Today’s passions of the moment

The Close at Chadminster by STEVE DUFFY

“‘Time seems to pass at a slower, less frantic rate in such places, don’t you find?’”

A discussion at Christmas by house guests, about the best Cathedral architecture (my own favourite cathedral is Ely), leads to a story from a Professor whom they had almost forgotten was there, a story of his time at the eponymous Minster, beautifully described with churchy details, and of his own foolhardy and often literal unearthing of a story of conspiracy, murdered Jews and a single boy’s death, while helping with the construction of a memorial to the recent war dead to replace the existing triptych et al to the single dead one in that legend. The frisson I received — with the shifting figures and the conundrum of footsteps in the snow, or not, as well as dozy or arthritic clerics, and the storyteller’s own instinctive catalytic power for wrongs to be righted — was a frisson just as strong, or even stronger, than any frisson gifted to me by the best of M.R. James. Seriously.

“‘It were black, and crooked, and it moved too fast,’…”

Full context of above: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2021/06/30/the-night-comes-steve-duffy/#comment-22392

Should be taught in schools and universities, I say!
Just one example from today…

DOUBLE VISION by Charles Wilkinson
From the head Blake,
To the rough awakening with a hangover to
The second sight,
This is just another example why this poet is fast becoming the favourite poet of me and my wife.
Double vision, indeed.
A writer we can share, as weird stories are not our combined thing.

Full context of above: https://dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2021/05/08/the-glaziers-choice-charles-wilkinson/