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Talk of the Village
When when word got around that William Wood had put together a whole story collection inspired by snapshots of life in the village where he lived, some people were a bit worried. “Am I in it?” “You didn’t write about what happened to X, did you?” “Where do you get your ideas from?” — A…
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Facebook got it right for once
Graphic violence indeed. Facebook has taken to covering up images of USA police violently assaulting university staff and students. This is one of three horrendous arrests I had videos of on my page – the other two appear to have disappeared. In each case, it was university professors who’d come to support and protect their…
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Let more daylight in
Why are local politicians in Hastings putting their names to a Shon Faye event? What is the “sex doesn’t exist” / “sex doesn’t matter” / “it’s complicated” ideology that Shon Faye promotes? Just how convoluted is this? Let me attempt to put it a coherent sentence… Starting with Judith Butler, it’s a build-up of out-of-context…
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Who’s a racist, then?
We really aren’t that racist. What matters most to most people is figuring out how to be decent humans and get along with everyone. That doesn’t mean that racism and all the other dreadful behaviours aren’t out there – they are, and they’re deadly – but out and about amongst people, you don’t see much…
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24 hours in the slough of despond
This is a long read, and it’s all about those times when the political gets really, really personal. I hope it’s useful, and hope it reads okay! Rocking and reeling and finding the way home Yesterday was one of those slough of despond days. I’d been on the edge since a sobering experience at a…
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Can you keep a secret in a village?
Many years ago on holiday in Cumbria, author William Wood was enchanted by a village not unlike that portrayed in his new book. “Imagine what it would be like to live here,” he said to Anna, his wife. Neither ever dreamed this dream would come true. William was brought up in the South East and…
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Urgent appeal for brains and courage!
“I will thkweem and thkweem until I’m thick. I will throw myself on the floor, I will blow up the world if you don’t give me what I want.” Anyone who’s ever cared for a two-year-old will recognize the catastrophic tantrum, the baby-turned monster who’s realized the world does not always bend to its needs.…
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Cameron, Lord of the Manor, bringer of referendum
Header pic: detail from a Peter Brookes cartoon Do you remember those history lessons at school, where we learned about feudalism, and how it was an odd system they had in the UK centuries ago? A world where the people we now call citizens were called ‘serfs’ or ‘peasants’, and they and their work literally…
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Girls with Balls
Yes, I know what you thought this was about, because I thought it too, when I saw Tim Tate’s book sitting on a library shelf but it was his idea of a joke, you see. The book is subtitled ‘The secret history of women’s football’. It’s all about how popular women’s football was during the…
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Persecution, prejudice and propaganda
What do you make of a situation where a UN investigator reads a certain name, and says “out of nowhere, I was overtaken by a host of disparaging thoughts and almost reflexive feelings of rejection”? He says he didn’t even read the email about that person, because he’d been convinced this wasn’t a topic he…
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Kay Green 