Folk Festival Fun for Warwick

This weekend Warwick hosted its annual Folk Festival. Folk dancers and singers were out in force together with a wide variety of creative stallholders and vendors, and everywhere we saw bright coloured clothes and gypsy-style skirts and hats decorated with flowers. In common with many others I love to watch to listen to folk songsContinue reading “Folk Festival Fun for Warwick”

People of Inspiration: the Much-Loved Pythons We’ve Followed Through the Years

Last night I watched the final live Monty Python show broadcast from the O2 arena and delighted once again in those famous sketches, performed by the original Pythons, less of course, Graham Chapman. I recalled one night at university when I sat on a bed with a group of fellow-students, and one got hold of myContinue reading “People of Inspiration: the Much-Loved Pythons We’ve Followed Through the Years”

The Therapeutic Journey of the Fictional Hero or Heroine

Recently I came upon an article in The Psychotherapist magazine which highlights the close parallels between the novel and the process of psychotherapy. In her article Psychotherapy and the Novel, in issue 56 Spring 2014 edition, the author (therapeutic counsellor Rosamond Williams) makes the point that only the novel (of all the narrative art forms) offers a parallelContinue reading “The Therapeutic Journey of the Fictional Hero or Heroine”

A Night When Neil Gaiman – Quirky, Subversive, Whimsical – Held Us Entranced at the Barbican Hall, London

Last Friday evening I was at the Barbican, London, to hear author Neil Gaiman read some of his  short stories plus a novelette called The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains, accompanied by the Australian string quartet Four Play. This production was originally commissioned by Sydney Opera House for its Graphic Festival andContinue reading “A Night When Neil Gaiman – Quirky, Subversive, Whimsical – Held Us Entranced at the Barbican Hall, London”