Edinburgh in August becomes a swarm of performers and tourists and buskers, there are posters and flyers plastered onto every available fence or lamppost, and the pavements are littered with dropped handbills and ticket stubs. With hundreds upon hundreds of shows and concerts and talks and gigs on offer, it can be overwhelming. Choosing what … More Frankie Vah meets Laurie Penny

It’s always good to recognise the dappled patterns of one’s perspective. ‘The way it is‘ contracts and expands. Memories come coloured with emotion. I wrote in my last post about the environment in which I grew up – one of middle class privilege and relentless competition. This was the 1980’s and the Reagan years, a … More thank you friends

“A word after a word after a word is power.” Margaret Atwood My favourite bookshop in the world – WordPower – is moving into the next stage of its life. Its lovely founders have given 22+ years of intense loving slog into raising this baby, which has grown into not just a shop but also … More on wordpower

When I was a child, one of my very favourite picture books was The Wump World by Bill Peet. We didn’t own a copy at home but the public library did, and I borrowed it repeatedly. The Wump World tells the story of a small planet covered in rolling meadows, twinkling streams and large leafy … More on a hopeful note

Time to take Joe Bageant down from the shelf and consider his more-relevant-than-ever reflections on the American hologram. He wasn’t kidding when he wrote that “the four cornerstones of the American political psyche are (1) emotion substituted for thought, (2) fear, (3) ignorance, and (4) propaganda.” Those ingredients have now put a beligerent, misogynist ass … More no class

There is a passage in the book Things That Can & Cannot Be Said in which Arundhati Roy describes to John Cusack an experience she had in the forests of central India where the poorest people in the world have stopped some of the richest mining corporations in their tracks. The great irony is that … More on tv