Evans by R S Thomas I’m reading The Man Who Went Into The West, Byron Rogers’s hugely enjoyable and funny biography of R S Thomas, a poet I greatly admire and who seems to me a greater poet than the other great Welsh …

It was not the dark filling my eyes
And mouth appalled me; not even the drip
Of rain like blood from the one tree
Weather-tortured.  It was the dark
Silting the veins of that sick man
I left stranded upon the vast
And lonely shore of his bleak bed.
acairnofpoems.com/2025/10/05/e...

Drummond Rennie, obituary of a friend Below is my BMJ obituary of Drummond Rennie, a friend I first met some time in the 80s. Over the years we worked, walked, and travelled together. Although he had a name that is 100% Scottish, he wa…

Drummond Rennie. Published obituary of a friend with personal memories added.
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2025/10/05/d...

Before and after images show glaciers vanishing before our eyes They are melting like never seen before, changing landscapes around the world beyond recognition.

"In 2024, glaciers outside the giant ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica lost 450 billion tonnes of ice - enough water to fill 180 MILLION Olympic swimming pools"

The safe space humanity grew up in is collapsing around our ears

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Time to ban the word “prevention” Few phrases are better known than “prevention is better than cure,” and its message seems irrefutable. Prevention is the favoured answer to the accumulating woes of the NHS: if people don’t get sic…

richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2023/09/16/t...

Remains of a poet and his artist wife: a found poem I took this poem from “The Man Who Went Into The West,” Byron Rogers’s marvellous and funny biography of the Welsh poet R S Thomas, a man so curmudgeonly that when asked by English tourists for dir…

acairnofpoems.com/2025/10/04/r...

‘This is real progress’: airlines on sustainable aviation fuels and the chances of net zero flying The EU and UK have imposed mandates, and investors see its value – but the industry has mixed views

Smoke and mirrors drivel

There is no such thing as sustainable aviation fuel

We need a prohibative levy on the minority that flies for fun every other weekend

No new airport expansion and a ban on private jets

And train not plane for domestic travel

www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Micky Burn, Syd, and Colditz I wrote this article as a potential chapter for a book that would be built around our father Syd’s magnificent memoirs. The book seems unlikely to appear, and even if it does it won’t feature this …

I’ve described Syd [my father] as an “ordinary man in extraordinary times,” and Micky Burn, fascist, Catholic, communist, and poet, might be described as an “extraordinary man in extraordinary times.” richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2023/09/15/m...

A best-seller and even a Hollywood film about the heroes of the American government: really? Americans are suspicious of and often hostile towards their government. One of Ronald Reagan’s most famous quotes is: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the gover…

book to read during the US government lockdown. Government matters hugely. A best-seller and even a Hollywood film about the heroes of the American government: really? richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2025/06/22/a...

Twenty tips for leaders I published this list of tips for leaders as a blog in the BMJ 12 years ago, and I stand by the tips. I produced the list because a young friend who had worked with me became the head of a big orga…

You are probably a leader even if you don’t think of yourself as one. You don’t need to be the head of an organisation to be a leader. All health professionals—and perhaps all people (certainly parents)—are leaders.
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2023/09/14/t...

A enriching novel that leads me to a collection of short stories and another novel One way to write a novel, a formula that could be endlessly repeated, is to take a story from a writer and then weave the story together with an episode in the life of the writer of the story. This…

We all had the power to change our pasts, our beginnings – or our perception of them, at least – but none of us could determine how our stories would end.
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2023/09/06/a...

People often respond to the diagnosis of a terminal illness with denial, a powerful psychological response. Is the world doing the same?

Soups of the world I love a list, and I love soup. Here is a list of soups of the world that I have taken from Louise Erdrich’s novel “The Sentence.” I know and so have tasted only five of them: Sambar, Borscht, Gazp…

Soups of the world. How many have you tasted? Has anybody tasted them all? I’ve tasted five.
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2023/09/02/s...

A young artist reflects on how an old artist might feel about his life An Artist of the Floating World is Kazuo Ishuguro’s second novel and could be called his breakthrough novel. He began it in a basement flat in Shepherd’s Bush as he was waiting for his first n…

richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2025/09/29/a...

Taking stock: UKHACC’s newly appointed Co-Chairs, Hugh Montgomery and Sandy Mather, reflect and look forward - UK Health Alliance on Climate Change With our appointment as co-chairs of the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change (UKHACC), we felt it important to take stock. What has been the trajectory of the planetary climate crisis? How have corpo...

What has been the trajectory of the planetary climate crisis? How have we responded? Where has that left us know? What does the future now look like? And what must we now do? @hughmontgomery.bsky.social & @sanmather.bsky.social take stock
ukhealthalliance.org/news-item/ta...

A novel of duality I’ve now read all three of Tan Twan Eng’s novels, all of which have been long listed for the Booker Prize. I loved the second, The Garden of Evening Mists the third, The House of Doors, which …

‘That is what growing old consists of, mostly. One starts giving away items and belongings until only the memories are left. In the end, what else do we really require?’

richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2023/08/29/a...

A great novel of violence, war, and how to dance Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy is a strong candidate for that elusive thing “the great American novel.” It is said to be the masterpiece of McCarthy, indisputably one of the greatest American wr…

Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn.

richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2023/08/25/a...

The six tools of grief and five uses of nature I’ve read of these in Robert Richardson’s “Three Roads Back,” which tells the stories of how three great American thinkers—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, and William James—recovered from the g…

The six tools of grief and five uses of nature:
The six tools of grief
Travel
Reading
Nature
Friendship
Journal-keeping
Letter-writing.

richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2023/08/24/t...

Drummond Rennie: medical editor and elegant prose stylist who championed scientific standards and integrity Credit: Edmond J Safra Center for Ethics Drummond Rennie, nephrologist, mountaineer, high altitude physiologist, and the most innovative medical editor of his generation, worked tirelessly in pursu...

My obituary of a friend and a man who taught me a lot. Drummond Rennie: medical editor and elegant prose stylist who championed scientific standards and integrity www.bmj.com/content/390/...

What made you become a writer? A novel with an exciting answer “What made you become a writer?” is a question that eventually is asked of every successful writer, usually as they go through the obligatory torture of having to promote their new books. There are…

The trade of telling truth by telling lies. A hugely-enjoyable novel.

richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2025/09/24/w...

Typhoon Ragasa live: Two million people evacuated in southern China after deaths in Taiwan and Philippines Schools and businesses closed in Hong Kong and Guangdong as powerful winds and rain set to hit after destruction across Taiwan and Philippines

Global heating is making hurricanes and typhoons more powerful, wetter and slower-moving - all of which increases their devastating destructive potential

Expect a great deal more of this

www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...

Two artists who never knew of each other but developed in parallel A good exhibition has an argument, tells a story, teaches you, shows you works you have never seen before, has strong works, and perhaps even introduces you to an artist you don’t know. By those cr…

richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2023/08/15/t...

There should be a high bar for politicians attacking the media, but maybe Ed Davey has half a point here?

For example, the first three paragraphs of this BBC story repeat Reform's £243bn figure without saying that the thinktank behind the estimate now disowns it. (This is mentioned in paragraph 35)

The credo of Oppenheimer (or any scientist?) In Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian” I read the words below. They come from the Judge, an immense, hairless man of 20 stone who kills people, including children, without a moment’s hesitation but …

The man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate.
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2023/08/14/t...

Our manifesto for the Welsh Government elections - UK Health Alliance on Climate Change Our manifesto for the Welsh Government elections calls on all parties to commit to strong action to deliver a sustainable, healthier and more equal Wales..

Our manifesto for Welsh gov elections calls for
🍃 Accelerated transition to clean energy
🏡 Low-carbon, energy efficient homes
🚵 Clean ways to travel
🫛 Resilient, sustainable, healthy food system
🏞️ Healthy natural environment
🩺 Sustainable health and care services
ukhealthalliance.org/news-item/ou...

Remembering Drummond Rennie—Champion of Integrity in Science and Scientific Publication Drummond Rennie, physician, scientist, editor, climber, tireless promoter of integrity and transparency in science, and mentor to many, died on September 12, 2025, at the age of 89.

A wonderful obituary of Drummond Rennie, a fascinating man, the greatest medical editor of his generation, and a champion of scientific quality and integrity. (Complete with 53 references)
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

The future is unbearable, back to the past: a novel of surprises What should we do with the demented people who are piling up everywhere? We shouldn’t just put them in warehouses of the dying as we are doing now but create the times they loved. Let’s recreate th…

The time is coming when more and more people will want to hide in the cave of the past, to turn back. And not for happy reasons, by the way. We need to be ready with the bomb shelter of the past. Call it the time shelter, if you will.

richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2023/08/13/t...

A novel with plants at its heart Elizabeth Gilbert’s novels romp along, spinning stories, providing insights, and teaching, amusing, and entertaining you. The central subject of The Signature of All Things is plants, although the …

I have nothing but respect and reverence for the Genius of Death, who has shaped this world more than any other force.

richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2023/08/12/a...

A poem for Richard by Chat GPT Yesterday I stepped down after six years as the chair of the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change. The Alliance brings together 54 organisations of health professionals, including most of the royal…

After six years I’ve stepped down as chair of UKHACC, and colleagues wrote 30 poems to mark my departure. Some used ChatGPT, and this is one of the results. Keats in his grave need not fret.

://acairnofpoems.com/2025/09/20/a-poem-for-richard-by-chat-gpt/

Honoured and delighted to be received today by President Michael D. Higgins @president.ie for a courtesy call to present him with a copy of THE LIE OF THE LAND and for a fascinating extended discussion on all things #climate.

We gift to our children an example of imperfection It never occurred to me until this morning that one of my gifts to my children is my example of being imperfect. I read the words below in Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian,” his masterpiece. Anoth…

richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2023/08/12/w...