• "What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet."

    Namesby Wendy Cope She was Eliza for a few weeksWhen she was a baby —Eliza Lily. Soon it changed to Lil. Later she was Miss Steward in the baker’s shopAnd then ‘my love’, ‘my darling’, Mother. Widowed at thirty, she…

  • What was the most superior civilization of premodern times?

    Paul Kennedy in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1987) answers: Of all the civilizations of premodern times, none appeared more advanced, none felt more superior, than that of China. Its considerable population, 100-130 million compared with Europe’s…

  • Phill Provance in Arsenic Lobster

    – Phill Provance’s poem “Hard to Say” is now published in the twenty-fourth issue of Arsenic Lobster poetry journal. – Phill Provance’s poems were published in issue #12 of Cha. His poem “St. Petersberg Has Many Churches” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize…

  • Phill Provance reads at the River Read Reading Series

    –Phill Provance will be reading at the River Read Reading Series on 9 January 2011. Check out the details here.  – Phill Provance’s poems were published in issue #12 of Cha. His poem “St. Petersberg Has Many Churches” was nominated for a Pushcart…

  • Some Questions on the Cultural Revolution

    Author photo © Clare Jephcott Some Questions on the Cultural Revolution is a new chapbook by Alistair Noon. It records the moment when the Chinese People’s Congress recognised private property, and carries the reader forward into a very particular and…

  • What is the new dominant language of the internet?

    According to Nicholas Ostler in The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of Babel  (2010): The online communities that use languages other than English have grown meteorically in the first decade of the twenty-first century. From 2000 to 2009,…

  • Season’s Greetings at the National Theatre

    On Tuesday, we went to see Alan Ayckbourn‘s Season’s Greetings at the National Theatre. Jeff lined up early in the morning to take advantage of the NT’s day ticket policy.1 They hold back a number of tickets to sell on the day,…

  • Merry Christmas to friends and family

    “Champaign and cinnamon candle”. Photo courtesy of E & S On Christmas Eve, two friends visited us and we spent a joyous afternoon and evening together, eating, drinking, chatting and playing games. Happy times. The picture above was taken by them. May all our…

  • How will the world respond to the decline of English?

    Nicholas Ostler answers in The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of Babel  (2010): The decline of English, when it begins, will not seem of great moment.International English is a lingua franca, and by its nature, a lingua franca…

  • Will Chinese be used as a lingua-franca?

    Nicholas Ostler answers in The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of Babel  (2010): Chinese, like all the great languages of the modern world excepting English and French, remains very much a localized language in eastern and southeastern Asia,…