Funfare for the Common Man

Holosiivskyi Park, Kyiv, August 2021 In previous posts I’ve expounded upon the benefits of having down time, your own ‘me time’ to contemplate life and perhaps even your entire existence and purpose. It really doesn’t matter what you do with it, but some of the most precious time we have is time to reflect and think. Combine that with walking, another one of life’s underrated, unadulterated pleasures. It’s also unbelievably beneficial for the health of your mind: it’s one of the cheapest and most nourishing brain foods. I haven’t been able to do any travelling this year but I’ve been able to find plenty of consolation in city walking.  As much as I yearn to walk through the countryside, maunder amongst meandering hills, up winding mountain paths, through thick, luscious forests, along riversides, there is still plenty of joy to be found walking in cities. Sure, the heat may be unbearable at times so you have to pick your days carefully, but there’s so much to discover even in your ...

And Part 1 (of 2) of ‘A life in quotations’: The electronic version We’ll see how this goes. In my last post, The Writing Process, I mentioned my attitude towards using quotations in my writing, and how I never seek out ones to use, but instead rely on those I’ve discovered in the course of my reading.  This is part 1, where I take you through my e-book notes, dating from 2011-present. As much as I love to rant and rave about the evils of technology, I have many a time waxed lyrical about the splendours of my Kindle. There’s nothing like the real thing – a good old-fashioned hardback or paperback – but when it comes to highlighting passages or making notes, an e-book really makes the gathering process fairly easy. Still, nothing beats the real thing. On the other hand, when you’ve got hundreds of books and seemingly thousands of highlights, it’s easy to lose track of them, and many of them are probably floating around in the cloud, waiting to be shared.  There are some absolut...