Philip Spires commonplace book

I have kept a commonplace book for many years. It's a place where scraps of impressions are filed for future reflection. It's not a diary, it's just a mental scrapbook, concentrating on book reviews, concert reviews, visual arts and some occasional pieces on travel. It is also a place where I occasionally reflect on what I write. Details of my books can be found at http://www.philipspires.co.uk

Monday, October 26, 2020

The Shores of the Adriatic – The Austrian Side – The Künstenland, Istria, and Dalmatia by F Hamilton Jackson 1908

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Interesting to read this account of a journey – not the author’s first to the area – while travelling through part of it. The writing make...

Tuesday, October 20, 2020

Costa Blanca Arts Update - Claudi Arimany plays Mozart Flute Quartets and Marco Tezza plays Schubert, Janacek and Schumann

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Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the middle of October, and Alfas del Pi has three concerts in the renewed cycle of La Sociedad de Conciertos ...

Monday, October 19, 2020

Theodoric the Goth: Barbarian Champion of Civilization by Thomas Hodgkin (1897)

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The fifth and sixth centuries of the Christian era are often listed as part of what we dismissively label as the “Dark Ages”. These times sa...

Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Orlando by Virginia Woolf

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Orlando by Virginia Woolf claims it is a biography. A young man, the eponymous Orlando, is in London in the sixteenth century. At the outset...

Sunday, October 11, 2020

Costa Blanca Arts Update - Suite Havana, paintings by Anthony Miró in Palau Altea

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Suite Havana is a newly inaugurated exhibition of paintings by Anthony Mir ó, h ung in Palau Altea on Spain ’ s Costa Blanca. It complements...

Thursday, October 8, 2020

Thought on The Golden Ass by Apuleius

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In her book Pompeii, Mary Beard counsels wisely, saying that no one can read confident, unequivocal significance into anything dug up in an ...

Monday, October 5, 2020

Hidden Agendas by John Pilger

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We consume journalistic opinions on contemporary events almost without realizing it, or perhaps we used to. We expect commentators to expr...

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About Me

philipspires: I was born in Wakefield and was brought up in Sharslton, a mining Village. I went to London University and then became a maths teacher, working initially as a volunteer teacher in Kenya. I spent sixteen years in London, in Balham and Islington. In 1992, I left Britain for Brunei and then Zayed University in Abu Dhabi. I currently live in La Nucia, near Benidorm in Spain. I am interested in the relationship between nature and nurture, birthright and experience. Themes of culture and identity and their relation to economic and social roles underpin my writing. What we are born into relates to what we become, but we are rarely in control. What others do, our interests and intellects and the way we choose to earn a living, all of these shape us into what we become. It may be that culture is the sum of all assumptions that others make on our behalf, whereas identity represents our reactions to them. I did a PhD on the effects of education in economic development in the Philippines. I was President of Alfas del Pi Music Society for twelve years.

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