On Viewless Wings

'Required'?

As parents, we're supposed to remember the first time we did stuff with our kids, but the last time is equally as significant, if not more.

This poem is from Whatever You Do, Just Don't (HappenStance Press, 2023), my second full collection...

Is War of the Worlds starring Ice Cube really one of the worst films ever? The new version of War of the Worlds, starring Ice Cube, has received savage reviews from critics.

A few weeks ago I stumbled on a 2010 film called Titanic 2, and tried a half hour just to see if it was as bad as the title might suggest. Reader: it was worse. Some of the reviews were fun though.

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

I'm at a point in my writing where I feel like I'm psyching myself up to circle some monster and bring it to submission or summat. Hyperbolic, I know, and bum needs to go in seat and stay there, but damn, it can be a challenge at times.

#IronClaw now on Netflix. I saw it at the cinema and thought it was a good piece of film making, but also knew I would never want to watch it again. Blimey, that family. (And some elements actually omitted for the film.)

Also: Zac, what's going on? (I mean, I have thoughts, but seriously...)

There have been so many things - so so many - you would think would disqualify him, so many horrific things. And I guess the mocking of the reporter pales in relation to some of them. But it is the thing I still look back on and think: he did THAT, and people voted for him. So blatant and horrible.

Poem by Francis Harvey.

This bit of fun inspired by the great James Joyce certainly gave me a laugh for my birthday #vss365

It would be a lovely thing to have this in the UK

Here in France every village has a ‘bassin’ with free running water. As a cyclist, a runner, and a parent I have always appreciated this.

I guess I'm speaking partly as a runner but one relatively small thing which would make life better would be public drinking fountains, or frankly just taps. We would, of course, be less captive consumers, but it feels like a pretty simple way to improve wellbeing.

A photograph of Suleiman al-Obeid, former captain of the Pakestinian national football team, killed by the IDF as he was queuing for food.

I admire Mo Salah's restraint.

"Farewell". Really?

Suleiman al-Obeid was killed by the IDF as he was queuing for food in Gaza. Say it, you cowards.

It's great and, to my mind, Better Call Saul is even better, though quite different.

Blimey, I think you're on the wrong side of this one.

Rose garden to beer garden

changes made by the Tory government a few years ago, and so I will need to bring in a bit of a shift in their thinking and approach to learning, education and, in some ways, the self.

I'm going to have an early discussion of why they are there and what the purpose of what they are doing is, and talk through the basic ideas I have articulated in my pinned post on my profile. My students (A Level in the UK) will have come from a system (GCSE) which is very mechanistic due to 1/

As an English prof gearing up for the semester, I’ve been thinking a lot about getting students not to use AI, what the constructive (not just miserable) path forward is, and why not using it is a good choice in the first place. Some thoughts below. I’d love to hear what others think.

OzyMAGAdias.

Their response has big "but I'll have to take down this eyesore I built without planning permission" vibes.

Batman has died??

#OtD 9 Aug 1914 5000 people gathered on Glasgow Green, Scotland to denounce the declaration of WWI as "the outcome of capitalism." Unlike a similar rally in Edinburgh the day before, no jingoistic mob attacked. The war would claim over 16 million lives stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/1087...

Yes that struck me as well. Not sure it says what his parents do, or did when he was 14. So not clear that he would fit the definition in any case. So not actually necessarily a vox pop of working class students after all...

Yes, the final student's response is very OTT in particular.

Working class students divided on civil service summer internship reform Four students tell BBC News what they think of changes to the civil service's summer internship.

The BBC don't half love to frame things in annoying ways.

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

Fire and blood and anguish, as he says in An Inspector Calls...

Was just writing from a perspective of this side of the pond.