The fox stood in carved silhouette against the quicksilver of the canal reaching inland from the Bay of Bengal. The shallow channel held the moonlight like a palm. I watched it forage for crabs; its mate joined hesitantly for she had noticed me.
I sat on the beach blanched white, waiting. I had had time to watch, feel, listen. The foxes had ceased to howl hours ago; the almost full, orange moon came up above Kowar Char, an abundant expanse of beach bending eastward with the line of dense koroi trees. Above that line, first Mars, then Orion and Sirius, followed by Saturn rose and were now declining to the west. Behind me, the tamarisk forest bent and brooded in leafy whispers: the light in the hovels inside had long since ceased to wink. Boats blackened with tar, some upside down, lay scattered like white sepulchres. The heady smell, of sea, leaf and sand was wafted to keep me awake: I even had the leisure to discern the glass in the sand glistening…. Full story »
So Saturday was World Book Night. It was actually an all day thing for most of us, and really started Friday night at Trafalgar Square. This was a big deal—giving a million books away free. What a great concept. I stumbled across this a couple of months ago, I can’t even remember where—probably on one of the SF writer blogs that I hit regularly. So I went and signed up to give away books, free, to anyone I felt like—friends, neighbors, complete strangers. There was a list of 25 books, selected by a panel, and I picked one of my favorites—Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
I love the idea of this. Yes, it’s probably at root some marketing thing from the publishing industry, but, at the same time, I don’t care. Just the idea of giving one of your favorite books to someone you know or don’t know, and not knowing what the reaction will be. Full story »
One way to get the measure of a person – their temper, as in mood, their dispositions, both emotional and intellectual, what they glean from life, how they “see” the world this way rather than that way – is by understanding those other voices to whom they listen, about whom they think, and from whom they draw.
Most immediately and obviously for Reith his father, George Reith, a minister in the Free Church of Scotland, was a powerful influence. Reith told Boyle that from beyond the grave his father had had a profound effect on public service broadcasting. (38)
There were other influences, though – or put somewhat differently, two individuals with whom Reith identified, in one case somewhat paradoxically. In 1929 Reith was asked by the former Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin – who had been elected Rector of St. Andrew’s University in Scotland – if he had any ideas that he might use in his inaugural address. Reith recommended Tyndall’s 1874 address to the British Association, and urged him to study the ideas of Dr. Thomas Chalmers, “in his view one of the greatest Scotsmen who ever lived…” Full story »
The fox stood in carved silhouette against the quicksilver of the canal reaching inland from the Bay of Bengal. The shallow channel held the moonlight like a palm. I watched it forage for crabs; its mate joined hesitantly for she had noticed me.
So Saturday was 
