Picked up a natty, second-hand copy of Kurt Vonnegut's Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons (pictured) the other day, and a thoroughly enjoyable collection of speeches/articles from the 1960s/70s it is proving to be.

A short …

A quick email exchange with Simon McGarr, the other night (on the topic of audio transcription), quickly turned to matters comic/cartoon related with Simon asking the intriguing (and very valid) question, "What, in the name of all that is …

As a long-time reader of the frequently daft, outrageous, and foam-flecked rhetoric of (that dreadful old windbag) Colonel Kevin Myers, I am happy to announce a new bloggy venture being undertaken by yours truly, 'copernicus', and EWI …

'Guest Post' by Copernicus

Who's that poking their heads over the half door and the twilight as purple in the western sky as the heather on the bog? Come in, come in, musha, and settle ye about the hearth. …

'Guest Post' by Copernicus

Before I go to bed at night, having replenished the horn of nerdom with a couple of Star Trek episodes, I pause before the bookshelves in the hall, pluck from them a random volume and, …

Hoorah! The blog is back up after a period of inexplicable 'outage'…thank you very much Lycos…grumble…

Anyway, in the absence of a proper post I'll do what I rarely ever do and simply draw your attention to something groovy found …

In an idle moment last night I found myself browsing through some of the more neglected and forgotten volumes that adorn my bookcases.

Scanning the shelves, I quickly passed over categories like "Novels I've been meaning to read for years" and …

'Guest Post' by Copernicus

Like the French placard which, Roger Chartier has observed, has been 'long neglected by a history interested only in more noble objects', the broadside is the Cinderella publication of early modern Ireland.Kelly, James. Gallows Speeches from …

As the 'long list' for this year's Bad Sex Award (announced on Friday) strongly suggests (if not proves), convincing literary representations of sexual intercourse, coitus, copulation, humping, screwing (or whatever one wants to call 'it') are rather thin on …

There was an interesting piece by Joshua Glenn in last Sunday's Boston Globe, dealing with the urgent need (as suggested by Frederic Jameson and others) to rethink 'Utopian' impulses at "this moment of neoliberal triumphalism".

The focus …

(with apologies to Flann O'Brien)

Myself: Given the relative infrequency of my posts on this oft' neglected blog, submitting myself to an experiment requiring me to complete a 50,000 word novel by the end of November, may seem the act …

2 posts in a row on the topic of poetry isn't exactly guaranteed to get "bums on seats", but I thought I should make mention of Cuisle 2005, the Limerick City International Poetry Festival, which runs from the 18th-22nd …

On this dark, dreary, and very wet Monday, only two choices seem to make any sense…

1) Crawl into bed with an improving book and a cup of tea.

or…

2) Fetch the quill and pen set from the attic and get cracking …