Ambition is one of those words that can be wrapped in a subtle film of criticism, thin as Japanese mulberry paper. It’s not always so, but sometimes, if you listen carefully, there might be a certain tone of voice used when saying, ‘he’s ambitious, that one.’ At times, it comes with an implication of the … Continue reading Ambition
It’s a great phrase, ‘I’ve got the measure of you’. And it’s a marvellous idea too; being able to stand back and assess someone - head to toe - with the professional eye of a Savile Row tailor, and come up with the formula as to what makes them tick. Instead of inside leg, waist, … Continue reading I’ve Got The Measure of You
Driving south from Inverness on Saturday I passed a turn for Carrbridge. I drove straight on, unaware that Carrbridge, on the banks of the River Dulnain, was, that very afternoon, hosting an event of global significance. In fact, I remained ignorant of the gathering until this morning when I woke to the life-affirming headline that … Continue reading Back to Porridge
I’m staying in the Scottish Highlands this week, in the middle of nowhere. On Monday, I drove four hours north until I had reached absolutely nowhere, threw a left up a hill, further into nowhere, and finally I turned right down a dirt track until I reached the very heart of nowhere. Trundling the last … Continue reading Caterpillar
My dad would have been 81 today but he died a few years shy of seeing another decade. It’s long enough ago for me to reflect peacefully, to cradle his absence from a place of stillness. Not that opening packages of memory comes without emotion, but now any pain I feel has a soft give, … Continue reading Whole
Do you ever come across a line that is as ripe and full as a fig and if you don't stop and eat it there and then you’ll forget what it is saying to you? I’m talking about words that you must read again, re-view, go back over slowly so that the feeling it has … Continue reading Honest Attention to the Particular
Yesterday, in the Scottish Poetry Library, a lady with a carrying voice and hair the colour of candyfloss was telling stories to a group of children. Both her hair and her voice, I discovered through close watching, were useful in commanding the children’s attention. The hair was a wig, of course, and the voice had … Continue reading Powerful Pink
I was at a writing workshop on Saturday. We had to shuffle on and button up the coat of a character we were writing about, inhabit them and get close, try to see life as they did, think and feel the way they would have. For some writers the coat was made to measure, it … Continue reading Wondering
I feel like I’m adjusting from this to that, from something to other, but I have no idea what either is. I simply have a sense that I am somewhere indeterminate, somewhere between before and after. How’s that for a jumbled description of my current juddering internal compass? Let me try harder to explain. It’s as … Continue reading Stew
The earth is threatened with extinction and children and young people from all nations have been marching in their thousands to demand that those in power wake up and listen. What they are doing is fantastic, worthy of attention, comment and action, but sometimes I need to bypass the anxiety-inducing issues and focus on what … Continue reading A Little Bit of Heaven
