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Half a Yellow Sun and the Whole of the Moon
Think of the starving children in Biafra. If you’re my age, you’ll remember being told that, probably over the pig-bins in the school dining room. Kids used to joke, asking if the school would send the contents of the pig-bins to Biafra. What did they know? My life changed a lot after my first visit…
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A letter to a GP, two stories of bureaucratic nightmare, and a petition to come
Dear Doctor, Will you please stop sending me texts with links to take up appointments for random routine tests. Yes of course I’m *that* age, yes of course I worry that I might get this or that problem but a) I have told you I don’t have a Smartphone so can’t click your links and…
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Seeing red lines
My partner tells me men rarely talk frankly about their feelings because they know if a bunch of men get steamed up, someone will start throwing punches. My older sisters tell me that by contrast, women’s politics is uncensored, and therefore has always had bouts of passionate screaming. That makes sense to me but I…
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What are the limits of freedom of speech?
<divers alarums, noises off etc> The tricky bit is that if you are a socialist and/or a feminist, there are limits to freedom of speech but they aren’t limits on who can speak, or what they can say. It’s more complex than that. I think it’s like this: freedom of speech is first and foremost…
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What’s Nigel doing these days?
In the front of our first ever poetry anthology, Routemasters and Mushrooms, I wrote, “the works speak for themselves. We hope you enjoy them as much as we do. We intend this collection to be the first of many.” That was 2006. The winning poem, which opens the book, is by Nigel Humphreys. The writers…
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Imagining the end of things
“Trying to staple a jellyfish to wet soap” – that’s a metaphor worth being remembered for. The author is George Owers, writing in The Critic magazine. He’s complaining about a book called Defenders of the Faith, by Catherine Pepinster. Apparently Pepinster is upset because royal goings on are fixed in a frame that assumes Church…
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Words are important (an impolite commentary)
The man formerly known as Prince Charles has just become our liege-lord, apparently. I resorted to my dictionary. “liege” describes the relationships between a “feudal superior” and a “vassal”. A “vassal” (that’s you) is a holder of land “on condition of homage or allegiance” or a “person in a subordinate position”. So, peasant – have…
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King Charles? Oh come on!
I salute the friend who responded to yesterday’s news with “oh well I’m not a royalist, so I’d best go off social media for a while.” Elizabeth was queen before I was born and has never failed, as far as I know, to do what queens are supposed to do. She meant many things to…
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Beware siren songs
This conflict between trans rights and sex-based rights – this Odyssey, this trap-filled turmoil of a campaign we find ourselves in – this shapeshifting endless battle seems to me to be science and safeguarding on the one hand, and the cult-like hydra of corporate-funded, “woke” gender-ideology on the other. To the opposition, it seems like…
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“Gender identity” ran around the world before women’s rights had got their boots on
…but we’re catching up, now. The sex-and-gender battles have complex roots, and too many people are still assuming it’s not their business. But please, fear not — behind the screeds of nonsense, is something straightforward and not hard to see, once you know where to look — a political stand-off on a policy issue, and…
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Kay Green 