Tag: writing
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Future Past
My daughter received her GCSE results today. She did remarkably well. Better than her old man ever did, in fact. Watching her consider her next steps, and all the possibilities that seem to stretch out before a sixteen-year-old, I found myself thinking back to my own youth. Like many people of that age, I was…
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Reflection on AI Use in Writing, Part 2: exaggerated language vs the old geezer in the pub
In my last post, I admitted that AI has occasionally helped me climb onto an imaginary soapbox and voice my ideas in a manner suggesting I’d discovered the answer to life’s great mysteries. The good news is that this pomposity isn’t entirely my fault, but partly a result of how the core engine of an…
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Reflections on using AI in writing, Part One or When AI makes you sound like you’re standing on a soapbox.
Perfect spelling, but… I’m a fan of AI. I use it regularly, and I think it’s one of the most useful tools to arrive in years. It helps me overcome writer’s block, tidy up awkward sentences, challenge my thinking, and occasionally rescue me from my own terrible punctuation. But there is something I’ve noticed. Sometimes…
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The Philosophy of Steel
The older I get, the clearer life becomes. Not mystical, not bardic, not wrapped in ancestral fog — just clear. For years I carried a soft, atmospheric worldview: hiraeth, land‑mysticism, cultural memory, psycho‑geography, the old stories. They stirred something in me, but they didn’t guide me. They didn’t heal anything. They didn’t change how life…
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The End of the Fluffy Era
Introduction Idealism lasts longer in some men than others. Mine lasted well into my fifties — far past the age when most people have already learned that good intentions don’t guarantee good outcomes, and that systems don’t save people from themselves. I spent decades in causes, charities, politics, and community work believing that structure, effort,…
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Introducing Civic Forum: A New Home for My Political Writing
For some time, my political reflections have lived under the heading Politics of Scale. It was a useful phrase, capturing my belief that political life only makes sense when it is rooted in the appropriate level of community, authority, and responsibility. But as my thinking has developed, and as I’ve clarified the tradition I stand…
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Making Sense of Siluria
Have you ever met the kind of bloke who insists on telling you some rambling story — usually the pub bore who sits alone all night at the bar? He’s always trying to collar whoever’s ordering a drink, talking to anyone who’ll listen, and a few who won’t. You know the type. Got a head…
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A Note on How I Use AI in This Blog (and in My Fiction)
I’ve been using AI very extensively in this blog — both to craft paragraphs and to generate images. The ideas are mine, the direction is mine, and much of the wording is mine, but I use AI as a kind of prosthetic: something that helps me articulate what I’m already thinking, with better grammar, cleaner…
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Robes in the rear-view mirror
I seem to be drifting into more philosophical waters lately. Perhaps it’s age, or the intellectual weather, or simply the fact that my metaphysical itches have become louder than my appetite for robes and ritual. Whatever the cause, I find myself looking back at my years in neo‑Druidry with a mixture of fondness, gratitude, and…
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The Hearth Without Fire: Keeping the Centre of Family Life Alive
When I was a child in the 1970s, the coal fire was the heart of the home. It wasn’t just heat — it was movement, scent, and a quiet presence that shaped the rhythm of family life. We gathered around it without thinking. We talked, laughed, argued, and settled into the evening together. In our…
Hearth and Heart Magazine 