travel notices

Some regular visitors may recall that the workers at my local train station left a small conundrum on the travel notice board for commuters to try and solve last weekend. Unfortunately, they forgot to answer their own riddle and no solution was ever provided. However, after a small Google search I found that the answer…

A Very Quick Story

I’ll tell you a quick story while you’re here and I have the time to spare. I have a good friend who worked as a barman for the years he was seeing his way through his tertiary educational commitments. No-one who knows an honest day of work would ever challenge you in saying that tending…

One for the poets

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,…

The Romans and the Moralists

I am half way through rereading Augustus, a suberb novel by John Williams, author of the equally brilliant Stoner and Butcher’s Crossing, and noticed this particularly eloquent passage that I had overlooked the first time through. The quote is taken from a fictionalised 12BC letter from the political advisor Gaius Cilnius Maecenas to Titus Livius and…

Under Pressure

The bookshelf above my bed is now beyond overloaded and I’m quite certain that it’s going to collapse any day now. We’re at breaking point. One of the screws on the bottom left corner is looking particularly dodgy, and despite my best efforts I can’t get the damn thing tightened back into the wall. I…