Kester Brewin

Skull/Heart/Guts This skin-bag barely containing wild raw nature cortex-capped, with dipping cord spine-tingling nervously into the maelstrom below; calcium throne above shuddering brittly at the thought of battles and struggles death and love and chemicals; in the middle, my heart. ©KB Nov 2011

Listening to the radio this morning I was struck by the odd similarity between three of the major news items. Firstly, ubiquitously, there’s the economic crisis – which more and more seems to boil down to the fact that people – that’s you, me and them – got greedy. With the boss of Barclays now [...]

Good to see the comments on the previous post, in which I was trying to open up a bit about the prevalence of depression among writers. I’ve been mulling on that a bit, and thinking about why teachers (curses – I’m that too) also rank as professionals with some of the highest rates of depression. [...]

I’ve been wondering about writing something on this for a while, but haven’t been sure how much to say, or what might be wise. But I thought it might be helpful to others to open the door just a crack and see if there’s some light that could get in on what’s a terrifically difficult [...]

Something Pete Rollins tweeted this morning got me thinking a bit: “Often the problem we face is not a lack of enjoyment, but an inability to enjoy our enjoyment.” I think this is a particular concern in a world where so much of our lives is now mediated. Rather than attend a party, we attend [...]

A haiku for Armistice Day. Seems with all this talk of European debt, there’s still some other debts that we have to pay. Annually. With interest.   True Debts Remember today freedom’s forgotten origins true debts we pay still.   Other links: We Should F-ing Remember Them.

It’s been interesting watching the argument over whether the England football team should be allowed to wear poppies for their international matches this weekend. The international governing body of the sport, FIFA, ruled that they could not have poppies on their shirts as this contravened their guidelines. The FA, the British body, cried foul and [...]

Seems to be an annual posting I know (see 2010‘s and 2009‘s!) but I’m really passionate about reclaiming Guy Fawkes night. Why? Partly because it’s very very English. This is not imported, it’s not some pagan festival that the Christians co-opted, and it’s not something that can be easily marketed and commodified by Supermarkets – [...]

One of the key questions that has been often asked about the ‘Occupy’ protests is ‘what are your proposed alternatives?’ This, I think, is often asked with a background attitude of ‘I really don’t think you have any alternatives, do you?’ The implication being, before you moan about how bad things are, make sure you [...]