I have wandered far from that ring-giver and would not renegue on this migrant solitude. I have seen halls in flames, hearts in cinders, the benches filled and emptied, the circles ofcompanions called and broken. That day I was a rich young man, who could tell you now of flittings, night-vigils, let-downs, women’s cried-out eyes. From Seamus Read more

Manchester 1996 Carly: he’s a rather sad Byronic figure don’t you think? Imogen: hmm, no, more of a Dickensian chimneysweep He, who grown aged in this world of woe, In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life, So that no wonder waits him–nor below Can Love or Sorrow, Fame, Ambition, Strife, Cut to his Read more

Images of our species’ capacity for depravity and cruelty are served to the screens on our desks and in our pockets. My daughter notices other things on her daily scoot to school along the back roads. The little bollard that flashes rhymically unless it detects sunlight, the opening in the row of conifers exposing an Read more

“Khaldoon said he would rather spend 30 million on the 50 best lawyers in the world to sue them for the next 10 years.” The football association, according to the email, now had the possibility “to avoid the destruction of their rules and organization.” Der Spiegel If professional football is now a deep cesspit of Read more

As the frontiers of the Roman Empire receded towards the East, tribes crossed the North Sea to colonise southern and eastern parts of Britannia. Germanic antecedents to their language are almost lost to history. Roman Christianity however brought writing, and the Anglo-Saxons were among the earliest Germanic tribes to convert. Their own language is thus Read more