Appearing in 1989 on the British TV discussion programme After Dark, Wikimedia Commons Have we Misunderstood Freud? by Tina Bexson Freud challenged us to go beyond appearances and to consider that what a person consciously thought to be only a small insignificant part of their personality. He was then the first…
AN Editions
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Excerpt: The Rights of Man and Fish
Cover of The Rights of Man and Fish – illus. Pete Field a novel by Paul Halas, illustrated by Pete Field and published by AN Editions Bienvenue, welcome…. So you’re the reporter from La Dépêche…. You speak English? That’s a relief…. Well, I’ve been here – what is it? Four?…
arts policy
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Excerpt: That Was Hugo Blythe MP
That Was Hugo Blythe MP, cover art credit Phil Hall a novel by Peter Cowlam, published by AN Editions That Was Hugo Blythe MP is the memoir, in diary form, of government researcher Alaric Casteele. It is set in a vaguely determined period in the early 2000s at the height…
Andy Hall
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Horsemen of the Steppes
Mongolian Nomads Hold on to their Way of Life by Andy Hall the herdsmen would all have a spare horse tethered to the horse he was riding © Andy Hall The steppes were every bit as beautiful as I just imagined them to be. Very soft on the eye. Soft and…
Bolsheviks
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Ukraine’s Right to Self-determination
Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, photo Falin, Wikimedia Commons 1.5 Million Ukrainians Haven’t Died for NATO by Phil Hall While NATO has undoubtedly used Ukraine as a geopolitical proxy, and far-right elements have played disproportionate roles in the military, these facts cannot negate Ukraine’s fundamental right to self-determination. When I went to Kyiv…
Art Blakey
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Where’s the Jeopardy, Chef?
Pan de Muerto photo by Leslie Torres on Pexels.com From Cantaloupe Island to Pan de Muerto, by way of Pollo Adobado and a Manchego and Chipotle Sandwich by Phil Hall My brother Andy and I once made a pitch for a TV programme to some young Channel 4 producers. We…
2001: A Space Odyssey
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7. STANLEY STRANGELUCK
Sit back and look at pretty pictures: Barry Lyndon, (screenshot) Fair Use by Norman B. Schwartz Stanley Kubrick was born in 1928 in the Bronx. His father, a Russian/Polish homeopathic doctor, encouraged his precocious son’s interest in photography, buying Stanley his first Graflex, a bulky camera much favored by police…
Arun Kapil
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What’s Missing From Our Kitchens?
The Flame, photo Arun Kapil at Cork Pop-up Just gimme some truth! by Arun Kapil – founder of Green Saffron & defender of 10-minute magic It used to start with a sound. A sizzle. The hiss of butter hitting heat, or onions tumbling into oil. Not just aroma but evidence…
dualism
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Have a little more respect for Sigmund Freud!
Professor Sigmund Freud, photo Max Halberstadt The less seriously we take Freud, the more they like it by Phil Hall Sigmund Freud, the neurologist who founded psychoanalysis and treated psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst, revolutionised our understanding of the human mind. He believed that a lot…
Communism
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Long live the victory of the USSR over Fascism
Photo – Paulo Oliveira, Pexels The USSR’s Victory Was Communist, Not Nationalist by Phil Hall For modern communists and humane socialists, the situation in Ukraine represents a triple shit show. On one side, there is the right-wing, recidivist Russian chauvinism that denigrates socialism, progressive ideals, and even Lenin (Vladimir Ilyich…
ANC
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CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION
‘Blowing bubbles distracts these children from the war poster behind them.’ Front page of the Tanzania Standard, June 1971. Dar-es-Salaam 1971-72 by Phil Hall At twelve, I was bespectacled and precocious and political, living with my family in Upanga, Dar-es-Salaam. A towering kungu tree stood outside our house. It was…
Dhow
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Lamu to Pemba by Dhow
Photo by Gavin Rain on Pexels.com by Phil Hall . The dhow tacks from side to side while its squatting boatmen take big swings at getting us to our destination. And the sailors sit and chat as miss the quay twice and chew quat. After a journey across open sea…
Baader-Meinhof
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Raskolnikov in Mexico City
Torre Latinoamericana, photo Andres Perez pexels by Phil Hall . It was 1984, a year before the earthquake. I only had a small amount of money left and so bought a third class train ticket to Mexico City. The seats, set close to the floor, were made of hard polished…
Politics
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Sudeep Sen’s Water Poems
Lotus Pool, photo Sudeep Sen Sudeep Sen is a leading international poet whose prize-winning books include: Postmarked India: New & Selected Poems (HarperCollins), Aria (A K Ramanujan Translation Award), Fractals: New & Selected Poems | Translations 1980-2015 (London Magazine Editions), EroText (Penguin), Kaifi Azmi: Poems | Nazms (Bloomsbury),…
Colin Dardis
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Peter Adair’s Hospital Poems
With visitors Colin Dardis @rancid.idols and Geraldine O’Kane @geraldine_okane_poet. The vast hospital site merges with the hills which, one day, will reclaim man’s ephemeral buildings. Not just yet. Thanks to all who sent me their well wishes during my eight weeks in hospital. They helped me through an incarceration that…
Alberto Boco
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Buenos Aires: its glories, its miseries and its poets
Rio de la Plata, Argentina, photo Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC . “We are not united by love but by fear; that’s why I love her so much.” Jorge Luis Borges . by Luis Benítez . Dirty. Expensive. Dangerous. Two hundred and two square kilometers where just…
Citizen Kane
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6. WHAT A MESS!
Orson Wells as Falstaff in Chimes at Midnight, Peppercorn-Wormser Film Enterprises, Wikimedia Commons Orson Welles, the Big Enigma by Norman B. Schwartz . To lovers of classic film, Orson Welles has always been an enigma, the BIG ENIGMA. Has there ever been anyone larger than life, not only in talent…
Captcha This!
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Excerpt: Captcha This!
Photo by Regan Dsouza, Pexels by J.W. Wood . Martin began to gain power. And power, as we all know, is the greatest narcotic – or hallucinogen. For instance, the high-powered Simon Tickley invited him to a shooting weekend. This consisted of people dressing up in clothes from the nineteenth…
Arun Kapil
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Tune In! Turn Up! Cook On!
Photo by RDNE, Pexels Cooking With All Your Senses by Arun Kapil . A masaalchi (मसालची) is a skilled artisanal spice blender who combines tradition and healing. The Ayurvedic spice blender is more than a grinder—they are guardians of flavour and wellness with hands that balance rasa, virya, and vipaka,…
AI
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Does “humane” slaughter require human involvement?
Dorset Lamb, photo Phil Hall Moral justification requires human agency by Phil Hall . The essential question is this: Does “humane” slaughter require human involvement, or is it solely about the animal’s experience? Any system that removes the visible hand of human agency from life-and-death decisions is not progress, it…
Civil war
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No Sanctuary for Dissenters?
Westminster Meeting House, photo Heather Martin The Raid on the Quakers Echoes Centuries of Persecution by Phil Hall . “When Quakers are raided, it’s not just a policing act—it’s the state attacking 400 years of moral witness.”— Margaret Fell, Quaker historian (2024 interview). On Thursday, 27 March 2025, around 7:30 PM, over…
Barrow-in-Furness
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7. Langdale Grove
St Michael’s Church, Rampside, photo Rampside Church by Margaret Yip Martin came in late one Saturday night in early summer, 1977. Viv and I had sat up until nearly 1 a.m. to let him in through the lounge window of the hostel. “I’ve found a job in Bristol,” he said. As…
Politics
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PETER COWLAM INTERVIEWS J. W. WOOD
J. W. Wood Cowlam: It seems timely that with a collection of short stories just published by AN Editions, you have recently sold a short story to Substack in LA, quite a laurel given the stiff competition you must have been up against. Substack has truly established itself as an…
Alicia E, Stallings
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INTERVIEW WITH SHEENAGH PUGH
Sheenagh Pugh at her back gate in Hoswick, Shetland, from the personal archive of Sheenagh Pugh Sheenagh Pugh was born in 1950. She lives in Shetland with her husband. She has published nine collections of poetry and translations, plus a Selected Poems and a sort of mini-Selected, two novels and a…
Language
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Sudeep Sen: Language
Vishnu, Photo by Spoortesh Honey – pexels 21st March is World Poetry Day. To celebrate it, here is a poem by Sudeep Sen. . . Without translation, I would be limited tothe borders of my own country. The translator ismy most important ally.— ITALO CALVINO Language . 1 .1 …
Al-ghazal
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Kathryn A. Kopple: Al-ghazal
Green Mountains Photo Moustafa Elsamadouni, Pexels We are pleased to keep company with Kathryn Kopple, who is a poet and novelist, and runs the literary blog The Leaving Years. Two of her published novels are Little Velásquez and The Leaving Year. She has previously collaborated with AN’s literary editor Peter Cowlam in the…
Chandi Chowk
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A Trip to Karim’s in Old Delhi
Olive Kapil at a market stall in Old Delhi Glorious food in unapologetic surroundings by Arun Kapil . My spice journey has, happily, taken me on many an adventure around the world—not least to the place where my company, Green Saffron, sources its ingredients: the spice cupboard of the world…
Al Hirschfield
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IN CONVERSATION WITH TOM BACHTELL
King Donald, ©Tom Bachtell Paul Halas — interview with Halas & Hall Anyone who has seen a copy of The New Yorker over the past thirty or so years will be familiar with the work of Tom Bachtell. He’s the guy who created so many of the wonderful caricatures that…
April 22nd
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The Balloonist
Murals of José Clemente Orozco, in the Hospicio Cabañas Photo by Edgar Mosqueda Camacho by Phil Hall . On the 22nd of April 1992, there were 10 petrol-gas explosions in northern Guadalajara, killing at least 242 people, injuring up to 600, and destroying 8 kilometres of city streets, making 15,000…
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