Kester Brewin

…hopefully up again soon.

Reminded today of one of RS Thomas’ poems – someone I need to read more of again. This picture of flinging gravel at the sky’s window… all for that small movement of affirmation… Timely right now. Folk Tale Prayers like gravel Flung at the sky’s window, hoping to attract the loved one’s attention. But without [...]

Dead Today, there is no hope. There is no resurrection, no looking forward to a Sunday which does not yet exist in even the wildest imaginations. There is no prayer no solace no point. God has died. It’s over. Finished. Give up. Go home. Return to work. The best you can do is carry on [...]

April is the cruelest month… Easter always coincides with the culmination of the football season in Europe, and a number of things have been leading me to think about the nature of sports and games and their connection to aggression and violence. Enlightened religion is very big on peace and harmony, but I’ve begun to question [...]

Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ is back in the news again after Christian fundamentalists took a hammer to a print of it in a gallery in France. If you’ve never seen the photograph ‘up close’ then I’d highly recommend it. It’s far more beautiful than the title suggests, and a subtle piece of trickster-work. It is [...]

Very special day today: 50 years since the first human being orbited the earth. On 12th April 1961, Yuri Gagarin was launched by a Vostok rocket into space, and completed an orbit of the earth. He became an international celebrity and travelled the world to talk about his trip and promote the Soviet Union. 50 [...]

I’m reading Stephen Greenblatt’s Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare at the moment. It’s a brilliant book, grounding the often mythic character of the bard into his real world of Elizabethan London. I’d highly recommend it. One quote that jumped out at me the other day in within a discussion of Anthony and [...]

Went to Belgium Friday and Saturday for a tour of the World War 1 sites. It was fascinating… but troubling. Led by a retired solider with 30 years experience – much of it in pretty ‘hot’ active service – we toured battlefields and cemeteries around Belgium and France. We ended up at the Menin Gate [...]

Spring always makes me look back. Been listening to quite a lot of music recently, some new, some old… Reminded of my times way back playing in a band, Caned and Able, which took the Bristol jazz-funk scene by storm in a hash-enveloped cloud for a while. Recorded with Massive Attack, supported James Taylor Quartet [...]