Category Archives: Language

Dark Angels on Writing

Over the years I’ve come to believe that people are sometimes drawn to Dark Angels courses in answer to an unspoken, perhaps even unacknowledged, need. They may not know it but at the moment they hear about our programme there … Continue reading

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Hawks and angels

Nestled into steep woods on the slopes of a Cotswold valley stands a manor house built of stone the colour of pale honey. It has tall chimneys and gothic windows and a walled garden full of vegetables and fruit trees … Continue reading

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Ends of the earth

In summer 2003 I was invited to chair an event at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. The book in question was by a writer I knew and admired but had never met. The event was sponsored by a small Edinburgh … Continue reading

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The shortest distance

Last week I took part in the process of interviewing for a new manager for my mother’s care home. I was one of a panel of two relatives and two residents who met the candidates for an informal chat, before … Continue reading

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Tread softly

This story is just one of a trillion reasons why Tim Berners-Lee deserves to stand alongside William Caxton and James Watt in the history of human connectivity. A little over five years ago, on 9 March 2011, an email arrived … Continue reading

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Dark matter

I’ve been doing some pre-Christmas stock-taking. It’s not an inventory of goods, though the stock in question is certainly good, but of assets of a less tangible kind: the writing generated on Dark Angels courses throughout the year, which I … Continue reading

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Leaderology

Leadership. It’s a topic that exercises people in airless seminar rooms without number, up and down the country, every day of the week. Yet in its elevation to the status of a ‘-ship’ it becomes so far removed from the … Continue reading

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Shuffling in backwards

Several years ago, 26, the writers’ collective I’ve often mentioned here, ran its first big public creative project. 26 Letters, as it was called – appropriately, since the title of the collective is a reference to the DNA of the … Continue reading

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Keeping faith

There’s always much activity in the first couple of days after a course. As well as the usual admin, there’s the electronic bustle of people sharing photos, expressing appreciation, acknowledging achievements and cementing new friendships. This year has been no … Continue reading

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Temple of Learning

Today I’m en route for Aracena, an hour north of Seville, and our tenth successive year running the Dark Angels advanced course. We’ve grown to love the sprawling red-roofed finca in the mountains, the early sun burning off the mist … Continue reading

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