Serious week. Calls for a serious blog. Especially from the author of Right to Die. Because assisted suicide hit the headlines again this week, big time, and some of my readers have contacted me about it. Prompting me to offer a couple of comments. First the Royal College of Nursing officially withdrew its opposition to [...]
Earlier this year I had a run of unexpected distractions; disappointments, bad news, sad news, demands … you know the kind of things that can sneak into the weeks and make a mockery of diary dates and deadlines. Of the end-of-life-as-we-know-it variety. Too troubling to write about at the time, hence the time-delay. Result? Not [...]
Whenever I prepare for a lot of travelling the thought of my death flashes across my brain. Not in a morbid way, you understand, but just as a possibility. As someone once told me in my teens, always make sure you’re wearing decent undies when you go out in case you end up in a [...]
Garrets have long had a romantic appeal for me, conjuring up images of impecunious geniuses scribbling furiously, driven by their talent to endure hardship and isolation for the sake of their art – floor littered with discarded paper, fingers blotched with ink, hair dishevelled, meals and sleep forgotten … Then there’s the whole business of [...]