Den of Writers | RichardB | Activity https://www.denofwriters.com/members/richardb/activity/ Activity feed for RichardB. Wed, 15 Apr 2026 10:19:15 +0000 https://buddypress.org/?v= en-GB 30 hourly 2 1e2ca20ecaf054483939cadaf9d8ce2e RichardB started the topic The Sweat of the Workers in the forum Blogs https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/the-sweat-of-the-workers/ Tue, 20 Jan 2026 10:47:41 +0000 One early morning in 1989, about a year-and-a-half after I’d transferred out of the district bus office to become a bus driver, I arrived for work at the bus garage to find that overnight new logos had appeared on the buses. In fact the engineering staff – mechanics and maintenance workers – were still sticking the last ones on. They bore the wor…[Read more]

]]> 0 db1ea7337405f63ecb153b90cf989f2d RichardB replied to the topic Not a Disaster Story in the forum Blogs https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/not-a-disaster-story/#post-17239 Thu, 15 Jan 2026 11:33:12 +0000 In the few months since I wrote this blog about ‘our’ pub, the Ancient Briton has won – count them – four awards:

Welsh Pub of the Year;

Welsh Eatery of the Year;

Welsh Gastropub of the Year;

First Place, Welsh Good Food Awards.

As I said before, it seems that the owners, Nils and Emma, are doing something right.

It so happens that we have a…[Read more]

]]> 0 6e6894c2a05a6b4d20954e9a897f7f60 RichardB's profile was updated https://www.denofwriters.com/activity/p/24962/ Sat, 08 Nov 2025 10:09:49 +0000 0 649b17877d01fdc4de0845842752f115 RichardB replied to the topic Chit Chat in the forum September Song https://www.denofwriters.com/groups/september-song/forum/topic/chit-chat-7/#post-16958 Wed, 15 Oct 2025 10:10:12 +0000 I dunno about are reading: I haven’t read Catch-22 for years. But it is a book that sticks in the mind.

]]> 0 17b0ec0638a4a09db84b2aab0ecf3849 RichardB posted a new activity comment https://www.denofwriters.com/activity/p/24826/#acomment-24837 Tue, 14 Oct 2025 15:18:10 +0000 Actually we have met virtually before. If you haven’t made the connection, my story came second in that competition, and we had a brief exchange of e-mails afterwards. Nice to see you here.
After two novels were greeted with deafening apathy by the trade, I decided that at my time of life I had better things to do than putting myself through the…[Read more]

In reply to - Athelstone posted an update Welcome to a new member Silver. Some may remember her as Catasshe back in the Wordcloud days ]]> 91b390bd136829cc2bb8a93e04b2e821 RichardB posted a new activity comment https://www.denofwriters.com/activity/p/24826/#acomment-24827 Mon, 13 Oct 2025 19:40:51 +0000 As in CAS Short Story Competition? Obviously I’m going to welcome you, Silver.

In reply to - Athelstone posted an update Welcome to a new member Silver. Some may remember her as Catasshe back in the Wordcloud days ]]> b8c8029be188c44bcaa7cee2b1e76159 RichardB replied to the topic Choices in the forum September Song https://www.denofwriters.com/groups/september-song/forum/topic/choices-7/#post-16945 Mon, 13 Oct 2025 16:13:44 +0000 Rain

Catch-22

]]> 0 37bbf5be7f6e75f04383a73896ee4b67 RichardB joined the group September Song https://www.denofwriters.com/activity/p/24824/ Mon, 13 Oct 2025 16:12:13 +0000 0 7c0136f2034de44ccbb219b7c6c05e61 RichardB replied to the topic Not a Disaster Story in the forum Blogs https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/not-a-disaster-story/#post-16794 Thu, 28 Aug 2025 07:57:44 +0000 I have little nostalgia for the pubs of my earlier days, mainly because the pubs in Sutton, where I spent most of my life, were, and are, a pretty sorry lot. But there is one pub I remember with a certain affection.

Watling Street, which becomes the Edgware Road, that arterial road that runs in a straight line through North-West London, starts…[Read more]

]]> 0 7e1c345ae94135ef1936e6b510531f50 RichardB replied to the topic Not a Disaster Story in the forum Blogs https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/not-a-disaster-story/#post-16773 Sat, 23 Aug 2025 14:58:44 +0000 Mention of plain-looking pubs reminds me of another pub with a heart-warming story, the Hope in Carshalton, near where I used to live and even nearer to where I grew up. In appearance a nondescript 1930s local, it was going to close down until a bunch of its customers got together and bought the lease, and then a few years later the pub outright.…[Read more]

]]> 0 cac88eb8c2c462f84910727805b5f1dc RichardB replied to the topic Not a Disaster Story in the forum Blogs https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/not-a-disaster-story/#post-16764 Mon, 18 Aug 2025 17:50:46 +0000 Actually there was a bit of a wobbly phase on the ale front for the first year or two of the new regime, while Nils, who is not himself a real ale drinker, was finding out by trial and error what would sell. There was a heavy emphasis on those light golden bitters that are fashionable these days, but are not much to my taste (unless it’s hot…[Read more]

]]> 0 2af66981976a96648b0f9261c2d868e3 RichardB started the topic Not a Disaster Story in the forum Blogs https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/not-a-disaster-story/ Sun, 17 Aug 2025 11:32:06 +0000 I do seem to have this habit of writing about disasters, so I thought it would make a nice change to write about something more cheerful. Something that is very much not a disaster.

Let me tell you about our local pub. Well, not literally, because there are a couple of pubs nearer our house, but it’s the one we go to, and has our loyalty.

The…[Read more]

]]> 0 b2d614bc91c6179940377225b67a6ff4 RichardB posted an update: Finest line of dialogue I've encountered for some time. From […] https://www.denofwriters.com/activity/p/24527/ Mon, 14 Jul 2025 09:41:29 +0000 Finest line of dialogue I’ve encountered for some time. From The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, by Natasha Pulley:
‘What does a clockwork octopus in an elevator shaft sound like?’

]]> 3 3e1fc39f316b8ce949fbc44735fee8d7 RichardB replied to the topic Richard's Literary Byways: Pavane, by Keith Roberts in the forum Blogs https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/richards-literary-byways-pavane-by-keith-roberts/#post-16580 Tue, 03 Jun 2025 09:59:02 +0000 You’re not actually the person I was referring to when I said I knew I was preaching to the converted. Quite often people reply to these Literary Byways blogs saying they’re going to read the book concerned on my recommendation, but this is the first time I’ve had feedback on that, and I’m delighted that you share my enthusiasm for Pavane.

As for…[Read more]

]]> 0 a5ee10a5f0cc34a3c95a4ff3f8627d6b RichardB started the topic Richard's Literary Byways: Pavane, by Keith Roberts in the forum Blogs https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/richards-literary-byways-pavane-by-keith-roberts/ Mon, 02 Jun 2025 09:40:29 +0000 It has occurred to me that this occasional series is incomplete without the piece that started it all off, which was posted back in the old days on the Word Cloud. Some may remember it; some may not. And in one case I know I’m preaching to the converted…

In 1983, on a commission from a Japanese publisher, the novelist and critic Anthony (A…[Read more]

]]> 0 d399450269bb63746f49d5bc65cd7cd5 RichardB replied to the topic The Wild West Railway in the forum Blogs https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/the-wild-west-railway/#post-16365 Tue, 25 Mar 2025 15:39:13 +0000 No, there’s little or nothing to tell you a railway had ever been there. A short stretch at the Tralee end re-opened in the nineties with one of the original locomotives, but it only seems to have lasted less than twenty years. There’s still a Tralee and Dingle Railway Preservation Society page on Facebook, though.

]]> 0 6f389d7e213135367f822cbcd0d7264e RichardB replied to the topic The Wild West Railway in the forum Blogs https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/the-wild-west-railway/#post-16357 Wed, 19 Mar 2025 15:45:30 +0000 It must have been well over thirty years ago, on holiday in North Wales, when, after visiting Beddgelert, we went for a riverside walk along what must have been the Aberglaslyn Pass. Noting the width and smoothness of the footpath and how it bored its way straght through some rocky outcrops, I remarked wistfully that we must be on the trackbed of…[Read more]

]]> 0 0c6d9a3f96f0b7e09aded8fadcc057f1 RichardB started the topic The Wild West Railway in the forum Blogs https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/the-wild-west-railway/ Thu, 13 Mar 2025 10:29:39 +0000 No, not that Wild West. But west this railway certainly was, and as wild as any railway in the British Isles. Its locomotives even had cowcatchers and bells and (at least in its early days) big oil headlamps, like those engines you see in Western movies. And, apart from the absence of hostile Injuns, running trains on it in its last years was…[Read more]

]]> 0 cea25e5380a0dd10478d98af12e6f30d RichardB replied to the topic The Enemy Within in the forum Blogs https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/the-enemy-within/#post-16317 Tue, 11 Mar 2025 09:08:22 +0000 I think I should belatedly clarify my last post by saying that, whether you believe that striking and picketing are right or wrong, that’s not the point I was making. The fact remains that the Labour Party was originally founded to represent the trade unions in Parliament, so Starmer’s action was a betrayal of everything the party once stood for.

]]> 0 b081b062501bfe6fa77bde2ae94ed784 RichardB replied to the topic The Enemy Within in the forum Blogs https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/the-enemy-within/#post-16316 Sun, 09 Mar 2025 10:54:45 +0000 No, I can’t say I’m impressed with Starmer’s ‘Labour’ party. So little so, that, given that we live in a rock-solid Labour seat and that it was plain the Tories were going to get hammered anyway, I was quite glad we were in the far West of Ireland on polling day and so had an excuse not to vote. How can a party leader who disciplines one of his…[Read more]

]]> 0 292e100fad134854d4d909a245a1cb26 RichardB replied to the topic The Enemy Within in the forum Blogs https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/the-enemy-within/#post-16306 Tue, 04 Mar 2025 22:58:48 +0000 Interesting that you should say ‘since 1951,’ because I was remarking only the other day that the last government we’ve had that could truly be called socialist was Atlee’s. But I don’t think it’s true to say that governments since then have been pursuing the same, even more or less the same, policies, and indeed your second para gives the lie to…[Read more]

]]> 0 97cae7c887ec7cde9cdd8a99c0bd94da RichardB replied to the topic The Enemy Within in the forum Blogs https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/the-enemy-within/#post-16298 Tue, 04 Mar 2025 12:13:04 +0000 There’s a couple we exchange visits with once or twice a year. I’ve known them both since we were all teenagers, longer than I’ve known MrsB, but whatever has kept the friendship going for all these years it’s not common political ground. About the only thing we agree on is Brexit, so most of the time we avoid talking about politics. The last time…[Read more]

]]> 0 a6101c404ca1abfd36d4b1c7de0efabe RichardB started the topic The Enemy Within in the forum Blogs https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/the-enemy-within/ Mon, 03 Mar 2025 11:06:19 +0000 Today is the fortieth anniversary of the start of the 1984-5 miners’ strike. Living where I do, this resonates strongly with me, so it seems appropriate to post this piece, which I originally wrote some years ago.

Advisory: contains strong political opinions.

 

‘Galtieri and the Argentinians were the enemy without. Arthur Scargill and the…[Read more]

]]> 0 5c3fbd397aaf5d26573c757fe60932ed RichardB replied to the topic Monthly competition - January 2025 in the forum Monthly Competition https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/monthly-competition-january-2025/#post-16108 Sun, 02 Feb 2025 10:48:18 +0000 Late, Seagreen? Not really. It’s only the second of the month, and I didn’t post my judgement yesterday until the middle of the afternoon. No apology needed.

A strong field indeed.

]]> 0 47c59fc99990debc4b9f35a8acc83b4d RichardB replied to the topic Monthly competition - January 2025 in the forum Monthly Competition https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/monthly-competition-january-2025/#post-16092 Sat, 01 Feb 2025 15:12:59 +0000 Oh, my. Four entries, all excellent, all completely different from each other. For such a small community, whar a range of talents we have.

Terrie, your gallop through the various endings we meet in life was entertaining and thought-provoking, with a nice humorous squib at the end to round things off.

Libby, I applaud your courage in essaying…[Read more]

]]> 0 51ba7179e3a357d5548b448c107d4ca5 RichardB started the topic Monthly competition - January 2025 in the forum Monthly Competition https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/monthly-competition-january-2025/ Wed, 01 Jan 2025 18:02:55 +0000 Hmm… this time of year tends to call to mind themes of new beginnings and fresh starts, but that’s a bit of a cliché, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been done before. So let’s look at it the other way. New Year also marks the end of the old year, so please give me up to 500 words on whatever the phrase ‘the end’ calls to your mind.

]]> 0 9cd3d4f8a63f166ae92baf154bf03244 RichardB replied to the topic Monthly Competition - December 2024 in the forum Monthly Competition https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/monthly-competition-december-2024/#post-15982 Wed, 01 Jan 2025 17:52:55 +0000 Thanks, Ath. I should maybe point out that ‘the protagonist’ is in fact me. The brief didn’t say it had to be fiction, and my effort isn’t. I really am building, slowly and very carefully, a huge model car.

]]> 0 3da6e359748f78ce45e2f38c7d1f69f7 RichardB posted an update: Christmas spirit was alive and well at our 'local' this […] https://www.denofwriters.com/activity/p/23740/ Wed, 25 Dec 2024 17:17:17 +0000 Christmas spirit was alive and well at our ‘local’ this morning when we turned up for a drink on the house ‘as a thank you to our regulars.’ The landlord (yes, really: it’s a free house) was wearing a teeshirt saying ‘You scumbag’ and the landlady one saying ‘You maggot.’ Pity I didn’t catch them side by side…

Merry Christmas, all, what’s left of it.

]]> 1 a90c7c426138a0bae4dabb824e291113 RichardB posted a new activity comment https://www.denofwriters.com/activity/p/23713/#acomment-23720 Wed, 18 Dec 2024 23:30:40 +0000 My God, i salute you again. Fitting tiny bits together that are already the right size, as in my entry piece, is one thing, but I’ve never had the skill to do DIY to such fine tolerances. Now I’m old and can usually find the money to pay for work to be done professionally I try to avoid DIY altogether, though I did manage the other day to mend a…[Read more]

In reply to - RichardB replied to the topic Monthly Competition – December 2024 in the forum Monthly Competition I salute you, Ath. The last time we had a kitchen makeover we had it done professionally, though to be fair to […] ]]> eb9d175f4e3cf878c9e276f8fab383f7 RichardB replied to the topic Monthly Competition - December 2024 in the forum Monthly Competition https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/monthly-competition-december-2024/#post-15941 Tue, 17 Dec 2024 15:58:59 +0000 I salute you, Ath. The last time we had a kitchen makeover we had it done professionally, though to be fair to myself that was an intregal part of the deal. To show my respect I am actually responding to your prompt, for a change.

Modelling Therapy

I’ve always been a sucker for a nice model. In my youth I used to build plastic kits (Airfix and…[Read more]

]]> 4 16b14443f80e062f623b3bb693f7d848 RichardB posted a new activity comment https://www.denofwriters.com/activity/p/23701/#acomment-23702 Wed, 11 Dec 2024 18:41:43 +0000 I hope you may be forgiven too, because my entry was conceived in a similar way. I don’t even have your excuse of being too busy, but the story asked to be written and so I wrote it.

In reply to - Janette posted an update Phew, Winter comp story posted. Hope it may be forgiven that this is an old monthly comp entry that I have torn apart, expanded and reassembled. It is all I could come up with given my […] ]]> 59506f0a9f76d3c9b68a3f7a1fee74a4 RichardB posted a new activity comment https://www.denofwriters.com/activity/p/23685/#acomment-23699 Wed, 11 Dec 2024 08:44:42 +0000 Yes thanks, we are okay now, though the boiler had to work non-stop for 48 hours to get the house back to normal temperature.
Our ‘local’ pub (about four miles away) were in the same fix. They had hundreds of people booked for Saturday night dinner and Sunday lunch, and the guvnor had to drive five miles to a supermarket car park to get a signal…[Read more]

In reply to - RichardB posted an update Just had two days without power, courtesy of Storm Darragh. By yesterday afternoon the house was so cold we were wearing our outdoor coats indoors. The mobile network went down too, so […] ]]> df7568a98265d7ff2bf56719dbffc8ca RichardB posted a new activity comment https://www.denofwriters.com/activity/p/23685/#acomment-23693 Tue, 10 Dec 2024 16:06:35 +0000 Afterthought: when ‘they’ were planning the change to digital landlines did they consider the possible consequences of running the system via broadband routers, dependant on the national grid, or did they simply not care? If I’d had a heart attack or something during those two days I would have died. We had no way of calling an ambulance.

In reply to - RichardB posted an update Just had two days without power, courtesy of Storm Darragh. By yesterday afternoon the house was so cold we were wearing our outdoor coats indoors. The mobile network went down too, so […] ]]> ba02204047c26c114b99f6edcf180728 RichardB posted an update: Just had two days without power, courtesy of Storm Darragh. […] https://www.denofwriters.com/activity/p/23685/ Mon, 09 Dec 2024 10:49:36 +0000 Just had two days without power, courtesy of Storm Darragh. By yesterday afternoon the house was so cold we were wearing our outdoor coats indoors. The mobile network went down too, so what with the landline going digital we were completely isolated. The power finally came back on just before midnight, and the house is still warming up. The mobile…[Read more]

]]> 3 2fb4e80fd0ea54d92882dba8cd1864d8 RichardB replied to the topic The latest in vanity publishing in the forum Marketplace https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/the-latest-in-vanity-publishing/#post-15875 Wed, 27 Nov 2024 10:48:57 +0000 Yes, it’s rather chilling, isn’t it?

One doesn’t tend to think of Roald Dahl as a sci-fi writer, but he foresaw something like this. Over seventy years ago one of his early adult short stories, The Great Automatic Grammartizator, told the tale of a nerd who invents a machine that generates stories at such a prodigious rate that he takes over the…[Read more]

]]> 0 7b61a982fd4e80d9d78504689904bad5 RichardB posted a new activity comment https://www.denofwriters.com/activity/p/23444/#acomment-23446 Fri, 11 Oct 2024 14:12:03 +0000 Ah yes. From memory:
Fetching water from the brook
Wondering who it was who took
The stones from the mountain to build this cottage here
Two up and two down
Miles from the nearest town
I don’t know who he was though the reason why is clear.
McTell once said that the reason why there aren’t many love songs in his canon was that ‘I got all that…[Read more]

In reply to - RichardB posted an update Back in 1966, while Ralph (Streets of London) McTell was earning his living busking on the streets of Paris, he met a Norwegian girl called Nanna Stein, and wrote a song for her, simply […] ]]> acdba761d387e365b166126100adbe55 RichardB posted an update: Back in 1966, while Ralph (Streets of London) McTell was […] https://www.denofwriters.com/activity/p/23444/ Thu, 10 Oct 2024 15:21:41 +0000 Back in 1966, while Ralph (Streets of London) McTell was earning his living busking on the streets of Paris, he met a Norwegian girl called Nanna Stein, and wrote a song for her, simply called Nanna’s Song, which is the most moving evocation I know of the joy of young love. By the end of that year they were married. They stayed together through…[Read more]

]]> 8 619622adaa9698c2d288328a8e1e7bdc RichardB replied to the topic Chit Chat in the forum A Different Time https://www.denofwriters.com/groups/a-different-time/forum/topic/chit-chat-6/#post-15710 Sun, 06 Oct 2024 09:55:22 +0000 That’s two steps out of character for me. First, I enter the monthly competition for the first time in God knows how long. Now, having a history of inspiration for the annual challenge not descending until the last minute, i’ve had an idea already. Whether I’ll succeed in making a story out of it, we’ll have to wait and see, but the germ is…[Read more]

]]> 0 65518a54a802ee19dc2333f9f9d82c8b RichardB replied to the topic Monthly competition, September 2024 in the forum Monthly Competition https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/monthly-competition-september-2024/#post-15693 Tue, 01 Oct 2024 07:59:35 +0000 Thank you, Sandra, for a prompt that actually got me writing. It’s ages since I last entered the monthly comp, possibly not since the Cloud imploded.

Just to clarify, this is a prequel to my earlier stories about Rebecca rather than a continuation, set ten years earlier. Rather like Athelstone with Teabreak, I can’t leave her alone. I love her to…[Read more]

]]> 0 0190f61f0b82e9c310d4ce392e57dc89 RichardB replied to the topic Monthly competition, September 2024 in the forum Monthly Competition https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/monthly-competition-september-2024/#post-15670 Thu, 26 Sep 2024 21:07:59 +0000 This is in response to the original prompt, ‘What becomes…’
599 words (Phew!)

Glan-y-Nant

She’s the reason I’m so far from home in this quiet corner of Carmarthenshire where the tourists don’t come, driving along this grass-grown lane to nowhere, neither knowing nor caring where I’m going. Walking-on-air. light-in-the-face, ice-in-the-heart…[Read more]

]]> 0 18a862abc80770a26739b785d2b6d8e3 RichardB joined the group A Different Time https://www.denofwriters.com/activity/p/23370/ Mon, 23 Sep 2024 17:52:39 +0000 0 289f0069ab9e738524fe255fb5dc7545 RichardB replied to the topic Substack in the forum Coffee Shop https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/substack/#post-15625 Fri, 13 Sep 2024 09:44:39 +0000 A bit off-topic, but hey, this is the coffee shop, right?

I too have a huge amount of respect for Emma Darwin. And she gave me the happiest moment of my writing career.

The only time I went to the York Festival I (naturally, considering what I’ve just said) booked a book doctor slot with her. Mine was the first slot of the day, and as we sat…[Read more]

]]> 0 eeba85615be4f3645ba48d3dcfacbbc3 RichardB posted a new activity comment https://www.denofwriters.com/activity/p/23293/#acomment-23298 Wed, 04 Sep 2024 09:07:44 +0000 Do you actually need to provide a synopsis in a beta reading request? I would have thought a brief outline of what sort of novel it is – genre, style etc – might suffice. Then there wouldn’t be such a need for privacy.

In reply to - Athelstone posted an update OK, I had a try at the Beta Reading group. Soon after I posted, I felt that it was too public. I didn’t want my synopsis etc on show. Temporarily I’ve made the group private while I have […] ]]> e15ba3035cfaa2bd8efde19ae1c52fa5 RichardB posted a new activity comment https://www.denofwriters.com/activity/p/23275/#acomment-23276 Mon, 02 Sep 2024 14:42:16 +0000 It occurs to me that I’ve already answered that question in the ‘All You Need’ challenge. I could always try for another answer though…

In reply to - Sandra posted an update September monthly competition is up. If you were alive and kicking in the Sixties, even if (shame on you) you don’t usually bother, you might find inspiration here. Each month demonstrates […] ]]> d87f395ac0669b17bb004ecc8395fc5d RichardB posted a new activity comment https://www.denofwriters.com/activity/p/23214/#acomment-23223 Mon, 19 Aug 2024 09:44:25 +0000 As a matter of interest (or not…) my character isn’t usually referred to as Angela. It’s part of an authorial joke. I gave her that name so that she could have the nickname Jelly, with the excuse that that was how she said her name when she was learning to talk and it stuck. The girl is a head-turner, and ‘jellyroll’ (as in Jellyroll Morton,…[Read more]

In reply to - Athelstone posted an update I’d be grateful for some thoughts. I read a section from my WIP at a writers’ meeting and somebody commented on the name I chose for a character aged around 40. I named the character […] ]]> d6c53d052b500f73768f19d1eb1faf9e RichardB posted a new activity comment https://www.denofwriters.com/activity/p/23214/#acomment-23215 Wed, 14 Aug 2024 17:22:18 +0000 As far as I’m concerned the answers to your questions are ‘No’ and ‘No.’ I had a similar experiance about ten years ago when my daughter suggested that Angela was an unlikely name for a twenty-year-old, but the character had been with me in some shape or form for years and I couldn’t imagine her being anything else, so i stuck with it. And lo and…[Read more]

In reply to - Athelstone posted an update I’d be grateful for some thoughts. I read a section from my WIP at a writers’ meeting and somebody commented on the name I chose for a character aged around 40. I named the character […] ]]> 524139cbc8e0ecc764ef6dc3faf7bd30 RichardB replied to the topic Richard's Literary Byways: Fragment 31, by Sappho in the forum Blogs https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/richards-literary-byways-fragment-31-by-sappho/#post-15528 Mon, 12 Aug 2024 21:38:25 +0000 I’m glad you copied this, Libby, because you saved me the trouble. Your comments should definitely be an integral part of this thread. And I’m glad, too, that the poem seems to have had much the same effect on you as it had on me.

There’s more, much more, than ‘yet another translation.’ There’s a page with over forty, ranging from Catullus’ Latin…[Read more]

]]> 0 35944a97cf206c797409b2ae7b0cc3b2 RichardB replied to the topic Richard's Literary Byways: Fragment 31, by Sappho in the forum Blogs https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/richards-literary-byways-fragment-31-by-sappho/#post-15521 Thu, 08 Aug 2024 09:41:53 +0000 Rather annoyingly, shortly after posting this I came upon another translation. Annoyingly, because its publication on a page headed ‘The Center for Hellenic Studies,’ its juxtaposition with the Greek, and most of all the clumsiness of its English suggest to me that it is the closest to a word-for-word rendition of Sappho’s original that I’ve yet…[Read more]

]]> 0 db300dd0e8c0248da7e5d12a66e3374b RichardB started the topic Richard's Literary Byways: Fragment 31, by Sappho in the forum Blogs https://www.denofwriters.com/forums/topic/richards-literary-byways-fragment-31-by-sappho/ Wed, 07 Aug 2024 09:34:50 +0000 Something a bit different this time: a voice speaking from the shadows of two-and-a-half millennia and more ago, in words so timeless and universal they might have been written yesterday.

It was a couple of years ago that I stumbled across this piece on the Internet, and I don’t remember what led me to it. But I do have a vivid memory of my…[Read more]

]]> 1 5450f6444555cf5398ef6518a5a01965 RichardB posted an update: Re Sandra's comment from five days ago about it being a […] https://www.denofwriters.com/activity/p/23184/ Tue, 06 Aug 2024 17:17:57 +0000 Re Sandra’s comment from five days ago about it being a shame more Denizens can’t find the time to enter the monthly comp, sorry, but with me it’s more lack of inspiration rather than lack of time. Maybe I should try a bit harder, but in the meantime , and maybe to make up for it, one of my notorious blogs is on the way. Watch this space.

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