William Blake, The Gates of Hell How do you rough up Wrath, Greed, Pride, Lust, Envy, Sloth and Gluttony? What do you wallop them with? Blakean rhyme; with ‘bows of burning g… Read More
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Donkeyshott & Xuitlacoche Blog
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A blog concerning Goodness, in particular, Goodness related to politics, poetry, philosophy, life, food and art.
Oh! The Places You’ll Go!
Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes… Read More
Words from Obama's Libya speech.Some people think the only good linguist is a descriptive linguist, but they are probably wrong. There should be an official Academy of the English Language T… Read More
Christopher Hitchens, supporter of imperialist wars. Oh the horror, the horror.
In reading Hitchens in the Guardian today (9/11/2011) we read a specious apologia. He is ridiculous, and… Read More
The ridge above the Weald
To live on the edge of a forest is to live by a path into dream, or childhood; when you were small and the legs of adults were like trees and their heads rustl… Read More
At a boarding school in the North East of England, three boys of ordinary charm, formed a cabal at the centre of a class and successfully invoked the powers of a ragamuffin demon who w… Read More
Bryan G.Dear Phil,Thanks for the article and I’m sorry to have taken so long to get backto you. As I read it I heard my own voice echoing the same or similararguments some years ago… Read More
Expert advice on foot care from a man called Brett
The walk, for me, started in Roncesvalles. I saw the bus coming into the underground car park before anyone else and lined up at the bay… Read More
Torta Cubana from Ryan's blogWhen I was single and didn't have time to cook and I was working in Antonio Caso Street in Mexico city, I dared to eat this sandwich on several occasions with th… Read More
New Atheists and their agnostic fellow travellers like Andrew Brown portray believers as cartoon Americans.Andrew Brown's article is cartoonish. Most educated Catholics and Anglicans ar… Read More
Be against forced marriage not immigrants.
Human sacrifice, forced marriage and clitorectomy; unacceptable in Surbiton.
If an Aztec, an Ancient Roman or a member of the Gold… Read More
Our grand liberal, Polly Toynbee
Polly, I am a fan and you have my qualified support for most of the things you say. But let me ask you this. Micheal Rosen said that you, Polly… Read More
Philip Blond explaining the Big Society
The answer is that we ARE living in a new Dark Ages. What makes this time a new dark age is that the light of reason is being snuffed out. We have… Read More
A chimp
Language is the defining characteristic of human beings because, mainly through language, we create our representation of the world and act on it: history, art, film making, scie… Read More
Fuchsia, editorial writer at the Guardian
I remember reading the Whole Earth Catalogue and the writing of feminists in the 70s, as a teen, and loving the idea of a building not as a peni… Read More
'...Las calles están mojadas y parece que llovió,Son lágrimas de una niña, de una mujer que lloró.Triste y sola, sola se queda Fonsecatriste y llorosa qued… Read More
We arrived in Mexico City in the year 2000 and left it in the year 2002. I've written about it. But I want to write about it again because I want to refine an experience that puzzles me. Th… Read More
The Achilles Heel of the Tories is their unfairness.
The Tory Party is Hobbsian; elitist and hierarchical by nature, based partly on the tradition of a managed democracy. When people vote… Read More
George Monbiot, a modern Calvinist
Global warming is going to happen so we should work out ways of dealing with it, and geo-engineering is one rational way out of the labyrinth. We… Read More
Current avatar; banned by the Guardian Comment is Free mafiosi
One of my Avatars - I have many - was FreshOrangeJuice. It has just been banned from the Guardian comment pages. Big deal… Read More
The rooftops of Manchester, ValetteWhen her mother brought Carmen to Manchester in September she packed a suitcase containing everything she might need. However, in contrast to the… Read More
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"You've got to go dad. Now.""Wait, I am doing something important, I shout."I was writing a Kattabatic letter to someone, dredging up smooth… Read More
Deep into the icy waters of the Atlantic
Somewhere around the Cape of Storms
encaged by rocky beaches all around
assaulted by piercing winds from the Banguelo
like an island ship... lies the… Read More
There is something very, very wrong with the literary zeitgeist of Britain.
I buy my four shot Palomino, get on the train at Wimbledon, The seats are littered with blue topped, abridged c… Read More
The Battle of Culloden 1746
After three centuries of atrocities and privateering Great Britain Incorporated, the union not the island, is on trial in 2014. If the ordinary Scottish peopl… Read More
On Wednesday Peter invited me and Jaimie round for a meal. The flat was a complete mess and I abandoned it to Habib and was soon at teacher towers in the middle of Rahima. It's five stories… Read More
Lawrence visiting Teotihuacan
In most of Lawrence's writing his zip is undone and "Mornings in Mexico" is no exception. His metaphors for Mexicans are insectile. He insults them continuo… Read More
In the OXFAM shop I met a man. He hadn't washed. He sat drinking a mug of tea Felicity had given him and he collared me. He said he'd like a house in Cornwall, with a swimming pool. "I'm get… Read More
If we had a real education system then it would combine all the elements of the best proven schooling systems: Montessori, Waldorf, Summerhill, Westminster, the great comprehensives, th… Read More
Hi Phil,
The last few days I've been thinking about Eve and Tony and their house, and, surprisingly I can remember very little. I have a bit of a visual picture of the house with a long ha… Read More
Tony Hall
My 'speech' for Eve's 65th party at Matumi - a much shorter version was given extempore, without reading.
Dear friends, dear family...
Thank you all for copming to celebrate with… Read More
My dear granny and grandpa,I wish I could come earlier than in August, that is in 6 months, but I still remember that Christmas that I spent with you. How was the swimming pool, and is it ho… Read More
We knew Marius not only through joining COD, but also during his beatnik period. We met him in Cape Town in 1959. Paddy Roome, Tony Levy and other ex-Jeppe School pupils who were at… Read More
Dear Bar We've just had two thirds of our kids here - the twins Andy and Chris, their wives, kids (7 intotal) and Andy's mum-in-law, for almost a month. The wonderful thing about this… Read More
Jim Higgins was Dad's boss at Events, the Middle East companion magazine to the Arabic Al Hawadess and then Dad's good friend. He was a very witty intelligent… Read More
Those in the picture (from left) are your father Tony, your mother Eve, Tony Levy, (then two men students I can't identify), Glenys Harrison (as she was then), Paddy Roome, and myse… Read More
Hi Philip - how lovely to read these memories (from John and Wanda Patten and Glenys and Howard Harisson) of our youth at Wits, though it wasn't altogether a lovely time. I remember the ma… Read More
Dearest Eve,
Accept my sincere greetings for the coming year, may it usher in a new era in the progress of our struggle, I am convinced there must be a great change, we are moving to our goa… Read More
First draftAs the world financial system started to fall apart we came together and linked arms and together we shall overcome. Let our enemies, who sew doubt and fear and mistrust in our gl… Read More
Obama promises the USA Rawlsian ballsObama will be cowed into compromising over any plans to tax and spend on the poor unless that spending is merely strategic, focused and highly limited … Read More
Lakshmi Mittal on board his yacht.Rather than imagining they are powerful citizens, the ultra rich prefer to believe that they are naturally unconstrained and owe little to individual states… Read More
The engines of a beautiful East African Airways VC10, picture from B742My brother Chris is, quite literally, a very high achiever. He's one of the top civil aviation pilots in Britain… Read More
* Bring your own drinks * ONE plate of food per car… * Spectacles! * Oil the vocal chords!! Hi Ph… Read More
Veld fire, photo from the SA Weather and Disaster Information Service.My first clear memory at 3 years old is somewhat apocalyptic. Until then I had existed in an undifferentiated, pervasive… Read More
From Lisa's photo collectionHarry Piel, the actor director, was a friend of Heini's before the war (and after it?) and because Heini and Lisa were inseparable twins he was a f… Read More
From a series of about 12 letter written over a period of 3 months by Eve hall who was 23 and pregnant at the time. Here's a street view of their apartment Read More
After going nearly mad, Richard came to. He came to around the time his family was being killed in Europe. Though he didn't know that. Telegrammes had been exchanged saying everyone was alri… Read More
I believe that part of knowledge is its desire to show itself and its refusal to put up with merely a hidden existence…Knowledge radiates and wishes to expand everything along with it… Read More
"Why don't you establish a set of ethical ground rules for the corporates to play by in any country they operate in and propose measures and sanctions for those multinationals that do not pl… Read More
Listed Reporter to leave[From the Star in February 1964 (?)]Staff reporterMr. TONY HALL, a young journalist who has been "listed" under the Supression of Communism Act, plans… Read More
Pam explained:'What is a real friend? I'll tell you what a real friend is Phil. When your Mom discovered she had stage three breast cancer she phoned me up and she said. "I want to go i… Read More
Excess, and for a few, with the occasional Jay Rayner along for the ride, does not constitute a thriving "foodie" culture. The foodie culture in the UK is a bubble; a squeaky mish-mash of bo… Read More
Major landowners in Wrentham, Sotterley and Henstead agreed to enclose 700 acres: the heaths, fen grounds, commons and waste lands in the three parishes in 1790. Dear Phil.Tha… Read More
One of the nicest places to drink beer in Canterbury is at The Old Buttermarket at the Cathedral gates.Anthony, beer guru. I know that you like:TanglefootDogbolterTomas SykesOld TomGreen Dae… Read More
The problem is one has to be extraordinarily intelligent to believe in God Read More
Be like Bianca Jagger Perez Mora; be an activistAfter the march against the war in Iraq in 2003 Tony Blair’s government ignored the 2 million protesters and went ahead with the war in… Read More
(Born 3 June 1936; Died 31 January 2008)By Dale T. McKinley (for the Mail & Guardian)Tony Hall in Dinser in 1973, alerted the world to the first Ethiopian famineTony Hall lived his… Read More
What a dirty game the American government is playing!Assistant US Secretary of State Nuland handing out biscuits in Kiev in December '13In 1990 and 1991 I was a British Council Lector workin… Read More
If you walk through the English countryside you will see the Shires, the barrows, Mirkwood, the Tors, and you will visit the pub in Bree and see Mordor in the industrial wastelands and you w… Read More
I hadn't seen Sheesheck and Sunil for a long time. When I say I hadn't seen Sheesheck I mean since 1976 when we were both 16. That's a long time. The last time I saw Sunil, I think was much… Read More
Richard Steinhardt front row, second from the left. (I wonder who the others are.) Read More
..............Doesn't Arthur, Richard's brother, look a little like the Good Soldier Schweik? He was far to serious for that, I think Read More
Eve Hall as a young activist in South AfricaBy Hugh Lewin for the Mail&GuardianEve Hall, who died aged 70 at her home near Nelspruit on 23 October, was one of the first women activists t… Read More
Phil HallMay 31, 2008 3:00 PMInexcusably, South Africans are lashing out at immigrants and making them scapegoats for the difficult conditions they live in. Instead they should be blaming th… Read More
Ken Livingstone, the leader of the GLC"Red" Ken should stand for PM. Ken Livingstone and the GLC turned London into the leading city in the world. London Labour promoted a community spirit a… Read More
Mount Meru J. ClaudedFrom our house in Tengeru, right in front, we could see the cracked stump of what used to be Mt. Meru. It had been bigger than Kilimanjaro. Then blew up. This happened a… Read More
Heini in the foreground smiling to camera Read More
When I was 12 I was bespectacled and precocious and we lived in Upanga in Dar-es-Salaam. Outside our house was a Kungu tree. It was 1971-2 and my parents were in the thick of it. We had left… Read More
Count Alois Aehrenthal is on the left, Isidor Steinhardt is third from the right, sitting on the stone wall. They are probably at Castle Buchlau.In his book “How the world war was brou… Read More
Photo of Ait Ben HaddouFolded mountains; bouleversantFolding people, émouvantGrass and the sprinkle of pines Cedar, cactus and spruce.Berber women mill bitter Agar,To make oil, a… Read More
Murakami's cosmosLike Juan Miro I looked at a blank wall But saw bats.Does this mean: I am bats?I have bats,Or I am batty?Looking at a white wall.I see- given that ontology precedes epi… Read More
Swallow, Eve Hall, 1940, age 4You were thinking of your father, in Africa.In the shop a Frenchwoman called your mother a 'Salle Bosch,' a 'sallope.'So you said to her: 'Mutti, let me speak f… Read More
Aithee'ists shud prai te blak h'eulzMait ai sedjest sumthing fer 'n aithe'eist te prai too.A big h'eul.'V kaus it wud ownli bee a litl h'eul, but if aul the aitheeists praid tegethe then the… Read More
I am rubbing at my dappled milk skinPlaying under a jacarandaIn a ditch by the side of a roadAnd the sunlight pats and strokes my backAnd its full lips kiss my cheeks; constantly.A… Read More