This is the Blog

I write here regularly as well as at williamessex.medium.com. 

Read my Shorts

This is a collection of short stories, past blog posts and other writings. Sorry, but I need my metaphorical sock drawer for my metaphorical socks. 
Riddle. 
​It takes two to make me, but when I'm made, I'm only a memory. What am I? Scroll down to find out.

Shall I tell you a story?

Is that a catastrophe I see before me? ​

Could be. There was a clear sky earlier, but now clouds are encroaching from the North. We could be in for a storm.​

Is that a catastrophe I see before me? ​

Could be. There was a clear sky earlier, but now clouds are encroaching from the North. We could be in for a storm.​

Man down

There's a report by the Samaritans about men and suicide. It's titled Men, Suicide and Society, and it finds that men are more likely to take their own lives than women (in the UK and ROI).

9th May 2014

On the day that I wrote this, the early news told us of a parade in Moscow to celebrate Russia’s defeat of Nazi Germany in the Second World War. Crimea remained annexed, and the Russia/Ukraine crisis was not resolved. At around half eight, the BBC’s reporter in Moscow was cut off in mid-sentence summarising the military display; the Today programme on Radio 4 cut to the sports news.​

Roads without end

Here is a passage from a review of the book The Road to Somewhere by David Goodhart. I haven't read the book (yet), but the collected reviews would make a worthwhile set of political arguments in their own right.

No pinpricks

Okay, so a certain President recently made a speech to his people, in which he told them that their country's military "don't do pinpricks". His intention was to get across that when those soldiers do a "limited" or even "targeted" strike, it hurts. But those of us in the cynical wing of the listening public took it the other way.

Offending the status quo

Looking at both the US election and the revived Brexit debate in the UK, the question is not: who wins? but: how did we get here?

State of the Union

Several commentators today saying that they've lost confidence in the US. Making their point by talking up the glories of the past. After two weeks of this administration, they're not going back.
     Were they wrong, and they've seen the light? Or has the US changed? I guess the latter is the intended meaning. But we should at least acknowledge the possibility...

Making mistakes

We all make mistakes in our relationships. Some are mistakes that can be corrected with an apology. Sometimes - "if only I'd said that, and not that." Sometimes, they're mistakes that are incomprehensible even to ourselves, and sometimes, we do things that show us up as not quite the likeable hero of our own story that we want to think we are.​

Thinks: populism

Bright, sunny morning. Breeze. Weather forecast said fog, but it's a blue sky overlaid with vapour trails. Windy season, drifts of Autumn-coloured leaves. Thinking, on this morning's walk, about populism.
Riddle. 
What are you? You're a conversation!