This is how it happened. The big flood scoured out our town, one of the most vulnerable on the West Coast of the South Island of our tiny country, New Zealand – “The Wild West Coast” the tourism brochures say, and it’s true as true. We sit on a flood plain next to a mightyContinue reading “Wannabe, by Garbo”
Tag Archives: shakespeare
Really?
Hello there. It’s been a while. If you’ve been hanging out for a new post by your unworthy correspondent, it’s not a great idea as surely you’ve learned by now. Nonetheless, here I am trying to entertain you and – maybe, a little bit – inform you. This year has been in most respects awful.Continue reading “Really?”
“Nurse! Nurse!” “Why, doctor!”*
(Here is a post I had meant to finish before traveling to Europe for the northern summer from New Zealand, where I live. Finally! It is not so good as I would like. It is true that I am not a scholar, in Shakespeare or anything else, but I do not need to be.) AnyoneContinue reading ““Nurse! Nurse!” “Why, doctor!”*”
Shakespeare to a T
Hello readers – it is fine but a bit windy on an autumn day in New Zealand, where I live. Wherever you are, I hope your weather is at least as fine. My part of the universe is otherwise mostly OK too. Just now I am thinking and researching a new novel, while I tryContinue reading “Shakespeare to a T”
Shaking our Willies
Esteemed readers! It’s not as it seems! Please! Relax! It’s going to be OK! . . . It is 2016. It’s a big year. Immense. Really, I do mean this! It is a time travel spectacular in which millions of people will move backwards in their minds to London in the early 17th century, orContinue reading “Shaking our Willies”
You don’t wait ages for a post, and then. . .
. . .two come along in short order. Dear reader, how nice it is of you to pop along again after so brief a break. If you have been reading my blog with the attention you surely have been paying to it, you will know that I have been slaving away on a new, apocalypticContinue reading “You don’t wait ages for a post, and then. . .”
Unmanageability – a guide for advanced practitioners, taken from Shakespeare
Dear reader: If you don’t know by now that next April marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, well – you actually do! It will be a wonderful occasion – after all those years, and the countless words spilt on innumerable pages, real and surreal, he remains the greatest writer ever, and that is sayingContinue reading “Unmanageability – a guide for advanced practitioners, taken from Shakespeare”
Scandinoirvian days and nights
When I was a lot younger than I am today, I was a fan of a detective series written by a Swedish couple, Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. They have pretty much faded from memory now apart from one particularly chilling story, The Man on the Balcony, and a passage on child-rearing from that or another ofContinue reading “Scandinoirvian days and nights”
Blagh!
Blagh! Not only that, blagh-plus! I am not sure about this feeling. On 8 December at around 10 in the morning I finished my new book, Attila’s Angels. For someone who writes weird books he thinks are pretty normal really, this one seems quite weird to me. This may be a good thing. However, itContinue reading “Blagh!”
Suddenly…
…yes you wait ages for a post and then another pops in just as you had moved on to something really exciting. OK, I know you weren’t waiting and am just making myself feel a bit better. This book I have maybe almost finished, or almost got ready to bin – did not have aContinue reading “Suddenly…”
The Written World 