Category: Ideas
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Words across time
In 1874, Arthur William Edgar O’Shaughnessey published a collection of poems called Music and Moonlight. Among them was a poem, Ode, that will be familiar to many, although most people know only the first couple of stanzas: We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams, wandering by lone sea breakers and…
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The wonder of ideas
They say everyone should have a hobby. Mine is debating. Not just arguing, informally – although analysis of everything, all the time, comes naturally now – but formal, competitive debate. One of my favourite quotes is from Ursula le Guin’s novel, The Dispossessed: “They argued because they liked argument, liked the swift run of the…
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The joy of motion
A light breeze drifts past, taking the edge off the summer sunshine as I sit on the station platform. It is a perfect day – enough cool breeze not to be scorching hot but still not so windy that it feels as if the world might blow away. The air is crisp-clear. The Somerset West…