on the everyday, the banal and other important matters
I reviewed David Brooks s How to Know a Person for the TLS: David Brooks was raised in a Jewish family whose motto, he says, might have been “Think Yiddish, Act British.” He learned to be awkward and reserved around strangers, but also inherited a disputatious streak that saw argument as “a form of prayer”. The Continue reading How to Know a Person
I wrote this review of David Horspool s More Than a Game: A History of How Sport Made Britain for the TLS. In his classic book Anyone but England: An Outsider Looks at English Cricket (1994), Mike Marqusee writes about falling in love with the sport as an American newly arrived in the UK in the Continue reading More Than a Game
I wrote this for Times Higher Education a couple of weeks ago: The people who work in universities are made up of two tribes: tragedians and comedians. These tribes view each other with bewilderment across a seemingly unbridgeable mental and cultural divide. What makes things worse is that the tribes are not named as such, Continue reading Academic tribes
I wrote this, about the graduating class of 2023, for Times Higher Education a couple of weeks ago. The class of 2023 will soon graduate. When they walk across that stage in their black polyester gowns and mortar boards to shake the vice-chancellor’s hand, it will feel different from previous years. This cohort is unique Continue reading Class of 2023
I reviewed Albert Read s The Imagination Muscle for the TLS: This book about the imagination begins, aptly enough, with a story about telling stories, inspired by a serendipitous find. Just out of university and doing a job he hated selling advertising space from a Soho office, Albert Read was browsing at lunchtime in the second-hand Continue reading Imagination
I reviewed Dacher Keltner s Awe: The Transformative Power of Everyday Wonder for the TLS: Over the centuries, the word awe and its derivatives have suffered what linguists call semantic bleaching: overuse has weakened their intensity. The Old English awe meant a feeling of terror or dread. From this kind of awe-full derived awful, an adjective attached Continue reading Awe
I reviewed Michael Bond s Fans: A Journey into the Psychology of Belonging for the TLS: “Fannish devotion,” Michael Bond writes, “is a gregarious impulse.” As the subtitle of his book suggests, he is interested in fandom as a shared experience that gives people’s lives meaning and purpose. In the course of the book, he joins Continue reading Fans
[Published in Hinterland magazine, issue 12 (2022)] On 13 November 2020, a leaving do was held at No 10 Downing Street, in a room so crowded that people were perched on each other’s laps. Later that evening, Abba’s ‘The Winner Takes It All’ was heard coming from a party in the prime minister’s flat. On Continue reading Noli timere
A poem made out of the headlines to Adrian Chiles’s articles in the Guardian I recently saw something in a petrol station toilet Southbound on the M1 that I can never unsee. I spent an afternoon writing my own name. It was lovely until I started overthinking it. What is an app? I honestly have Continue reading My idea of happiness
This is a longer version of the piece I wrote on Generation Z for the London Review of Books: On the walk from the car park to my university building sits a red telephone box, classic K6 model. The other day, out of curiosity, I pulled at its heavy cast iron door, stepped inside, and Continue reading Gen Z and Me