I’ve Jumped Ship!

After a few months of thought and touring the many options for writing online I’ve decided to give Substack a try. I’ve accepted, and internalised, what I said previously about new beginnings being illusory – so, rather than pick up there and pretend I never existed here, I’m here telling and inviting you to check

Looking Back, Moving On.

What is that Mark’s reading?  At the moment, basically nothing. I am in a sort of transitional phase.  Incipit Vita Nova, Dante once wrote. Things have changed for me and, for a while now, I have been hoping to realise those words. That’s not easy though. New lives don’t really exist, what’s past is what’s

The Food of Love

In years past I have eagerly awaited Spotify Wrapped. This year it was not on my mind at all because I have not used the platform much – I did, though, get 3 months free premium with my new phone. So I did use it then. But Wrapped wasn’t on my mind until God’s Poison

On My Mind Today

I have been trying to speak to my energy supplier today. Anyone else get the impression that it’d be easier to get an audience with the Pope? And Pope Joan at that. Having failed to get through, to even be added to the queue, on the phone, I tried the webchat: position 220! (it hardly

An Open Letter

To Gordon Smith, Enforcement Manager, Kilmarnock TV Licensing.  NOVEMBER 2022. Dear Sir,  I have so enjoyed our correspondence, one-sided and cyclical though it has been. I have been thoroughly entertained by it for several years now. I must call you out though: your very first line (in the attached letter, how I wish I’d kept

September.

I’ve had a great month on the reading front. Below are impressionistic, highly opinionated, reviews and/or responses to what I’ve read.  White Nights (1848) in The Best Short Stories of Fydor Dostoevsky (2001), translated by David Magarshack “It was a lovely night, one of those nights, dear reader, which can only happen when you are

Before I Read: ‘As I Lay Dying’… Again.

Last weekend I published a post before reading William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying and then, over that weekend, I read it. I reached the punchline of the novel late on Sunday, with Monday morning fast approaching. I was, like a trampoline on a stormy night, blown away.  Without reservation, I can say As I

Before I Read: ‘As I Lay Dying’

As I Lay Dying    William Faulkner  “The death and burial of Addie Bundren is told by members of her family, as they cart the coffin to Jefferson, Mississippi, to bury her among her people. And as the intense desires, fears and rivalries of the family are revealed in the vernacular of the Deep South, Faulkner

Romantic Geometry

So, after reading Dostoevsky’s White Nights (see here) I felt fairly certain my desire to read would last sometime. But to really motivate myself – and because I was already in the area, on Friday – I picked a few more books up from a charity shop. Six books, in fact. Two by Dickens, Nicholas

Indictment and Indecision

It’s been, in my estimation, a while since I posted anything here and, therefore, anywhere.  At first, I didn’t post because I was working. Later, I lost the job and became too low, too distracted, to write or even to read – I have, however, been playing guitar a lot of late. Post-employment reading was