13 January 2021

Doing the Business: a novel about the office

Back in November, during the UK's second lockdown, I put online my novel about travel and tourism – "Egyptian Romance" – since it was the closest I or most people would get to visiting these or any other places.  As we enter the third UK lockdown, I thought I'd post the novel I wrote afterwards, about another activity that is now similarly rare and exotic: working in an office.

"Doing the Business" is about the particular social dynamics of the office, specifically within a magazine publishing company.  It is even more archaeological, because it describes how magazines were produced before computers.  But its main themes are gloire and amour, which I hope will provide a little distraction, just as they have down the centuries...

01 January 2021

Glanglish, and other Weekly Essays

In 1990, before I had a go at writing a couple of novels, I put together Glanglish, a collection of short essays.  They are about nothing in particular, and were more in the nature of five-finger exercises for my writing (and thinking).  I aim to post one a week, which I'll add to the list below.

Glanglish

The weekly essay - with audio
Chiral asymmetries - with audio
Wallpaper - with audio
The knife's deity - with audio
Ludwig van who? - with audio
Rubbish - with audio
The new Jesuits - with audio
Systemic dis-ease - with audio
Weird messages - with audio
Looking at glass - with audio
Placing words in English - with audio
The plane truth - with audio
Meta-physicality - with audio
Accidents and substance - with audio
Colonising names - with audio
The crown in the jewel - with audio
The Turing point - with audio
Thoughts for your pennies - with audio
Repeatability - with audio
Intraviewing - with audio
Socratic wisdom - with audio
Invisible royalty - with audio
The oscillating universe - with audio
Digital reality - with audio
Forever Eden - with audio
Pravda - with audio
Glanglish - with audio
Scarlatti's cat - with audio
The check-out - with audio
The finite brain - with audio
8.8.88 - with audio
Silly farts - with audio
The contingent apple - with audio
The profit of the beard - with audio
What masterpiece? - with audio
Spot the similarity - with audio
Cacography - with audio
Windy city - with audio
Corporeal integrity - with audio
Counting the cost - with audio
Dire diary - with audio
Three sciences - with audio
Antics - with audio
God in the body - with audio
The insolence of the inanimate - with audio
Hoardings - with audio
Stargazing - with audio
Truckling on - with audio
Nostalgia for Brezhnev - with audio
Dalliance - with audio
Booting up - with audio
Getting the idea - with audio