Richard FarrNov 25, 2019Italo Calvino on how to be an efficient writer“Every morning I tell myself, Today has to be productive—and then something happens that prevents me from writing. Today . . . what is...
Richard FarrNov 23, 2019Happy birthday George Eliot!One of the most luminous, most humane intelligences in history was born two hundred years ago today: But the effect of her being on those...
Richard FarrNov 20, 2019Al-chemieReading all the depressing news about plastic, which has now found its way to the bottom of the Marianas Trench – I’m reminded again of a...
Richard FarrNov 18, 2019English and its HistorieWhy is English so much simpler in grammar and richer in vocabulary than so many other languages? (Why does the OED need twenty volumes?)...
Richard FarrOct 26, 2019Rammed with tourists?Today the Guardian – or Grauniad, as we lovers of its many typos call it – recommends the lovely Devon village of Tavistock as “not...
Richard FarrJun 3, 2019Trump v Mueller in Plato’s footnotesTwo pictures tell a thousand words. In his recent public appearance, Robert Mueller thought he’d been clear, or as clear as the peculiar...
Richard FarrJun 2, 2019Nasty journalismWhat with global warming to worry about, and Syria, and the Sixth Extinction, we really shouldn’t be spending any of our attention on...
Richard FarrMay 1, 2019RIP Les Murray 1938-2019The brilliant old curmudgeon, Australia’s great Bard of Bunyah, is dead. I found his political, social and religious outlook by turns...
Richard FarrFeb 28, 2019The brutal irony of brutalised BrutalistsIn this article in the Guardian on the subject of famous “Brutalist” buildings under threat from demolition, I note with interest and...
Richard FarrFeb 15, 2019Scheming BritsI’ve been reading about a debate over the UK national pension scheme for teachers. This expression rolls off the British ear unnoticed,...
Richard FarrJan 11, 2019Well anyway, all ends wellThe characters’ motivations make so little sense that theories abound about missing or garbled text. And some of its faults would be easy...
Richard FarrDec 18, 2018Ralph and CleopatraAntony and Cleopatra in the Olivier at the National Theatre; a bracingly modern techno-thriller with executive suites, machine guns, and...
Richard FarrDec 17, 2018Brilliant idiomOver dinner in London, a fascinating discussion is launched by my American friend John A., who has been in-country for months but is...
Richard FarrNov 27, 2018Lynching the language tooNo surprise that the President has rushed to the aid of Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, whose campaign in Mississippi has been threatened by a...
Richard FarrOct 18, 2018R.I.P Mary Midgley, 1919-2018The excellent and hugely underrated philosopher Mary Midgley has died at the age of 99, shortly after completing yet another book. (She...
Richard FarrOct 16, 2018Suffering from an impacted adjectiveThis morning’s Seattle Times sports section has an entire page devoted to Seahawks owner Paul Allen, who died yesterday. The ghastly...
Richard FarrOct 11, 2018Pry social media from your own trembling hands?Should you place a hood over the evil Facebook, blast Twitter out of its tree, and rip up all your Instagrams? You really should,...
Richard FarrOct 8, 2018Authoritarianism and its antidoteAfter so many headlines about the men who want to turn the world into kindling and warm their hands over the flames (in just this...
Richard FarrOct 1, 2018Oh … poo(p).As a British writer who has lived in the US for 35 years, I constantly face the problem that I cannot remember which of my Englishes is...
Richard FarrAug 16, 2018On TyrannyHere are seven favorite quotations from historian Timothy Snyder’s superb short book of the same name: When the men with guns who have...