On the morning of 17th January 1977, Gary Gilmore was strapped to a chair in Utah State Prison, a black hood placed over his head, before being executed by firing squad. Such was the notoriety surrounding the event, and Gilmore’s troubled personality, that singer Johnny Cash reportedly sang to him over the phone the night before. The crimes – the killing…
The brain has been described as the world’s most sophisticated computer. Every day we spend hours uploading information and processing new data without pausing to consider how it all works. Unlike other animals, our brains have evolved the capacity to think logically. Rather than exist in a primitive vacuum, this ability has enabled us to transcend our basic nature and assume godlike powers we can then use to good or bad effect.…
When John S Yudkin wrote Pure, White and Deadly in 1972, the book was met with great criticism from the food industry in general. His views, they said, were unsubstantiated and misleading, targeting a fairly innocuous substance used by millions in their daily lives. The substance he was referring to is, of course, sugar. Fast forward to the 21st Century and, it appears, we are paying…
So now they’ve discovered the particle that makes the Universe tic. Does this mean we’re one step closer to proving the existence of God? Probably not. While the scientists can go back to their decades-long research into dark matter and other worthy challenges, the rest of us can wonder what all the fuss was about. The World’s longest running debate…
What do you write when there’s nothing there? When the well has dried up, and all you see before you is an arid desert, your poor, writer’s brain fried by the sun? Nothing, I suppose. But wait. Is it really possible to run out of things to say? It seems unlikely, given the tidal wave of inconsequential dross that passes through the right-hemisphere every…
Saul Bellow made some interesting comments about the novel in an interview with The Paris Review. Literal truth versus artistic licence. ‘Literalism, factualism,’ he said. ‘will smother the imagination altogether.’ Do we, as writers, attempt to recreate the physical world down to the minutest detail, or do we accept the limitations of this approach and opt for a more free-flowing…
It isn’t every day you have a book published. Writing tends to be a lonely business, with the poor, unfortunate writer holed up in his garret room (yes, I know I’ve used that one before), dreaming of success while breaking up items of furniture for the fire to stop him freezing to death. Saturday’s thump on the mat sounded heavier…
Why do we put pen to paper, or index fingers to keypads, to record our thoughts for posterity? Seeing as the vast majority of writers will never experience publication in any wider context, why bother in the first place? These questions have no real answers. The fact is, people write because they are driven to, compelled by some primeval force to unburden themselves…
William Faulkner said that a writer’s only responsibility is to his art. Mine, unfortunately, is to my dentist. Driven from my bed in the early hours of the morning by a cracked wisdom tooth (how appropriate), I’ve sought relief in the written word and the shot of morphine my manservant has kindly administered. Pain is, of course, no stranger to the…
