-
My initial encounter with ChatGPT left me in a state of shock and awe. Words sprouted on the web page as soon as I finished typing my request for a parody of Shakespeare. In a flash, ChatGPT churned out a poem addressing the Bard that went: “Let’s see, how could we twist and bend your
-
I wonder why there is no street named after Calcutta in Singapore, nor after Singapore in what is now Kolkata. For their histories are interlinked. Both were ruled by the British and share some street names. Both had Armenian Street, Synagogue Street, Elliot Road and roads, bridges and landmarks named after generals and administrators such
-
When Salman Rushdie graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in history in 1968 and said he wanted to be a writer, his father yelped in pain. “What,” he cried, “will I tell my friends?” Events eventually forced Anis Rushdie, a barrister who had also graduated from Cambridge, to change his opinion. Nineteen years later,
-
America’s abrupt pullout from Afghanistan, completed on August 30, 2021, was anticipated by the Scottish historian Niall Ferguson almost 20 years ago. America invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 to oust the Taliban after 9/11. Soon after, Ferguson began speculating about an imminent American withdrawal from the country. American intervention in a crisis is routinely followed
-
I have been a fan of Roger McGough, Adrian Henri and Brian Patten ever since I came across The Mersey Sound, Penguin Modern Poets 10, in my schooldays. Published in 1967, the same year that the Beatles came out with Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, it had the same mixture of whimsy, youthfulness and
-
I can’t forget John le Carre’s description of spymaster George Smiley catching a glimpse of his wife Ann cheating on him. The scene came to my mind as I read the obituaries of John le Carre, who died on December 12 at the age of 89.
-
Two people I admire greatly died this year: the legendary editor Harold Evans and Jan Morris, the only writer I know who had written both as a man and a woman.
-
Hamlet tells Horatio: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. His words seem all too true today if you substitute science for philosophy. Who ever thought a virus transmitted by a bat could disrupt the whole world?
-
The Narrow Road to the Deep North, which won the Man Booker Prize in 2014, depicts the suffering and brutality inflicted on Australian prisoners of war (POWs) by their Japanese captors who forced them to build the infamous Death Railway though the jungle from Thailand to Burma.
-
It feels like heaven,To be reading PG Wodehouse again,Hailed by critics one and all,As the Garden of Eden before the Fall,
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Readiscovery 