Tag: Literature

The cookie crumbles beneath the foot of the dancer (Sam Pink)

'I didn’t write in high school. I barely talk about writing to most people in real life because no one cares and I kind of agree, I like not talking about it. ' Scott Laudati interviews author Sam...

Read More

Green Man [Festival]

What with hugging around the Green Man and reading people’s wishes on little mailing labels around the tree, this has been a pleasant valley, bucolic, neo-druidic experience. Thoughts of love, to...

Read More

A Progress [Theatre]

Carl Heap's style has always invited some form of audience involvement, In the past, this has extended to the gentle conscription of audience members for selected moments and scenes – helping to...

Read More

Writing Exercise for Trebuchet

Writing for Trebuchet. If you can give us 500 words on a topic that demonstrates; focus, research, differentiation, and appeal you're what we're looking for. ...

Read More

In the Land of Never Was

In the Land of Never Was: The Last, Desperate Hours of Climate Chaos Deniers‪ and Capitalist Rah-Rahs‬ Often, the world… forever unfolding, recombining, morphing, dying and transforming…...

Read More

Writing with only your eyes

“One can also imagine that, on the long term, eye movements can routinely be used in man-machine interactions”, and doubtless, Jean Lorenceau’s research into ways to improve the...

Read More

Stereotypes and Swiss Interns: An Academic in Africa

You move to a country like Nigeria, and you instantly don’t want to conform to, or believe any of the stereotypes that your pinko-lefty-post-colonial-post-modern-feminist-queory-post-structuralist...

Read More

Rock and Roll Poet – Mike ‘Stick’ Tyler.

Something of a mystery, Mike Tyler has a sort of brash appeal that comes close to being the ironic supernova of the archetypal hipster. With Erection Mike Tyler’s latest ‘release’,...

Read More

The Return of the Return of Fu Man Chu

‘Yellow peril gets nearer’ is a newspaper headline I remember from my distant youth. In those politically incorrect days it may have referred to a new strain of Asian Flu or a Chinese incursion...

Read More

Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill signing

GOSH IT’S A HIPPY Sightings of the world’s best known comic writer are rarer than hen’s teeth these days. Gosh were honoured by his presence on a cloudy Saturday afternoon, seated...

Read More

Students and Strops. An Academic in Africa

'she was overtaken with flouncy teenage indignation'. DR meets the students. The students are turning out to be the usual mix of committed, disinterested, pleasant, arrogant and outright...

Read More

‘Offensive’, ‘Repugnant’: An Academic in Africa

'the senators asked to vote on this bill must have been mystified', DR reports on the fight to make homosexuality in Nigeria even more illegal. I read an interesting story the other...

Read More

Trace Elements: Weakending

As the week draws to its close, that trusty old question “What are you getting up to this weekend?” will doubtless be asked in workplaces across the land. Weekends are the pay-off after...

Read More

Slimey Guys and Cuddling Homophobes: An Academic in Africa

'when she walked out she did so limping heavily and ostentatiously, when she’d walked in not limping at all'. Things get a bit 'domestic' in Nigeria. In other news, Julius has...

Read More

Trace Elements: Happy?

Throughout jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald’s extraordinary career, awards and applause acclaimed her talent. What Ella really wanted to hear though – was that she was beautiful. Problem was,...

Read More

Trace Elements: Scribble

The Gershwins served up “poe-tah-toe” in their pronunciation-divide ditty Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off for a roller-skating Fred and Ginger to deliver in the movie Shall We Dance...

Read More

An Academic in Africa: Red Lights and Runarounds

Last week I almost got arrested.  Actually, that’s not quite true.  It would be more accurate to say that I drove a policeman around for about half an hour asking him to arrest me...

Read More

Trace Elements: Together

A few years back, a female friend of mine married a man who was/is bisexual. I remember she told me – that if they walked along the street together and a hot woman passed by who caught his eye,...

Read More

Newark State of Mind

'They say Newark is the new Brooklyn, which was the new East Village, a re-birthed and post-cool SoHo.' Scott Laudati sums up the Newark art scene....

Read More

Trace Elements: Humour

I was hissed at once in a comedy club (I was performing stand-up) for telling a gag that went something along the lines of “My neighbour’s finding it difficult to come out of the closet....

Read More

Prayers and Promises: An Academic in Africa

Our resident screamer has been upping the ante of late and I heard a live performance for the first time the other night.  George had just finished moving to the third bedroom (a saga in itself,...

Read More

Trace Elements: The Others

I caught the closing minutes of a TV property show last night. A couple had chosen (for couple, read girlfriend) the new home they were going to move into, with the main criteria being she wanted a...

Read More

‘Someone who has seen the world, and doesn’t much like it’ : An Academic in Africa.

Trebuchet's Academic in Africa is amazed by the talents of Nigeria's ambulatory merchants and sedentary guardsmen. Plus nostalgic reflection on Wine Gums. There are a huge number of things...

Read More

Trace Elements: iLove

Neuroscience reveals the brain’s love pleasure chemicals are usually released for 1½ to 3 years max. In other words, being in love should last you roughly as long as your next mobile...

Read More

Bill Drummond Presents: SURROUND: Damascus in London

Bill Drummond - My Arab Spring - Part Two...

Read More

Trace Elements: Mars & Venus, Mum or Dad?

There are countries where little boys and little girls grow up to marry their mums and dads. The UK is one of them. It may sound wrong, very wrong, but it’s human nature. So that includes you....

Read More

Trace Elements: Romance

When writing fictional characters, a basic rule is females say it, males show it. In the real world this reveals itself most dramatically when men and woman date, then stop. He’ll often just...

Read More

An Academic in Africa: Plagiarism

Second week of term, and we start to acclimatise ourselves to having all of these damn students around.  Although the first intake (ie. the 17 that have already done one term) have been pissing...

Read More

Trace Elements: Trying it on

Picture a clothes shop: A customer walks in, eyes a garment, tries it on, says they love it, tells the assistant they’ll definitely be back tomorrow to buy. They’re never seen again....

Read More

Trace Elements: Can I Have A Word?

Several months back at an advertising agency I won’t mention (coughs Billington Cartmell) I was pitching potential straplines for a Panasonic camera campaign. Its artwork featured a suited City...

Read More

Our weekly newsletter

Sign up to get updates on articles, interviews and events.