CIB: the distraction economy, empty living rooms & a toe-dip into poetry and polemic

I’ve shortened ‘Currently Influenced By…’ to CIB in the titles of these posts, because there are ‘rules’ about optimum length of blog posts titles and only a small percentage of people will read past the first couple of words, etc etc. It’s one of the symptoms of the Age of Attention, and what Aldous HuxleyRead more ⟶

News round-up: the good, the bad & the ugly

Facebook blackout – the verdict It’s now been two months since I stopped checking in with Facebook and I’m enjoying the freedom it’s given me. I’ve been writing, little by little, not an avalanche of new stuff, but a lot of reworking of old material. I’ve also found new possible projects popping into my head, which may orRead more ⟶

TGI February

January is really my least favourite month – I think it’s the short days and dark evenings that are so depressing.  It doesn’t help that the it’s the month of both my father’s death and my late mother’s birthday, so they are always both on my mind. However! Let’s not get gloomy. I did go to aRead more ⟶

Giving up Facebook for at least a month

Today is my last day on Facebook for a while. I was inspired by Dan Blank’s recent blog post about the importance of ‘investing in white space’ in our lives: time for reflection, time to breathe. If you’ve ever craved more time for writing, reading and creating, it’s really worth a read. I came relatively lateRead more ⟶

A poetry anthology comes to life via Facebook

Look what arrived today – my copies of the lovely new anthology from Beautiful Dragons (mastermind: Rebecca Bilkau), My Dear Watson. It’s a celebration of the 118 elements on the periodic table. Each poem takes one of it the elements as its inspiration, and 118 poets have contributed. Poets were sourced and Rebecca organised the wholeRead more ⟶