Guide
About life and death
No Surprises (about habituation)
Reflections on the Ick (about capital punishment)
Two Lawyers Walk into a Bar (about pessimism)
Two Ways of Looking at a Sparrow (about hope)
The Infinity of Lists (about making lists)
Three Oddities (about understanding)
You Are Now Under Exam Conditions (about timewasting)
You Can’t Go Home Again (about Big Decisions)
About books and films
Blessed are the Cheesemakers (about Monty Python’s Life of Brian)
In Memory of Tom Stoppard (about the plays of Tom Stoppard)
In Praise of Gore Vidal (about United States by Gore Vidal)
It’s Groundhog Day! (about Groundhog Day)
Politics and the English Language (about George Orwell and prescriptivism)
Reach for the Ground (about Low Life by Jeffrey Bernard)
About poetry
Dropped without Joy (about the poetry of R. S. Thomas)
Good Causes Don’t Make Good Poems (on protest poetry)
No Time to Spare (about the poetry of Samuel Menashe)
On Being Problematic (about poetry and prejudice)
There I Go Again (about the poetry of Stevie Smith)
Is Poetry Political? (about political poetry)
About ‘problem’ poems
The Fall of Aphrodite Street (about Murray’s ‘Aphrodite Street’)
Last Summers (about Douglas’s ‘Canoe’)
Lost Amphibia’s Emperies (about Larkin’s ‘The Mower’ and Wilbur’s ‘Toad’)
Memento Mori (about Larkin’s ‘Aubade’)
Much Casual Death (about Hecht’s ‘More Light! More Light!’)
About Italian life
Daffy Duck in Italy (about my privileges in Italy)
Everybody Comes to Rick’s (about being an immigrant in Italy)
The Italian Dream (about Italian decline)
That Joke isn’t Funny Anymore (about English teaching in Italy)
On Not Being Bilingual (about speaking Italian)
The Virus and its Precursors (about the pandemic in Italy)
Why Italy Doesn’t Work (about Italian bureaucracy)
Aphorisms
The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (about war)
Everything Changes but the Avant-Garde (about the avant-garde)
Happiness Writes White (about happiness)
Homo Homini Lupus (about humanity)
How to Believe in Nothing (about philosophy)
How to Believe in Nothing (Part 2) (about philosophy)
The Old Gods (about progress)
Reflections on the Revolution in Reflection (about tech)
This Craft of Verse (about poetry)
The Toad ‘Work’ (about work)
Miscellaneous fun
The Etymological Fallacy (about spurious etymology)
The Future of Posterity (about rereading Dracula)
Out of Character (about literary anecdotes and celebrity photos)
Out of Character (Part 2) (about writing and acting uncharacteristically)
Poems and translations
Cover Letter (translation from the Italian of Sofia Riva)
Excuses, Excuses (published in Poems for Persons of Interest)
The Rats in the Marina after Storms (translation from the Italian of Emilia Leone)
Resolutions (translation from the Italian of Sofia Riva)
Summer Stock (published in Poems for Persons of Interest)
Poems from my reciter
‘I Am No Good at Love’ by Noël Coward • ‘Aristocrats’ by Keith Douglas • ‘The Word’ by R. S. Thomas • ‘Advice to a Prophet’ by Richard Wilbur
Film diary, or capsule reviews
12 Years a Slave • 22 July • Alien • All of Us Strangers • American Beauty • Amour • Annie Hall • Apocalypse Now • The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans • Bandersnatch • Batman Begins • Berberian Sound Studio • Blade Runner • Cape Fear • Chimes at Midnight • Chinatown • A Clockwork Orange • Eyes Without a Face • Friday the 13th • GoldenEye • Halloween • Inglourious Basterds • Inside Out • I Stand Alone • The Lady from Shanghai • The Ladykillers • My Dinner with André • Mulholland Drive • Night and Fog • Only Lovers Left Alive • The Orphanage • The Pianist • The Post • The Room • Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom • Seven • The Social Network • Spartacus • Spotlight • This is Spinal Tap • Umberto D. • Unforgiven • White Right: Meeting the Enemy • The Wicker Man