SELECTED POSTS
Angelic Landings – I don’t think anyone else has organised a gymnastics competition for angels. See some of the top contenders in action. Don’t forget to enlarge the pictures so as to be able to give your own scores.
Baristi d’Italia – My hymn to the skills of all the people who make espresso in Italian coffee bars.
The Heart of Chinese Poetry – About the way Chinese poems work. About the best introduction to Chinese poetry.
If vegetables be the food of music – Clips of people playing music on vegetables.
Istanbul – Above the Ring – A poem about travelling on Istanbul’s ferries.
Leopardi’s Infinity – A translation of one of the greatest poems ever written.
A Minor Key – A poem about the wonderful things you can see if you remember to look.
The Most Beautiful Thing – I once spent a period asking everyone I knew what the most beautiful thing they had ever seen was. Here are the results.
My Accidental Greek Wedding – The mysteries and dangers of phrase books.
Reciprocating Soup – The Tantalising Cusine of Google Translate – To accompany your Pumpkin Avalanche would you rather have Baked New Button, Nervous Leaf Rolls or Pan Arab?
Two glimpses of Icarus – William Carlos Williams’ and Auden’s takes on a painting by Brueghel.
Undiscovered Amazon Tribes – If you pick a strange book on Amazon, it’s very likely that you will find that “People who bought this book also bought…” will come up with some surprising suggestions.
Vinylia – The Artificial Language of Dervish – A chapter from my novel “Vinylia” on an artificial language which has verb forms such as the Absolute Abject, the Counterfactual Extortionary, the Vacillatory Optative, the Expletive Introspective, the Bovine Ruminative, the Alcoholic Indeterminate and the Hemorrhoidal Inflammatory.
Sideways Station 