"It's not true what they say, that it fades, it cools with the years. It grows, it blooms, the less time that's left. Eight, nine years... How long do we have? Things get more precious, not less. That's one thing I've learnt. And what we have here inside us we might never know, there's no detecting it. That's another thing I've learnt. It ( Read more... )

Sometimes I think that I know ( Read more... )

If you're looking for trouble
You came to the right place

("Trouble" Elvis Presley)

Fifty years ago today one Elvis Aaron Presley, at nineteen years old, recorded a song called "That's All Right" in Sun Studios, Memphis. That single recording session has since been acclaimed as having changed the course of modern music ( Read more... )

"The universe expands in all directions, but the planets still go round in circles. Sometimes you can end up right where you started. At these times you can't look back, because therein lies madness. You just have to make a new beginning as a new person. Or of course you can go the other way: you're you, maybe life has certain patterns that you ( Read more... )

It was with sadness and shock today that I logged onto the front page of Deacon Blue's website to find that lead guitarist Graeme Kelling has finally lost his battle against cancer, news subsequently picked up by the BBC amongst others ( Read more... )

Angel: Maybe they're not there to be beat. Maybe they're there to be fought. Maybe fighting them is what makes human beings so remarkably strong.

(Angel "Not Fade AwayI do believe this is an inescapable aspect of the human condition. The constant fight for survival, ultimately, is what we're all about, both defined by and in spite of our ( Read more... )

Even as I write, The Transit of Venus is in full swing. I think I can say with a fair degree of certainty that no-one alive on the planet has ever witnessed this spectacle, since this has not occurred since 1882. The Transit of Venus occurs when the Earth, Venus and the Sun are in direct alignment, and by all accounts this only happens four times ( Read more... )

"We stand today at a place of battle, one that 40 years ago saw and felt the worst of war. Men bled and died here for a few feet of, or inches of sand, as bullets and shellfire cut through their ranks. About them, General Omar Bradley later said, "Every man who set foot on Omaha Beach that day was a hero ( Read more... )

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The Tate Modern is advertising one of its latest exhibits which comprises... a dead sparrow. The BBC's website offers ten interpretations which range from the thoughtfully involved to the frankly ridiculous ( Read more... )