Wordstall

  • The dilemma is . . .

    After the dust has settled, after we have picked ourselves up, after we have checked to see if we are still alive, after we have looked around to examine the damage . . . what do we do then? Where do we habitually hold ourselves, where (and how) do I habitually hold myself? The question…

  • A new year, so what do throw out of the window?

    Oh yes let’s have a metaphorical explosion! A metaphorical IED! Lots of squeaks and screams as the rockets whizz this way and that. Would you just look at that old stall, it’s been left out in all weathers, not even covered through this winter; should we burn it? Shove it out, break it up and…

  • Let’s hope the smoke soon clears

    So many fragments, so much rubbish, will we ever be able to get it into shape, make sense of anything! Should we even try?   Yes, of course, avanti!     Edited with BlogPad Pro

  • Writing in Caring Networks

    Writing in Caring Networks

    Living well right to the very end: Natural, healthy and health promoting, what are the essentials of an end-of-life caring network? The basics are a kitchen table (or similar), teapot, mugs, and cake or biscuits. In other words the caring networks we are talking about are ‘grassroots up’ by and with local people, and –…

  • I am – this way

    I am – this way

    I noticed the phrase last week. It was on the landing above the stairs which lead down to the two yoga rooms in the basement. In the Yoga studios where I had also signed myself up for in central London: A month of classes for £45. What a deal, I thought. Several sentences intended to…

  • What am I doing? What is this anguish?

    Terry Eagleton, in his new book, Culture and the Death of God, writes: ‘in [Hegel’s] view, art  blends the will with spontaneity, the conscious mind with the unconscious. As such, it offers a precious insight into the very ground of our being, namely the unconscious process of self-productivity which is Nature as a whole. The…

  • Being in the Disturbance Business

    Being in the Disturbance Business

    Or ‘Stunned by your words I have to Act’. Meaning the salt has got spilled, and the chili sauce has dribbled (The Manifesto No 5). It lies in a viscous brown-reddish blob. Is this the beginning of the creation a new man? A hero who emerges out of a puddle of feminine fluids? She – a…

  • Non Ignorarmi!

                           Non Ignorarmi!     Non ignorarmi! È possibile che tu mi abbia in televisione: Una macchia sullo schermo. Credi che potresti ignorarmi; Ora vuoi uccidermi.   Avete finto di inventarci alla festa – Ma dovevamo capire che venivamo come servi. Avete promesso democrazia e…

  • Forms of Self

    Sometimes, when I am trying to write a few, brief sentences in Italian, dialogues come to mind. Dialogues between some version of myself and a woman. This woman is a composite, generated by my need be in relation to a woman, not a composite from my memories of actual women, but a composite of imagined…

  • In the mud, again

    Splat! Of course governments of whatever colour don’t like democracy – not really – only as a PR jibe against other governments that appear less democratic than themselves. One could think of the current state of democracy (say in Europe) as an achieved benchmark or high water mark – achieved so far in the teeth…

  • Reaching down for the stars

    I watched in some wonderment to the results of the Labour Party leader election results last Saturday. Could this be the sign of an emerging and long awaited sea change in the political life of this country? How can we continue with a professional class of politicians who are merely advertising industry stand-ins or cunning…

  • This anchor

    This anchor, abandoned in quiet retirement, to return to air, within the aroma of the sea, the occasional wetting from rain and sea; to be reminded of its past lives. The caress of a rope, the curiosity of a bystander caught by the glimpse of a monster from the deep. Is retirement a collective decision?…

Categories (2024) are:

  • ATELIER Work – about-creative-work (in all mediums: text-drawing-sounds-image etc)
  • CLIMATE Action – indications-and-contra-indications
  • DAWDLING – walking-pausing-to-wonder-wandering
  • IN Conversation – companionship-and-connections
  • LA Communita –participatory-collaborative-artivism
  • OTHER than Human – animate-and-inanimate-terrestrial-kin
  • PARANOID Readings – violence-and-fundamental-perversions
  • POLITICAL Readings – mobilisations-affect-polarisations
  • REPARATIVE Readings – inspiring-healing-restorative
  • SHADOW Readings – speculative-and-not-yet-visible-thinking
  • STYLE Readings – scales-and-familiarities
  • TONITE at the Coliseum – live-experiences-performance
  • YOGI (‘Not This-Not That’) – meditation-bhakti-consciousness


Different WORDSTALL Categories in the past supported the mainly experimental personal writing in posts. The previous list of Category headings was: Anti-gravity Surgery / Atelier / Catastrophe Games / Echo Effects / Exodus / Fundamental Perversions / Hitting the Potholes / Holy Fool-Hero / In Conversation / Old Men Traveling / On the Street / Out in the Wilderness / Over and Beyond / Tonite at the Coliseum. Some of these still persist or recur as Tag key-words.

The even earlier Category headings for the walkingtalkingwriting blog (2006-2012) have been forgotten, but can be explored if desired via the long tail of monthly posts for those years here.