A Survival Manual in a World of Intellectual Overproduction The times we’re passing through are just as strange as all those that came before. I am far from thinking our current difficulties are somehow more insurmountable than those, say, of the people who had just let fire…

I suppose many of you have heard that now-iconic Beckett quote: Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better. The fact that I’m beginning to reflect on this particular theme is, of course, no coincidence. Failure as theory and failure as reality are two…

He woke with the vivid sense that he had just spoken to her in French – and not informally, but using vous. The surprise struck a little later, as he gradually came to, realising that French wasn’t a language he could actually speak – not when awake, at any rate. He tried to…

Chapter one: Deadlock again Rain clouds, dark and puffed-up like turkeys, had been threatening to unleash their wrath on the dreary town all day, but so far had remained all threat and no action, as if to annoy everyone even more. Anne-Firecurl, herself gloomier than even the…