Happy Valley

Happy Valley

If you haven’t seen it yet, Happy Valley is a television series you should see.  The last of the series just ended so I want to promote it before it disappears under another surfeit of maudlin Disney rehashes which seem to never stop.  You really do want to stay up...
Ozymandias, Egyptian Tombs & the Song of the Harpist

Ozymandias, Egyptian Tombs & the Song of the Harpist

Shelley’s sonnet Ozymandias uses the Greek name for Ramesses II, the most famous of Egyptian pharaohs, and was written as a great statute of him was in transit to the British Museum in a wave of awe and Orientalism sweeping Europe.  The poem captures both the power...
The Joy of Mud

The Joy of Mud

When I was young, there was a bare patch under some tall and shady basswood trees (I called them ‘lollipop trees’, as that is what they looked like) where regular grass just didn’t want to grow.  So, I started to play mud games with the hose.  While my brothers were...
For Enid Blyton

For Enid Blyton

(A Children’s Story for Grown-Ups) Editor’s note:  The Pendulum has already swung back to defend Enid Blyton’s Noddy books from charges of racism and of excessive insensitivity to such human afflictions as having large ears.  See the Independent...