‘If you haven’t lived it, you can’t write it.’ That is the title of an article…
Margaret Egrot
Meet author Isidora Sanger
An interview with an author is long overdue on this blog, so I am delighted to…
Heathen and Pagan
In most households, Christmas decorations are now safely stowed away for another year (unless you celebrate…
Books for the New Year
Best wishes for 2023. Most of us are probably be hoping for something a little better…
Oh Man! (or Woman)
Another blog about dictionaries. The Cambridge Dictionary, to be exact. This not very well known online…
Goblin Mode and Links to My Books for Christmas
Having told you last week that a dictionary had proclaimed gaslight as its word of the…
Word of the Year – Gaslighting
Gaslighting has been decreed the word of the year by at least one dictionary. By definition,…
Verbal Riffs
A lot of modern music that is popular in the West is recognised as a fusion…
Can a Vigil be both sad and lively?
On Saturday 19th November I was helping at a vigil in Coventry. Called ‘Counting Dead Women’,…
On Shrieks and Bangs
No, I’m not talking about the recent Halloween, or the fireworks on bonfire night. Instead I…
News – Chaucer Cleared of Rape!
Geoffrey Chaucer, the author of The Canterbury Tales, has been hailed as the father of English…
CENSORED!
Elon Musk has finally bought Twitter and many people have heralded this as a new era…
What Killed the Encyclopaedia?
For hundreds of years, right into the twenty-first century, many Western households would have at least…
Is the Oxford Comma in Good Health?
Therese Coffey is the new Health Secretary in the UK Parliament. The NHS is in crisis…
The Late Hilary Mantel on Love Letters
Hilary Mantel, author of the Wolf Hall trilogy and two times winner of the Booker Prize,…
Meet American Author Susan Lynn Solomon
A former entertainment attorney, Susan Lynn Solomon is the facilitator of the Writer’s Critique Group that…
Chautauqua – and the assault on free speech.
At 10.45am on 13th August 2022, Salmon Rushdie stepped onto to the stage at the Chautauqua…
Consider the Optics
Newspaper articles increasingly use the word optics rather than look. More often than not it is…
Less is More (Or Something Like That)
Those of us of a certain age, were brought up believing that fewer must be used…
9th August 1849, The Last Public Hanging in Coventry UK
It is a quirk of the English language that pictures are hung (in a gallery) while…
‘Sex’ or ‘Gender’?
Back in the day, when I studied Latin at a girls’ grammar school, I learnt that…
The Generation Game
Have you, like me, wondered exactly what is meant when a newspaper runs an article on…
‘Dog Days’ – from a dog’s perspective.
It promises to be hot over the next few days. Not just hot – a record…
On Hobbies
People reading this blog may have deduced that I like words – specifically where words come…
Sound a Horn to Start the Jubilee Celebrations
Lucky Brits get two days holiday at the end of this week. One is the…