The Poet Laura-eate

Dying for Compassion

noreply@blogger.com (The Poet Laura-eate) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 09:35:00 PST

Anyone who considers that Assisted Dying can be legislated for with the subsequent legislation faithfully adhered to without dilution or abuse has only to look to the British Abortion Act of 1967...

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Humane Shopping

noreply@blogger.com (The Poet Laura-eate) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 12:42:00 PST

Yesterday I popped into my local WH Smith to see if the latest edition of my favourite magazine had come out.Lo and behold three quarters of the shop assistants had been replaced by machines since my...

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The Wool Shop

noreply@blogger.com (The Poet Laura-eate) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:20:00 PST

I cannot now remember what my father was doing in a wool shop as it was not his natural habitat. I can only imagine my mother must have sent him there with a sample of wool to procure some further...

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Has Cheltenham Literary Festival Sold Out?

noreply@blogger.com (The Poet Laura-eate) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 12:10:00 PDT

For the past twelve years, the highlight of my literary calendar has been either to watch or participate (depending on how brave I'm feeling) in Cheltenham Literary Festival's famous poetry slam....

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Everyone's a NIMBY when it's THEIR back yard!

noreply@blogger.com (The Poet Laura-eate) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 11:18:00 PDT

Having ripped out the hearts of our towns and cities with unsympathetic and ill-considered planning, roads and out-of-town shopping developments, often outmoded within a few short years, and often...

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Hal Holbrook, a real celebrity

noreply@blogger.com (The Poet Laura-eate) — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 13:45:00 PDT

One of the worst aspects of this age of celebrity is that the real celebrities seldom get written about any more, not least if they are also over 60 and male, let alone feature on the front covers of...

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The Great Bread and Circus Cut-Off

noreply@blogger.com (The Poet Laura-eate) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 10:35:00 PDT

I've often wondered if and when every citizen in the country being financially squeezed, cut and taxed from every direction under the current government, except for the 1% superwealthy in secret...

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It's Lonely At The Top of The Food Chain

noreply@blogger.com (The Poet Laura-eate) — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 12:36:00 PDT

Whenever I've felt lonely in my life I've always consoled myself with Quentin Crisp's maxim: 'There's no such thing as loneliness, merely people who do not know how to spend their time alone.' Or...

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Twilight Travel

noreply@blogger.com (The Poet Laura-eate) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 11:26:00 PDT

Lest anyone assume I am completely anti-travel following my last posting, in the wake of the Southern Cross care homes scandal among other elderly care scandals, I really hope the following urban...

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An Englishwoman Not Abroad

noreply@blogger.com (The Poet Laura-eate) — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 01:52:00 PDT

It was a staple cartoonist's joke when I was a child that the neighbours who forced you to watch their foreign holiday slides were the neighbours from hell and were really doing it to rub people's...

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Maternity in the 20th Century

noreply@blogger.com (The Poet Laura-eate) — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 13:23:00 PDT

I thought I might share these amusing photos from Grantly Dick-Read's seminal work 'Childbirth Without Fear', first published in 1942. Judging from their eye masks, these women look pretty fearful to...

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Cabaret of Curiosities

noreply@blogger.com (The Poet Laura-eate) — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 09:17:00 PDT

Less than two weeks to go and I'm looking forward to my OxFringe gig with Project Adorno on 22nd (think cross between Raw Sex and Pet Shop Boys with some random philosophers and Dr Who's thrown in)...

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Renaissance

noreply@blogger.com (The Poet Laura-eate) — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 10:41:00 PDT

The theme of this year's 500-word Commonwealth Short Story Competition was 'Women as Agents of Change'. Here's my entry - since I didn't win! Angela Downie looked out from the rooftop Widow's Walk...

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Walter and Lucy Patching

noreply@blogger.com (The Poet Laura-eate) — Mon, 30 May 2011 12:15:00 PDT

Above are my maternal grandparents, Lucy and Walter. They lived in Brighton in the 1930s. Lucy was a domestic servant, originally from Cannock and so shy that when her wealthy widow employer invited...

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Confessions of a Student Housing Officer

noreply@blogger.com (The Poet Laura-eate) — Thu, 19 May 2011 08:45:00 PDT

Since the only writing I have done lately is to write up my notes from a student housing legal updates conference, I thought I may as well give you an insight into the exciting world of Student...

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The Sin Bin

noreply@blogger.com (The Poet Laura-eate) — Sat, 07 May 2011 13:07:00 PDT

Whilst not the most vocal human rightsist, and certainly no defender of the abhorrent Bin Laden (and not even against the death penalty where it can be proven beyond all doubt that the guilty party...

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A Short Story about Alcohol

noreply@blogger.com (The Poet Laura-eate) — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 12:47:00 PDT

The Set Aside Scheme It's not something that happens overnight you know. It takes a lot of hard work, determination and dedication to achieve it. I would say it probably took me a good ten years...

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Devotion

noreply@blogger.com (The Poet Laura-eate) — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 02:29:00 PDT

When I was 19 I often popped into the local hospital on my way home from work to visit my dying Great Aunt Alice. She slept a great deal so it was not unusual to have to wait twenty minutes or so for...

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Chasing the Dragon

noreply@blogger.com (The Poet Laura-eate) — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:07:00 PDT

A colleague mentioned that he'd heard Dragon's Den is planning to launch a new spin-off series which sounded astonishingly like the programme idea which I had submitted to the programme, its producer...

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Bye bye baby

noreply@blogger.com (The Poet Laura-eate) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 12:16:00 PDT

It is nice to see that being child-free has become somewhat fashionable these days and we are no longer regarded as selfish freaks for not wanting to play maidservant to a demanding little...

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Junkies

noreply@blogger.com (The Poet Laura-eate) — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 12:47:00 PDT

I know exactly how my mother is going to die. One day she is going to be found dead, prey to the suffocating fall of one of her many binbags full of unworn clothes with the tags still on. My mother...

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My Shoes Blues

noreply@blogger.com (The Poet Laura-eate) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 12:31:00 PST

Medical advice has it that homo sapiens are supposed to walk 10,000 steps a day for optimum health. You try walking more than 100 steps in most women's shoes and feel those heel and toe blisters...

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The Rise of the Nihilistic Drinker

noreply@blogger.com (The Poet Laura-eate) — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 15:15:00 PST

Working in universities for the last 14 years, I am no stranger to the alarming new trend, particularly among female students of 'pre-loading' - ie tanking themselves up on cheap supermarket booze,...

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Elitism and the 9-5

noreply@blogger.com (The Poet Laura-eate) — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 11:25:00 PST

The other day I heard a student say to her friend disparagingly in the Student Union shop 'I don't want to end up in some cr*ppy 9-5 job.' I half sympathised, half thought 'Well what does she think...

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Exercising Democracy

noreply@blogger.com (The Poet Laura-eate) — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 15:15:00 PST

On Saturday I joined several hundred of my fellow Oxford citizens in a march to save our libraries, our youth clubs, our swimming pools, our public toilets and our disabled and elderly services. It...

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