Images, texts and recorded works by Tony Gibbs
As any hypochondriac worth their salt knows, expert confirmation of one’s condition is not normally necessary and is even more rarely desirable. The certainty with which he or she can diagnose a fatal illness should be the envy of every … Read More
I once wrote a post which began “no-one told me that I was terminally ill….”. As events have turned out, a piece that was about generalised fear and its origins proved to be prescient. Last week I was diagnosed with … Read More
I was taking our large and boisterous dog out for a walk the other day when he decided to greet the old lady who lives across the street. He greets people with tremendous enthusiasm and, since he’s a powerful mutt, … Read More
There are innumerable literary perpectives upon the subject of autumn, many of them metaphorical. As the nights become earlier and colder the prospect of book and armchair becomes ever more alluring and the consideration of literary procedures becomes a seasonally … Read More
At a height of around 100,000 feet, the sky is pretty much black, the Earth is predominantly blue and the curvature of the horizon is quite apparent. To all intents and purposes, save for the continued presence of gravity, one … Read More
Ballard was not quite unique but the company he kept is indicative of his stature. I don’t mean his connections with Alldis, Moorcock or Sinclair but rather his almost unique quality of adjectivisation: Shakespeare begat Shakespearean, Swift begat Swiftian, Dickens … Read More
French railway stations always seem to me to be of a certain age, younger than Victorian English ones but older than their shiny modern German counterparts. They seem somehow to be stuck somewhere around the 1940s with a few hastily … Read More
Consider if you will the words “worth” and “price”. On the face of things, they’re of quite similar meaning. “Worth” means the value and, by implication, what something costs ie. it’s price: “price” measures what we’re willing to pay for … Read More
A recent radio news item reminded me of an oddly unsettling experience. In the summer of 2007, my book “Fundamentals of Sonic Arts” had just been published and was generating a gratifying amount of response. I was contacted by Michael … Read More
One of the advantages of having a day job in academe is the people with whom one gets to work – not the apalling managements but the genuine academics: the older I get, the more I find myself in awe … Read More