Carol Ann Duffy’s bleak retrospect below on a finished love affair, justifies very clearly the title of the poem and collection: ‘Mean Time’. The loss of love’s ‘light’ and time’s… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy's Mean Time: Night walks for hearts.
She asked me to luncheon in fur. Far from the loud laughter of men, our secret life stirred. I remember her eyes, the slim rope of her spine. This is… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy's Oppenheim's Cup and Saucer: the erotics of lunch!
Lock the door. In the dark journey of our night two childhoods stand in the corner of the bedroom watching the way we take each other to bits to stare… Read More »Close by Carol Ann Duffy: Intimacy lost and found.
Now as at all times I can see in the mind’s eye, In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the… Read More »The Magi by W B Yeats: The Endless dissatisfaction of Desire?
Jeanette Winterson’s reading of her new book, Why be happy when you could be normal? at the Royal Exchange on Sunday 30th October was wonderful in the most real sense of… Read More »Jeanette Winterson's Rapturous visit to Manchester's Royal Exchange!
I love the way both Winterson and Duffy capture the utter disorientation of love. Love is finding your way and losing your way at the same time. Certainty and complacency… Read More »The Bewilderment of rapture! Carol Ann Duffy and Jeanette Winterson
Today I shall puff on an uncharacteristic cigar by way of a fond farewell to of one of TV’s greatest, most loved and iconic detectives, Peter Falk, the singular… Read More »Columbo : The Mackintosh No More! By Moira Eribenne
One of the most useful and practical techniques advocated by NLP involves taking responsibility for your life and behaviour at cause rather than at effect. Jimmy Petruzzi’s new book about… Read More »Excel in English: Are you performing at cause or at effect?
In 2008 I published a long essay on Carol Ann Duffy’s powerfully erotic poem, Warming her Pearls, comparing it not unsurprisingly to Sarah Waters’ tantalising Neo-Victorian Thriller, Fingersmith. The essay… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy's Warming her pearls: Revisiting my review.
O quam te memorem virgo… STAND on the highest pavement of the stair— Lean on a garden urn— Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair— Clasp your… Read More »T S Eliot's La figlia Che Piange: Baffling the reader for beauty's sake?
Hour Love’s time’s beggar, but even a single hour bright as a dropped coin, makes love rich. We find an hour together, spend it not on flowers or wine, but… Read More »AQA Carol Ann Duffy's 'Hour' – love's timely bargaining?
George wanted some one to answer his question about love and Demeter, but his Aunt was dead and no one else knew his soul. So he leant against the kitchen… Read More »Writing Demeter: Looking for Sydney Carton
I love devouring anecdotes and ‘bits’ of real stories as they feed into all sorts of experiences and writings. Serge Lutens creates wonderful perfumes and the ‘genesis’ tale of his… Read More »Private English Tuition Manchester/Bolton/Bury: The scent of a good story
Writing an essay or a story under examination conditions can be stressful and mind draining! We can feel as if our words have left us-and fled to some faraway place… Read More »Bolton School Entrance Examination Tip Six: Word pools for essays
”We few, We happy few, We band of brothers.” Agincourt beckons and Shakespeare’s King Henry V is trying to rally a beleagured English army before they they face the French who… Read More »Tusi-bites: Henry V and the rule of three by Janet Lewison
”Such a staircase, with its accessories, in the older and more crowded parts of Paris, would be bad enough now; but, at that time, it was vile indeed to unaccustomed… Read More »Charles Dickens’ Masterclass on place in A Tale of Two Cities.
A lonely country house with roving wild animals. A rampaging, ill tempered medical man with a beautiful step daughter he cannot abide. Mysterious, violent death is stealthily moving towards a… Read More »Tusi-bites with Janet Lewison: The Speckled Band of Conan Doyle.
A Wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great… Read More »The enigma of identity: Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.
I have read The Doll’s house. It’s one of my favourites. I love its timelessness – haven’t we all been told of children we aren’t to play with because of… Read More »Tusi-bites with Alison Ridyard: Katherine Mansfield' The Doll's House.
Everyone has a taste for villainy in fiction or films. Even good characters have flaws or imperfections so that they do not seem too far away from us. Shakespeare gave… Read More »Bolton School Entrance Examination Tip Five: Create a Villain!
Private English Tutoring improves your learning. It empowers you as it gives you the opportunity to ask any questions you want and to get individual advice and attention for your… Read More »Private English Tuition: How can you enjoy better marks and grades for your English studies?
Readers remember books primarily because of the characters they meet within the pages. Many times have I sat in a seminar or book group listening to heated arguments about characters… Read More »Bolton School Entrance Examination Tip Three: Constructing a character!
Private English tuition works because it allows the student full attention, a luxury impossible to sustain in any school class room or university or college seminar setting. This attention can… Read More »Private English tutoring-why it works.
Rose Tremain takes us to France in this novel. Rural Cevennes where a collection of rather unhappy characters have assembled to start again, though not necessaily with the consent of… Read More »Rose Tremain’s Trespass: Secret hatreds in rural France.
On they went together. Rose and this strange boy and his dog. It felt like a pilgrimmage somehow, but no one had a notion why they had decided to take… Read More »Refuge: Surprise
Writing a story under examination conditions can seem daunting. You have just half an hour in which to show to the examiner that you can write effectively. You want to… Read More »Bolton School Entrance Examination Tip Two: Openings a short lesson with David Almond.
The Bolton School Entrance Examination gives students a timed opportunity to explore an essay question creatively and resourcefully under pressure. I have tutored many students over the years for entrance… Read More »Bolton School Entrance Examination Tip One: English Tuition
I have always believed that certain things are only ever finished never finished with and when I was reading Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘Scheherazade’ poem in her new collection The Bees, I… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy's Scheherazade with a hint of Rapture's Give!
Even now If my girl with lotus eyes came to me again Weary with the dear weight of young love, Again I would give her to these starved twins of… Read More »'Black Marigolds' translated from Sanskrit by E Powys Mathews: A favourite Love poem of Carol Ann Duffy.
I do like this breadth and the looming intimacies made accessible perhaps through this breadth. Human beings are so perversely paradoxical that sometimes intimacy is most intensely experienced when we… Read More »The Bees by Carol Ann Duffy: Retrospect and Spots of time?
