Wiping the slate
The desire to obliterate the useless past can be found in various forms, from smashing ‘superstitious’ statues and images to wishing to ban ‘fairy tales’ from the classroom.
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Money, managerialism and the university
Prof Thomas Docherty, a leading critic of the managerialist threat to the traditional idea and role of the university, is to give a talk at Maynooth University on March 25th.
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Irish Times Poetry Now award
Theo Dorgan has been awarded the Irish Times Poetry Now award for his most recent collection, ‘Nine Bright Shiners’.
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Prizes at Leipzig
Germany’s second biggest book fair, at Leipzig, is oriented towards the reading public rather than the trade. Over the last week it attracted 186,000 visitors, a record.
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Write Badly And Influence People
What is the purpose of ‘jargon’? Is it simply to bamboozle us and disguise the nature, or absence, of the message? Or do difficult concepts sometimes need difficult words? A bit of both perhaps.
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Man can’t spell diarrhoea …
In the editing game there’s no reason why you shouldn’t get everything in your text just so – as long as you’ve got unlimited time and an endless supply of well-trained staff. But in the real world nine out of ten sometimes ain’t bad.
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In a Spanish bookshop
It is surprising perhaps to stumble across a small independent bookshop in a side street, and it can be even more surprising what you will find in it.
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A little of what you fancy
Can the observant Muslim take alcohol? The most common answer would be no, yet the ninth century Abassid caliphs so much admired by ISIS couldn’t leave the stuff alone.
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Llareggub, trig and trim
Happy St David’s Day, and if you’re expecting to let the sun in, see it wipes its feet first.
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Learning the ropes at The Good Companions
England in the late 1960s was full of temptations, what with barmaids, divorcees and lingerie ads in the London Underground. It was the kind of place where anything might happen, though it didn’t.