Reflections on mirrors, reflections in mirrors ‘A look of glass stops you And you walk on shaken: was I the perceived?’ John Ashbery, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror Lockdown limps into months, and the mirrors in our home-prisons reflect much more than outside’s taunting sunlight, or the last few days’ huge moon. Every time we… Continue reading
Posts Tagged → Corona Humours
Corona Humours – Part V
20th April, 2020 One of the hardest working words of the moment is ‘unprecedented’. The economic toll levied by Corona can certainly be seen as unprecedented. But the disease itself has had all too many predecessors. Over tragic millennia, waves of anthrax, bubonic plague, diphtheria, dysentery, malaria, measles, scarlet fever, smallpox, typhoid, typhus, whooping cough,… Continue reading
Corona Humours – Part IV
15th April 2020 “The firmament is blue forever, and the Earth Will long stand firm, and bloom in spring. But, man, how long will you live?” Li Bai, The Chinese Flute: Drinking Song of the Sorrow of the Earth Classical music fans may recognize the 8th century poet’s words as forming part of the lyric… Continue reading
Corona Humours – Part III
10th April 2020 An estimated 24 million Britons – 80% of the TV audience – watched the Queen deliver a four-minute special message on the 5th of April. This is even though what she was going to say could have been predicted almost literally. The Queen’s speeches are noted for bland carefulness; when you have… Continue reading