Listen to the poem Last night, down in the street, the kids were there till after three, singing and shouting till they’d had too much to drink and disappeared. Not near enough to keep me up, the noise lapped at my bedclothes all the time, tugging so that I felt I wasn’t quite in bed... Continue Reading →
Istanbul – Above the Ring
(Listen to the poem here) Eminönü jumps up the staircase of its vowels in a hurry out from the Golden Horn. It's not a place to dawdle waving one's hands effetely over the slender minarets trying to uncork the sky: here all is cars and boats and bustle.Some days the wind comes gushing straight out of Russia and here turns fifteen different corners all at once, scattering the footsteps... Continue Reading →
Patrick O’Brian – “I do love a blow” – Aboard HMS Surprise
I hesitate to write about Patrick O'Brian since he is one of the most popular authors there is. But then I remember reading glowing reviews of his books and thinking "This can't be true . How interesting can an endless series about a naval captain during the Napoleonic wars and his travelling companion an Irish... Continue Reading →