“Some people seem to have a problem accepting that stuff happens. Deaths, assassinations, accidents, disappearances, the lot. And they always look for a secret agenda,’’ writes columnist and novelist Ian Arkell.
Lisa DeMarco brings us another choice chuckle.
“Writers often mention the unseemly haste with which this symphony was born, inviting the conclusion that it is consequently "sub-standard" Mozart. Nothing, surely, could be farther from the truth,’’ writes music critic Paul Serotsky, introducing us to Mozart’s Symphony No.35.
Lytrice Adams tells of an ending and a new beginning.
Marianne Hall's poem is a sharp reminder of our primeval origins.
Brian Barratt explains why Mozart's opera 'The Magic Flute' has such a strange mixture of ideas and seems to have contradictions within it.
This is the second in a series of six articles by Brian which will enrich your enjoyment of what is perhaps the most popular of all operas.
"English spelling is guaranteed to confuse even those of us who have spoken the language all our lives. Sometimes, when we find our mother tongue difficult to understand, we say 'it sounds like double Dutch'.'' writes Eric Shackle.
Continue reading ""The Trickiest Language You Ever Did See''" »
...Her legs were like tree-trunks, thick and mottled with being too close to the fire. She wore knee socks which had rolled down almost to her down-at-heel slippers. She took her hands from under her apron and crossed her arms over her well blessed bosom to make it quite clear they could not enter...
Inspector Hartley goes to the seedier part of town as he continues his investigations into the body-in-the-museum mystery. John Waddington-Feather continues his story.
The great diarist Samuel Pepys was a man who enjoyed his food.
Ron Pataky offers a new excuse for being fat.
...Arthur knew he would only be able to steal one of the thirteen paintings in the room. Size would be all-important...
Derek McQueen brings us another tale.
"Why, one wonders, are we loading ourselves with debt, traffic jams and bomb attacks by importing a foreign version of an English original?''
Columnist Ian Skidmore has qualms about the forthcoming Olympics in the UK.
Harry still finds time to do business at the funeral of the man he murdered.
Emma Cookson continues her enthralling story of love and revenge set in a Yorkshire valley in the 19th Century.
Here's another thoughtful poem by Tina Trivett.
"Tourists come to Central City from all over the country. One morning we were on our way back with the horses and there was a car parked at the roadside with New York number plates. Standing by it was a family, parents and three boys, and the boys were delighted as we passed them 'Oh - look at all these cowboys,' one called out, little knowing that one of the cowboys was a baker from England. This really boosted my ego!''
Jack Merewood continued his autobiography.
The way people greet one another has continued to evolve across the world and no culture has more greetings alternatives than the USA, writes columnist John Merchant.
...The musicians, pianist, ‘cellist and clarinettist, were ushered onstage and into the vast cage, which clanged shut behind them...
Isabel Bradley tells of an extraordinary concert when the music was "filtered'' through gaps between cage bars.
A chance encounter with a laughing toothless beggar compels poet Hariharan Balakrishnan to consider the meaning of life.
Vaudeville, the circuit of variety acts went from town to town from the early 1880s until the early 1930s was America's preeminent form of entertainment - until it was swept aside by the ascendance of cinema and radio. In the 1920s, Louise Hovick, later world famous as the stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, was hustled from one theater to the next, overshadowed by her baby sister June, dominated by her mother Rose, deprived of teachers and dental care, but exposed to the assortment of oddities and wonders only the world of vaudeville could provide, writes Karen Abbott.
Val Yule's poem begs for a more thoughtful, peacable world.
Dan Bloom, a freelance writer based in Taiwan where he blogs for the Polar Cities Research Institute, issues a wake-up call about gobal warming.
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