Fishing in the Rivers of Life

Category: Rivers of Life

  • I Just Can’t Hold My Nose

    Writing as a Compulsion If you are reading this, then you must have worked out that I love to write. It’s one of those things I do; give it a few days of inactivity, and like a humid summer day, it gets almost unbearable. I start to sweat, words of prose exiting my pores as…

  • It’s Only a Number

    Add them together, and it’s seven. In binary, it rhymes quite nicely: double one, double one, zero one. And in Roman numerals, it looks quite regal. Imperial, almost. LXI, short for luxury, I say. So why, when it stares at me from the page, does it look so scary? Happy 61st birthday. Come on, it’s…

  • Big trouble comes in little packages

    The Quiet Contest So, Rolls-Royce won a competition that most people didn’t even know was running. The prize? The chance to be the first company to build small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) in the UK, part of a government push to put Britain at the frontier of affordable nuclear energy technology. Sounds like a win-win,…

  • Trigger Warning: AGI and the New Arms Race

    Watching the Battlespace I am an artificial intelligence sceptic. Like anyone aware of threats on the horizon, I observe the battlespace. I want to know what my brothers-in-arms are thinking and doing about AI, and one way to do that is by reading comments on social media. “It Won’t Affect Me” — Really? Lately, a…

  • Techno-utopianism: The Dangerous Delusion

    The Precipice and the Blind Faith I’m standing on the edge of a precipice, and I see that while you are doing the same, you have your hands over your eyes and are singing “la-la-la” in an attempt to drown out my shouts of warning that you’re too close to falling. Am I being an…

  • The Capers Crusader

    A Joke Without a Punchline I’m desperately searching my head for any convenient anecdote, something, anything, that would tee up the punchline for the joke I have in mind. I’m coming close to giving up as I realise there is nothing funny about these small green buds of pure pleasure. Salty, and boy, do I…

  • The Man Who Hates Fish

    Food Contradictions Everyone has a food contradiction or two — like the vegetarian who lapses at the smell of a frying pan full of sizzling streaky bacon, or the health nut who hides Custard Creams in the fridge. Then you have the man — he could be me — who does not like fish. The…

  • Porky Pig’s Russian Roulette

    The Poetry and the Abomination The Scotch egg, what can I say? Done well, it’s pure poetry, like Blake’s Jerusalem, encased in exceptional sausage meat, rolled in the crispest breadcrumbs, and deep-fried to perfection. Done badly, it’s an abomination, a thrash metal version of “Morning Has Broken” blasted out on cheap, tinny speakers. Once, I…

  • Definitely Maybe Not Worth It

    The Clatter of Capitalism There is nothing like the shrill clatter of the hooves of hypocrisy across the cobbles of capitalism to set one’s teeth on edge. Like the squeal of chalk across the blackboard it discombobulates in a most uncomfortable way. So just what is it that has me clenching my jaw, and wishing…

  • End of the road

    I have a terrible memory, and it’s getting worse. Up until now, that’s been a blessing in disguise. Let’s face it, as a photojournalist who has covered war and natural disasters, who wants total recall? But as I said, it’s getting worse. Until now, life has been like driving a car through the dusk with…

  • The Steak Pie of Labour’s Lost

    A Gravy-Stained Time Machine It must have been a strange sight: a large, portly gentleman in a checked linen Borsalino, sitting on the passenger side of a beaten-up left-hand drive Rav4. Well past his prime, just like the car. Its blue-green paintwork was as faded as his hair and patchy, like his memory. His eyes…

  • Blast from the past

    Marching to a Fantasy Tune Left, right, left, right, left, right, left. No, that’s not the commentary track to a game of political ping-pong between Labour and the Tories, but the tune to which Rishi Sunak would have the nation’s youth marching. The only problem is that, while it sounds simply spiffing, it’s utterly out…

  • Dad’s Army 2025

    Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Mr Putin? It’s Saturday night, and the reboot of that old classic hits the screens with its familiar theme tune, whistle along if you want. So, who do you think you are kidding, Mr Putin. If you think old England’s done? And then the title sequence has that…

  • Too Old to Pogo, Too Young to Die

    I want to dance. Not smooch. No slow dance at the end of the evening with high hopes and low expectations. I don’t want Barry White. I want the Toy Dolls. I don’t want pop. I want punk. I want to thrash and writhe. I want to be thrown through the DJ booth. I want…

  • Where is my fucking hoverboard?

    Where is my hoverboard? Where is my hoverboard? Come on, where the fuck is my hoverboard? I’ve seen Back to the Future Part II and guess what? No fucking hoverboard. The film was set in 2015, and it’s way past then. Instead of gliding over pavements like Marty McFly, but cooler obviously, we’ve got electric…