“Choosing to kill the innocent as a means to your ends is always murder. Naturally, killing the innocent as an end in itself is murder too; but that is no more than a possible future development for us.” — Elizabeth Anscombe, Mr Truman’s Degree, 1956
That’s lucky — I’ve heard those seals don’t piss about.
(Also, looking forward to sinking into Dirt Rich shortly as one of my holiday books.)
View of a high-tide bay in sunlight with pans and chopped herbs in the foreground.
One of the happiest places I’ve ever known for cooking. Little Haven, Pembrokeshire.
Duneraker?
Interior of a bus with the next stop showing on the screen as “Horseman Close”
Yeatsian screen malfunction on a bus in West Oxford…
A scene from Death in Paradise with a Burmese cat looming in the foreground.
It’s straining credulity to suggest that an entire team of detectives in Death in Paradise could miss a giant cat in the middle of the crime scene.
An end-of-terrace house in Park Town, Oxford, where another giant of English-language 20th century philosophy lived and worked. Blue plaque again conspicuous by its absence.
And here’s 16 Park Town (also sans blue plaque) where Philippa Foot was spending those same years reconnecting moral philosophy with human life (and for some of which Iris Murdoch was her lodger).
A 19th-century terraced house in St John St, Oxford, where one of the most important English-language philosophers of the 20th century did some of her most important work. Blue plaque conspicuous by its absence.
27 St John St (sans blue plaque) where Elizabeth Anscombe lived while producing some of her most influential work (Intention, double effect) and simultaneously compiling/translating Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. Mostly unchanged, though the landlord has now fixed the ceiling/heating.
“North Oxford (being unfashionable and therefore cheaper) had become the home for many of the refugees who had arrived in the city before the war. Although some moved on once the fighting stopped, for many Park Town…was now a permanent home.” — Mac Cumhaill & Wiseman, _Metaphysical Animals_
[2/2]…they found their way to a version of Anscombe’s doctrine of double effect (“if you push the man off the bridge, that’s murder; but if you change the points, you don’t want to kill the dog-walker”), and are thrilled that two major moral philosophers lived in their home town. My work is done.
Just spent a fascinating half-hour teaching my 8yo twins about Philippa Foot and trolley problems. After some wrong turns (“are any of the people tied to the track your family?”, “is the woman walking her dog on the other line a bad person?”)… [1/2]
Oaths Life carries a sense of ceremony yet only, perhaps, when we come to, seldom staring upon Machu Picchu, but on street corners, or standing in kitchens, suddenly alert to our aftermaths, and in these instants of absolute privacy we raise one hand to go over the words… until the kettle boils, that song fades out, or cloud slides in as a sombre arras, whereupon we push so much away to smooth out the creases, then smile to ourselves, thinking it’s not as if somebody died – even, in truth, when somebody died – and just like that we completely forget our attendance to the office of the moment. And yet. And yet. Whatever it was we solemnly swore, our hearts beat hard, behind closed doors.
I have a book out in less than a month and so I am plugging it shamelessly. Here is the opening poem. Please consider joining our attendance to the office of the moment by pre-ordering a copy here! www.bluediode.co.uk/product-page...
Everything happens all at once. My debut poetry collection, Little Griefs, is out in March...but available now for pre-order: www.bluediode.co.uk/product-page...
“We know that it is the right frontal lobe…which makes empathy, humour, irony possible, and helps us to communicate and express not just facts, but our selves. Here language becomes not a tool of manipulation but a way of reaching out to the ‘Other’.”
— Iain McGilchrist
Characteristically acute and engaging close reading from @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social. Well worth a read.
Three squid heads looking alien and tentacular.
I genuinely enjoy cleaning squid. As with filleting fish, it’s part of the privilege of being able to prepare food from scratch and understand what you’re eating. But there’s no denying it can get a bit HP Lovecraft…
I'm thrilled with this review by Harry Speirs - really perceptive and insightful - www.indiependent.co.uk/poetry-revie...
Listening to OK Computer for the first time in years, and remembering a colleague claiming with a straight face that Radiohead were clearly an Oxford band because only locals would have known that the Karma (best restaurant in East Oxford for a 20+ year window) was next door to the police station…
Two Burmese cats on top of a bookshelf
’90s night on Osney Island:
“..from a great height / From a great height…”
Watching the almost-a-decade-old Death in Paradise episode where Kris Marshall gets replaced by Ardal O’Hanlon, and there’s a single shared scene in a car where it becomes clear that the changing-detective trope is just a different-genre version of Doctor Who.
Please be there for the online launch! And I welcome being attacked in the Q and A - www.carcanet.co.uk/events/dirt-...
Here's a thing I wrote for Carcanet about my forthcoming book: featuring toast, marmite, Tom Baker, and taphophobia
It’s also time to thank the editors/florists @kathryngray.bsky.social & @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social for their tireless effort in continuing to produce one of the most vibrant outlets for seriously good English-language verse on either side of the Atlantic, from which we all benefit.
It's almost the end of the year, and so it's time to thank all of our contributors for 2025. CONSIDER THE LILIES! badlilies.uk/poets
Bloody Mary spiced prawn cocktail with wild bass tartare.
Lobster and prawn squid-ink ravioli with lobster bisque
Pan-roast wild sea bass with ‘chip shop’ curry sauce
Confit duck leg with red wine & mushroom sauce
Happy Christmas…
Stocks and sauces simmering on a hob. L-R: lobster & prawn bisque; wild bass stock; curry sauce.
In my happy place: early mass at Blackfriars; a slow run round the meadows; then the rest of the day to prep for tomorrow’s lunch (background carols not visible in the photo). I love Christmas Eve, perhaps the most liminal day of the year.
Two cats in a reverie lapping at the scrapings of a roasting pan.
When the cats in an almost-exclusively pescatarian household discover the pan in which duck bones were roasted for stock…
Anonymous portrait of Henry VIII and Katharine
Copy of the Holbein More
“Surrounded by Tudors…”
Mishearing the words 'the big Heaney book', my wife formed the impression that the large tome I was studying was something called 'the bikini book'.
Picture of the side of a box saying “Pea Husk: Clumping cat litter”
Am I the only one to think this sounds like an album track that never made it…?