a dictionary of spectral curiosities
‘Are you going home for Christmas?’ To ask someone that question, it must mean you are sure of a few things. First, that the person you’re speaking to is not currently at home, that home is somewhere they must return to, sooner or later. Secondly, by implication, that in one way or another you do …
There is no doubt that Maria Cohut’s Multiple Exposures (Flight of the DragonFly, 2026) is an impressive debut collection. Reading it, I was reminded of David Hockney’s The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire, an ambitious work in which a sequence of images conveys the experience of walking a forest lane through the changing …
Continue reading "Review of ‘Multiple Exposures’ by Maria Cohut"
I've been gathering my thoughts about the much-discussed upcoming "documentary" from Channel 4, which, based on the title and press release, appears to be yet another piece of absolutely irresponsible ragebait content, "challenging" the validity of ADHD diagnoses. As always when neurodivergence is questioned, and the rights of neurodivergent folk to access accommodations and treatment …
A day late due to delays on trains travelling back from holiday, but I’m sure that you’ll find it worth the wait – a drop-in by Flight of the Dragonfly’s latest talent, Maria Cohut. A boring poem no one will want to readWrite me a poem about how it hurtshow you force a smilewhen talking …
I've been sitting on what I'm about to say for a long time, and in the past few days it has been pleading to be let out. This is because, whether I'm online, scrolling through social media, or offline, talking to people face to face, I'm increasingly hearing the same things: "You're just suffering because …
Continue reading "On the suffering of those reading the headlines from the safety of our homes"
I first got the idea for this blog posts a few months ago, and it surely would have been quite a different kind of post, had I written it then. So much has happened since then that has now altered the flow of my thoughts, and the framing of my original idea. I am writing …
"We don't do politics here.""Personally, I don't support any particular ideology." These are two phrases I've frequently heard when issues connected to discrimination have come up. Most recently, the first was shouted at me by a very irate building manager who affected not to understand why her migrant-background neighbours might feel upset by the Prime …
Continue reading "“You can’t post this here”: The story of a poem"
Today, I teared up in a bookstore. Today, I bought a book because the first two paragraphs of its final chapter made me feel like crying. I picked it up and leafed through it to kill time, and because the title, Borderlines, caught my eye. I picked it up with some cynicism, wondering what this …
Continue reading "Crying in bookstores, thinking of borders"
For the past couple of months or so, if not longer, the media has been awash with rave reviews of Robert Eggers' version of Nosferatu, which was due to be released in the States in December, and was released in the UK on the 1st of January. The push to promote this $50 million-budget film …
Continue reading "Starved for Racism and Sexism? Watch Eggers’ Nosferatu Remake"
These past few years, I've made it a mission to keep a diary of books read per year, and every December, I take great pleasure in looking back on my 12-month reading history. According to my diary, in 2024 I read or reread a total of 43 books - including novels, graphic novels, nonfiction books, …
Continue reading "A Year in Books: The Ones that Stuck, and the One that Didn’t"
Encyclopaedia Vanitatum 