"Unprovided with original learning, uninformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a blog”
Dulce et decorum est to wage a keyboard war Safe from guns and constant bombs Unsplashed by blood or gore From behind your desk no taste of fear, nor any risk Make sure you will be seen By friends How strong and patriotic you have been Call for more guns, more bombs, no-fly zones,... Continue Reading →
I was in the capital, traveling on the number 139 Bus, en route to London’s Borough market. It required a change at Waterloo, for the number 381. For no particular reason I decided to go and have a look around Waterloo station, perhaps because, for me and thousands of other soldiers, it had been such... Continue Reading →
I wrote this play, in the vernacular of the Nottingham accent, about the fate of British Soldiers from Nottingham and Newark and Derbyshire, who were sent to Ireland in 1916 to crush the Easter Rising. Yet to be performed, so if you know any theatre groups in the East Midlands - drop me a line!... Continue Reading →
I don't get that big a number of hits and visits to my posts, although there are one or two exceptions. By far the post registering the most hits was's a story about being a boy on the Rock of Gibraltar during the 1950s. you can read it again, or for the first time by... Continue Reading →
Entrance to the Boar's Head public house and country hotel To a black-tie dinner at the rather pokey country house pub/hotel, the Boars Head at Ripley in Yorkshire, a place well overdue for a refurbishment. Mostly doctors. I have observed over the years that Doctors, when gathered together, a bit like lawyers or soldiers, tend... Continue Reading →
Gibraltar: British families, survivors from the RMS Laconia, torpedoed by German U-Boat on the 12th September 1942 RMS Laconica was originally commissioned as an ocean-going luxury passenger ship for the Cunard line. With the outbreak of WWII she was requisitioned by the Admiralty and fitted with eight six inch guns and two three inch guns.... Continue Reading →
It has been more than a year, (B.C. in fact, or before covid) since I was last at the London flat. It had become a little dusty, (the flat, not London) but it was comforting to see the familiar paintings that adorn the place and furnish the rooms. I took a walk round the neighbourhood,... Continue Reading →
A piece of doggeral written in response to an Irish Schools decision to allow boys to wear skirts. In Limerick they wear them long, yards and yards of cloth to the ankle worn, whereas in Cork they wear them short , in nearly all the schools where girls are taught In Newbridge they... Continue Reading →
So twice divorced Boris re-married, in no less than the Catholic Westminster Cathedral, triggering a media manufactured storm of “controversy” over the legality, propriety and morality of the Catholic church allowing such a twice divorced man to re-marry in their principal English cathedral. In fact, the rules of the church, in allowing such marriages were... Continue Reading →
To London. First time for some eighteen months. A little surreal. Dublin airport virtually deserted with odd strangers wondering about in masks. The queue for security scanning, usually a long tedious stretch, were moving fast, social distancing in place. Just one of the great bank of scanners was in operation. To be honest it was... Continue Reading →
This poem appeared on my facebook feed from my Austrailian friend Paul Halloran. It was so good that it demands to be shared. When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home in an Australian country town, it was believed that he had nothing left of any value. Later, when the... Continue Reading →
I am so pleased that Australia has been placed on the UK green list and is therefore, once again, open to visit. I say once again, but if fact I have never been there. Always wanted to go and it might even be said I was a little obsessed by the place. My favourite TV... Continue Reading →
The Road to the Rising was an RTE History Festival held on O’Connell Street in Dublin on Easter Monday the 6th April. Over 50,000 people attended, dipping into and out of exhibits, street theatre, lectures, music, re-enactments and the screening of historical films. The Big Personalities series of lectures were limited to 20 minutes for each of the speakers. this is the talk on Roger Casement.
It is 1915. Sir Roger is in Germany, as a guest of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Imperial German Government. He is engaged in a secret and dangerous mission on behalf of the Irish Republican Brotherhood. 1915 will not be his finest year but it is a year of great personal danger and risk.
He is not happy in Germany. He is isolated from the planning of the rebellion. He has no direct contact with Ireland and can only write and cable Dublin via America…
View original post 3,271 more words
Powerful Stuff from Peter's Pondering. Chris decided long ago that he could no longer endure the Ceremony of Remembrance parades and services. It was too much for him. He knew that he would break down and weep copious tears, sobbing at all of the memories that he could not set aside. He could never forget! Instead, each year,... Continue Reading →
Loved this from allenriz Just had to reblog it. Ave Verum Corpus has often been described as one of the few perfect pieces of music ever written. It is a mere three minutes long and simple in musical structure but ranks among Mozart’s best works. Ave Verum Corpus (Hail, True Body), (K. 618), is a... Continue Reading →
I had occasion recently to purchase a toilet chain. Amazon describes it more correctly as a “Victorian traditional ceramic & chrome flush pull for high-level cistern.” It arrived quickly and efficiently, I was well pleased and it was easy to install. Amazon then emailed me and asked me to rate the chain and to write... Continue Reading →
I bought a shiny suit. It was sort of blue grey and shimmered as it caught the light. The knife edge creases down the drainpipe trouser legs accentuated the shimmer. It was gross, terrible, beyond bad taste. It was tonly the second suit I ever bought. The first was when I had just turned 17. ... Continue Reading →
Gavan was dying. We knew it, Patricia and I, and James, his brother, all three of us knew it. He was struggling with life itself. But Gavan, he wouldn’t accept it. He remained confident that the experimental drugs would work, that he would recover, that he would return to college, see his friends, that this... Continue Reading →
Two poems from my collection, a homage to D.H. Lawrence, which by the way, have been rejected by my publishers. Poem 1: Aye up, we must arise now and go owt Owt int ter that there wooded glade in’t pouring rain Bollock naked but fer us wellies And we'll dance, slippy wet and near... Continue Reading →
Two poems from my current collection, a homage to D.H. Lawrence, which by the way, have been rejected by my publishers. Poem 1: We must go now, out in’t ter pouring rain Bollock naked in the wooded glade Except fer our wellies And I will hold you wet me dear And whisper into yer dampish... Continue Reading →
Broadsides - A collection of bits and pieces 