By: Patrick It may be that the supposed virtue of being open-minded enough to change one’s mind is a relatively modern phenomenon. I often feel slightly repelled by small-minded people who have lived in small villages all their lives and have rather blunt opinions about outsiders, whether in relation to gender, class, sexuality, or race….
Category: Archive
Welcome to The Shiver Vaults: archived posts, from 2009 to 2018, still published on the ShiverWriggle website. The vast majority of archived posts are no longer published on the ShiverWriggle website. If you’re looking for something specific that you can’t find here, get in touch.
Eggs
By: everylittlething As soon as the unsold Christmas items are off the supermarket shelves, the chocolate eggs appear for Easter. Theologically, I can see a link – but I suspect that God has very little to do with this commercial venture. I’m not pretending that I don’t get excited when I give and receive…
Dear Lydia (Letter from Nigel Downs, General Manager, O2 Academy Brixton)
By: Lydia Crow ShiverWrigglers may recall Lydia Crow’s letter of complaint to the O2 Academy, Brixton in early December 2012. You can read it online here. Well, Nigel Downs, General Manager at the O2 Academy Brixton, has replied. Here is his response in full: Dear Lydia, I can only apologise for not replying to…
Birdsong
By: everylittlething I listen for the geese as they direct each other over our home, from one feeding ground to another. I have tingled when I heard the swifts scream all around me. Winter sounds, summer songs, spring music, autumn calls – they are everywhere. Some grey days, when the world won’t come alive, are…
In Search of the Good Life: Chapter 3, Part 2
By: Patrick A lot of people think of philosophers as quite odd fish, and rightly so. Often this has to do with the fact that they often try and convince you that tables are not really there, for example. Philosophy and madness have much in common – indeed Wittgenstein referred to philosophy as a kind…
In Search of the Good Life: Chapter 3, Part 1
By: Patrick At this point it is worth taking a bit of a digression from the bickering and squabbling, specifically a more philosophical digression. I always feel more comfortable when the members of the society fall out over philosophical ideas rather than ideas about what philosophy is. These latter meta-philosophical questions tend to lead to…
In Search of the Good Life: Chapter 2, Part 3
By: Patrick My comment did indeed steer the evening’s discussion into a new and unexpected direction. It was notable that very little time was actually spent discussing the question that I had posed, for with a kind of painful inevitability the group seemed drawn to a far more pertinent question concerning anarchy and the…
In Search of the Good Life: Chapter 2, Part 2
By: Patrick So anarchism was the theme for today’s meeting. Leading proceedings was Pietro DeMarco, a bearded bankrupt with badly bloated bowels. Perhaps my alliterative goals have done something of an injustice to Pietro, so I should probably try and rectify that before proceeding. Pietro is indeed a bankrupt and he does indeed have a…
Sea
By: everylittlething Babar and Celeste, in a hot air balloon, survey the tiny houses, the field patterns and all of the pieces which make up the everyday patchwork of our lives, “And there was the sea, the great blue sea,” writes Jean de Brunhoff. How powerfully can a string of simple words convey a deeply…
In Search of the Good Life: Chapter 2, Part 1
By: Patrick Artie died today. Or, maybe yesterday, I don’t know. The email from the secretary wasn’t clear. And I didn’t know Artie well enough to consider the details worth chasing up. A lot of our members seem to die. I hope they die well. Otherwise we may stand accused of having let them…