Sphinx

The yelling starts some time around four. Hector has plenty of food, and a clean litter tray; if this was a one-off it might be attributed to a bad dream, and he just wants a bit of reassurance, but the fact it’s now happened several days in succession means it can only be that it’s getting light and he wants to go out – prime hunting time in this sort of weather – perhaps wi...

Maybe it’s because I’ve had a week’s holiday, including some nights when I actually slept soundly and didn’t have too many bizarre dreams, so I’m full of energy and enthusiasm that will dissipate as soon as work kicks in again – but I’ve decided to start a fortnightly newsletter. The basic idea is to commit to writing something, rather than waiting for inspiration or deep tho...

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Erich Kästner’s Emil and the Detectives is deservedly one of the classic books for children. The plot is straightforward: boy comes to big city for the first time to stay with relatives, is robbed on the train of the money his mother had given him, follows the suspected thief and falls in with a bunch of street kids who help him bring the man to justice. It is down t...

Buried somewhere in my ‘future projects if it ever turns out that I am still capable of writing stuff’ list is writing a piece on ‘decadence as/and political theory’, developing various ideas that I’ve sketched out in some more general chapters and which underpin a hitherto-unsuccessful funding application for an interdisciplinary project. Partly, it will aim at taking the re...