Category Archives: Personal commentary

A writer-publisher’s Ukrainian diary: 4

Posted on May 5, 2022 by Patrick Miles

23 April 2022 It is St George’s Day, hypothetically William Shakespeare’s birthday, and we are in Stratford-upon-Avon witnessing the civic celebrations, which are beautifully done, inclusive, happy, humorous, almost a Spring flower festival, and a really moving tribute to Shakespeare’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Modern parallels, Personal commentary | Tagged Aleksei Gromyko, Aleksei Kozyrev, Alexander Gorchakov, atonement, catacomb Christians, Charles Talleyrand, Chester Wilmot, comments, David Aaronovitch, David Petraeus, General Dvornikov, General Gerasimov, General Mezintsev, Henry VI, Joachim von Ribbentrop, KGB, Khar'kiv, Mariupol, medical diagnoses, military strategy, Moldova, Moscow Patriarchate, Nadezhda Mandel'shtam, NATO, Nikolai Gogol, proxy war, repentance, Rett Syndrome, Russia, Saddam Hussein, salients, Sergei Lavrov, St George's Day, steroids, Stratford-upon-Avon, tank battles, Tariq Aziz, The Donbas, Transnistria, trench warfare, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelensky, Wagner Group, William Shakespeare, World War 2, World War I | Leave a comment

A Not Nursery Rhyme

Posted on April 29, 2022 by Patrick Miles

DANDLING SONG … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged cats, chub, cockroaches, comments, cowboys, dandling songs, dark blue, folklore, hares, KGB, kikimora, mice, nonsense rhymes, nursery rhymes, oven-prong, poems, pribautki, Rus', Russia, The New Dark Blue Cowboys | 1 Comment

The strange workings of ‘tourbillions of Time’

Posted on April 26, 2022 by Patrick Miles

Long-term followers of Calderonia, and readers of George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, will know that I’m interested in different forms of Time and very fond of the expression ‘tourbillions of Time’ from Robert Graves’s poem ‘On Portents’… Piecing together the narrative behind … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged 'Dandling Song', 'On Portents', aleatory, chronotopes, colours, dark blue, Edward Lear, folklore, George Calderon, Igor' Stravinsky, KGB, Lenin's mausoleum, Margaret Thatcher, naive, nonsense poetry, nursery rhymes, Penguin Russian Course, pribautki, Robert Graves, Russian grammar, Russian language, teaching Russian, The New Dark Blue Cowboys, tourbillions of Time, Valdimir Putin | 1 Comment

‘The negation of everything worth living for’

Posted on April 18, 2022 by Patrick Miles

In 2010, when the Putin Project was still just a monocracy and one could converse freely over the phone with friends in Russia, I remarked to one that Russia seemed to have ‘reached about 1892’, i.e. a point during the … Continue reading →

Posted in Modern parallels, Personal commentary | Tagged Alexander III, anarchy, Andrei Amal'rik, Angela Merkel, anti-Semitism, apocalypse, autocracy, censorship, Communism, democracy, dogs, Estonia, ideology, irrationalism, Jewish people, Joseph Conrad, Konstantin Pobedonostsev, Moscow Patriarchate, Otto von Bismarck, perestroika, Poland, Putin Project, rule of law, satanry, State capitalism, Ukraine, USSR, Vladimir Putin | 2 Comments

A writer-publisher’s Ukrainian diary: 2

Posted on April 11, 2022 by Patrick Miles

5 April 2022 When I contemplated the image from Kyiv that I posted last week, as well as Bruegel I thought of Isaac Babel’s stories Red Cavalry about the Russo-Polish War of 1919-21. Some of that war took place in … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged 'The Prince', Aleksandr Lukashenko, Andrew Tatham, Anton Chekhov, atrocities, Babi Yar, Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Centre, Belarus, Belorussia, Bucha, Chris Deverell, comments, Crimea, David McDuff, Donald Trump, Donbas, EU, Fiona Hill, Georg Trakl, Isaac Babel, Joe Biden, Kyiv, L'viv, Mariupol, Military Intelligence, NATO, Nazis, Niccolo Machiavelli, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Red Cavalry, The Times, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, weapons, World War I, Zbrucz | Leave a comment

A writer-publisher’s Ukrainian diary: 1

Posted on April 4, 2022 by Patrick Miles

16 March 2022 Tony Blair has said that to keep telling Putin all the things we won’t do in the face of Putin’s carnage (e.g. enforce a no-fly zone, give Ukraine Polish MiGs, co-occupy and safeguard Western Ukraine with the … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged Alexander Litvinenko, Alexei Navalny, Anna Politkovskaya, Belgium, comments, fear, Iuliia Skripal, Joe Biden, Kaiser Wilhelm II, MiG fighters, peace negotiations, Pityriasis rosea, Roman Abramovich, Sergei Skripal, The Times, Tony Blair, Treaty of London, Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelensky, World War I | Leave a comment

Bruegel, reality and truth

Posted on March 30, 2022 by Patrick Miles

We all, I imagine, have photographs of terrible events (World War 1, say, the Holocaust, or Hiroshima) indelibly seared on our brains. Where Ukraine 2022 is concerned, the above is the one I shall never forget. The face is straight … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged comments, death, Four Quartets, grief, Hiroshima, Kiev, love, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, reality, Russia, T.S. Eliot, The Holocaust, truth, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, World War I | 2 Comments

From the diary of a writer-publisher: 17

Posted on March 14, 2022 by Patrick Miles

24 January 2022 I have received several emails commiserating with me over my ‘anxiety’ and ‘nightmares’ about marking examination papers. The writers clearly assume I am Dr Robinson in my story Ghoune — that the story is strictly autobiographical and … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Personal commentary | Tagged 'Ghoune', 'Sleep and Death', A.J.A. Symons, Alexander I, Amazon, Andrew Tatham, angina, Anton Chekhov, Anton Chekhov: A Short Life, archivists, Baron Corvo, BASEES, BASEES Conference, biographies, biography, birds, butterflies, Cambridge Tales, Carole Angier, Cheshire Cat, Chris Packham, Clays of Bungay, comments, conservation, death, democracy, examinations, Frederick Rolfe, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, George Sandison, heart attacks, Kittie Calderon, NATO, Niccolo Machiavelli, page margins, printers, RSPB, Sam&Sam, short stories, Speak, Speckled Wood, Taganrog, The Edwardians, The Holocaust, The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment iin Biography, trimming, typesetting, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, W.G. Sebald, W.H. Hudson, Winterwatch | Leave a comment

From the diary of a writer-publisher: 16

Posted on January 6, 2022 by Patrick Miles

17 November 2021 Today at 9.54 a.m. I emailed my 408-line poem Making Icons to the excellent Long Poem Magazine, the only organ in Britain that publishes poems at least 75 lines long. The magazine appears twice a year and November … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Edwardian literature, Personal commentary | Tagged 'Making Icons', Academe, Adolf Hitler, Amazon, anti-Semitism, Anton Chekhov, Anton Chekhov: A Short Life, Aryan myth, BASEES Conference, biographies, butterflies, Cambridge Tales, Christmas, chrysanthemums, Congress for the History of Religions, cut flowers, Dreyfus Affair, ethnology, George Calderon, Ghoune/White Bow, holly, ivy, Japan, Jesus Christ, Jewish people, Long Poem Magazine, marketing, Nazis, Norman Cohn, Okhranka, Protocols of the Elders of Zion, religion, robins, Robinson College, Sam&Sam, spotted laurel, Tar-Baby, Twelfth Night, Warrant for Genocide, Yalta | 2 Comments

A year of promise

Posted on January 1, 2022 by Patrick Miles

A very happy new year to all Calderonia’s subscribers and viewers! Thank you for staying with us through 2021, which was our eighth calendar year, and I can promise you at least another year of posts from me and my … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged Anton Chekhov, Anton Chekhov: A Short Life, BASEES, biographies, British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies, Calderonia, comments, COVID-19, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Gleb Yakunin, Jim Miles, pandemics, promises, Robinson College, Sam&Sam, Sergei Bychkov, Spanish Flu, The Great War, World War I | 2 Comments

Guest post by Jim Miles: ‘DONG!’

Posted on December 15, 2021 by Jim D G Miles

The most striking aspect of Japan, right from the moment I arrived, was how different from the UK it wasn’t. People talk about culture shock and in particular how Japan ‘just does things differently’ (often with an almost-patronising ‘isn’t this … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged bells, Buddhist monks, Buddhist temples, Cambridge, Casillero del Diablo, Christmas, culture shock, England, etiquette, food, friendliness, Goto family, islands, James Miles, Japan, KFC, kindergarten, language teaching, New Year, population densities, Shōgatsu, Snickers, Toyohashi, traffic lights | 4 Comments

Sensei Pulvers’ miraculous year

Posted on December 1, 2021 by Patrick Miles

A friend of Jim’s in Japan brought Roger Pulvers and me together three years ago. The friend referred to Pulvers in the most natural way as ‘Sensei Pulvers’. And this is totally appropriate. Anyone whose children have attended karate classes … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged annus mirabilis, entanglement, EPR Effect, fly swats, George Calderon, haiku, If There Were No Japan, Japan, Japanese poetry, John Polkinghorne, Masaoka Shiki, Miyazawa Kenji, My Japan: A Cultural Memoir, Night on the Milky Way Train, Poems 2020, poetry in translation, Polish poetry, polymaths, quantum physics, Roger Pulvers, Russian poetry, sensei, Sergei Esenin, snails, The Dream of Lafcadio Hearn, The Unmaking of an American, Wholly Esenin | 1 Comment

‘These magnificent metal beasts’

Posted on November 15, 2021 by Patrick Miles

Sam2 gave me this book last Christmas and it’s been a source of endless delight ever since. At 8.5 x 12.0 inches and beautifully produced, it may seem like a coffee table book, but it is much more. I have … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged aesthetics, balance, cigarettes, cold drinks, comments, design, hot drinks, Japan, Japanese art, Japanese poetry, Japanese technology, machines, photographs, Sam2, semiotics, souvenirs, T-shirts, Tim Easley, Tokyo, vending machines | 3 Comments

Hayashi Fumiko’s nuclear winter

Posted on October 18, 2021 by Patrick Miles

Japan’s genocidal war crimes do not go away. They constantly feature in our media and I for one will never forget them, as my uncle died in Japanese captivity in 1945. A recent article in The Spectator was headed ‘Not … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary, Uncategorized | Tagged aerial bombing, atomic bomb, body language, bombing raids, cultural traditions, Days & Nights, emotions, Emperor Hirohito, feminism, foreign cultures, ghosts, Hayashi Fumiko, J.D. Wisgo, Japan, Japanese literature, poverty, reading groups, sex, short stories, strangeness, suicide, Tokyo, United States of America, women's writing, working class, World War 2 | 2 Comments

‘Deep North’…and far out?

Posted on October 1, 2021 by Patrick Miles

This was only the second ‘Japanese’ book that I ever read after The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse, and of course there was a connection: I won’t say that Bashō (1644-94) is my favourite Japanese haiku-writer, but he’s surely the … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged Bashō, boundary situations, civilisations, classic, collaboration, comments, dialogue, disciples, ethics, fatalism, George Calderon, haiku, hokka, Japan, Japanese literature, journeys, morality, Narrow Road to the Far North, Nobuyuki Yuasa, Penguin Book of Japanese Verse, Penguin Classics, Records of a Weather-exposed Skeleton, resignation, Roger Pulvers, shrines, sociability, symbols, Tahiti, taigan no kaji, travelogues, world classics, Zen Buddhism | Leave a comment

A new photograph of George Calderon

Posted on September 1, 2021 by Patrick Miles

Whilst sorting his family papers, Mr John Pym recently found the photograph below, which undoubtedly shows George Calderon on the right. It is a contact print of a photograph, obviously not in sharp focus, which Mr Pym and I believe … Continue reading →