After the first phase, after passionate nights and intimate days, only then would he let me trace the frozen river which ran through his face, only then would he let… Read More »Simon Armitage's 'The Manhunt': An Analysis-intimacy as painful awe?
The Farrand Chapelette was gathering dust in the shadowy porch of Marsden Church. And was due to be bundled off to the skip. Or was mine, for a song, if… Read More »Simon Armitage’s ‘Harmonium’: An Analysis-the scent of lost time?
Reading a poem can challenge you. It can take you away from the certainties associated with your understanding. and this can be uncomfortable and exasperating. What is the point you may say?Sometimes however, although… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy’s Hour: An Analysis-finding the key to a poem?
Tightly-folded bud, I have wished you something None of the others would: Not the usual stuff About being beautiful, Or running off a spring Of innocence and love – They… Read More »Philip Larkin’s ‘Born Yesterday’: An Analysis-GCSE English AQA.
Sometimes as you approach the Easter holiday break, the texts you studied seem distant memories, and you feel less confident about your knowledge and essay writing. If this is you… Read More »English GCE, GCSE Revision Bolton, Manchester and Bury.
George leant against the old chair and spoke to the wall. His voice was quiet. Careful. Everyone was asleep, though he could smell smoke from somewhere outside. The eyes watched him,… Read More »English tutoring/tuition Manchester, Bolton and Bury: The Face in The Wall-Smoke and Dust.
As Easter approaches students are aware of the nearness of May with the GCSE, A Level and Undergraduate examinations. If you are facing any of these examinations and need a… Read More »English Tuition Manchester, Bolton and Bury: GCSE English Descriptive Writing Boost
Tusi Notes Carol Ann Duffy’s Havisham and Dickens’ Great Expectations. Carol Ann Duffy is an expert at exploring the uneasy aftermath of love. Both her poetry collections Mean Time and… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy's Havisham and Dickens' Great Expectations.
I am not sure if this is a great poem, I rather think it too abrupt and unfinished to linger on in the mind, as great poems tend to do. … Read More »Mary Coleridge's The Moment: An Analysis
www.haddockbash.wordpress.com Great new film telling of the important part, now shamefully forgotten, played by fish in securing victory in the First World War. Fish worked in intelligence gathering and tank sabotage, and used to… Read More »War Fish: From Haddock Bashing
If anyone had left the kitchen before coffee, Carla would have been discovered in the hall. But as fate would have it, they all remained together around the table, each… Read More »The plasticine men: Carla meets the face.
The red plasticine figure crouched besides the clock. She had taken her time to get here. But she had lots of time now she was reforming. Her shape and size… Read More »The Red Plasticine Figure: Carla's Revenge.
The cemetery car park was choked with cars. Everyone was patient though most of Caroline’s friends were not patient by nature. But this was a sad afternoon and besides that, everyone… Read More »English tuition in Bolton, Manchester and the North West: Caroline's Do.
I have an affinity with rage on this blog! Medusa gets lots of attention and so does Miss Havisham and even David Almond’s The Savage. Perhaps it is the most… Read More »Dylan Thomas: Do not go gentle into that good night(Revisited)
A frosty sunshine made the fields glitter this morning as we drove to school up over the tops of Horwich and then down through Old Kiln Lane , passing silent… Read More »English tuition Bolton and Manchester: Bolton School, Jane Eyre and Rebecca!
I was walking Frankie, one of my dogs today and met a grandfather out with his brightly adorned grandaughter, who spotting ‘Frankie’ on her lead, held up her string-gloved hands… Read More »Private English tutoring in Bolton, Manchester and Bury: Katherine Mansfield’s At The Bay.
A Dangerous Method is an enjoyable film, especially in the context of today’s multiplex teen fodder; it fairly successfully manages to dramatise a clash of ideas and personalities, although it… Read More »A Dangerous Method One: A Film Review by Mark Wrigley
Over the next month this site will start selling Tusi Notes on Amazon Kindle and also as pdf downloads on this site. There is already a very stimulating and powerful… Read More »Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped: Choosing black or white words?
That Saturday afternoon George had gone to Buxton with several friends and his Aunt in her last blue mini. They had stopped on the long hill leading down in Buxton’s centre, and… Read More »The Plasticine Men Five: Nylon and Brahms.
‘ Why is reading so important?’ This question needs a direct answer as it is one of the most important activities any human being, let alone ‘student’ can enjoy. Of course… Read More »Private English Tuition Bolton and Manchester: Why reading Dickens helps writing.
Carol Ann Duffy’s After Mrs Tiresias is a very popular poem at live readings. Females in the audience enjoy the spirited irony of the joke about a man who becomes a… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy's 'From Mrs Tiresias' An Analysis.
Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy is the most searched for Duffy poem on Google. The poem is a cyber space megastar and today I felt I would examine the poem… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy's Valentine: An analysis before a Tusi Note!
Steinbeck’s final moments of his short novel, Of Mice and Men are both tragic and yet hopeful. The reader recognises that Steinbeck is offering a glimpse of an equal, potential… Read More »Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men-How Do we read the ending? A Short Analysis and Tusi Note!
Medusa has been explored several times on this blog and I will be writing a full length, Tusi Note on the poem in the next few days. However Carol Ann… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy’s Medusa Analysis: Rage as petrification-FREE VIDEO!
The face in the wall heard voices through the old plaster. Hoarse voices whose breathing came slowly and hard as if time was short. Houses like these carried memories deep… Read More »The Plasticine Men: The Changeover Day.
Tusi Notes Just the ideas you need to be different! ”This tender and elemental love poem to our first and most enduring love, that of the mother and child, is… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘Before You were Mine’: A Tusi Note – Buy it Now!
Whitney Houston could bring down the rafters of her listener’s soul. I loved the sheer exuberance and innocent energy of her early singles; gospel had come to MTV and a… Read More »Whitney Houston: The Voice that soared!
Studying English Literature for GCSE can sometimes signal the death knell for reading for pleasure. For whilst reading may be regarded as fun, perhaps the detailed analysis of texts may corrode enthusiasm,… Read More »GCSE English Literature: A reader's dilemma?
Reading can be a sneaky business. Even now, I still get told, come on let’s DO something sometimes when I am ‘caught’ reading, as if reading is somehow a squandering… Read More »Nine Writers who changed my life: English tutoring Manchester and Bolton
Sometimes, not all times because Carol Ann Duffy is human and works hard and perhaps writes more than her energies allow, Duffy finds a word that changes everything in a… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy's Last Post: An Analysis Revisited.
