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WHITTLING OUR NICHE

Some years ago I wrote a poem - Whittling our Niche - which attempted to explore the concept of our singular, but miniscule existence on this Mother Earth. Seen through a galactic microscope, each of us has a unique mountain to climb, a discrete rock-wall to scale, on our track from cot to coffin. This portfolio of stories and poems, photographs and sketches, along with comments on contemporary issues, is a reflection of my own minute presence on our eternal globe.

Reading for me is not a hobby, it's a way of discovering how others have scaled their rock-walls ... fact or fiction. And so to writing: the other side of the yin and yang. To paraphrase Christopher Hitchens 'If I had known I was going to read so much, I would have done more writing to match'. Now I begin to even up the kaleidoscope.

I hope this site can inspire others to do the same.

Duncan Gregory

14th April 2024

AI CONSOLIDATES A WORLD OF EXCESS

“Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz? The throaty tones of Janice Joplin rang out loud and clear, lamenting her plight in the materialistic world of ‘60s America. Joplin died in a sea of drugs and alcohol, soon after recording the Mercedes prayer for posterity. ln truth, the song was a wild cry for help, against the excesses of those times.

4th October 2023

DIGITAL NOMAD

My daughter is a ‘digital nomad’! When I first heard this, I imagined her plodding across the desert with a laptop perched on the hump of the lead camel, guiding the caravan to the next oasis. She had enjoyed Kenya on a couple of visits, at one stage spending a day in a Samburu manyatta, but this was taking things a bit too far.

Emma’s View

Emma was born six weeks premature on 31st December 2019. By the time she’d reached her due-by-date in February 2020 the corona virus was rampant. She witnessed a world in turmoil; some places handled things better than others. She also noted that a focus on the pandemic meant other issues, such as climate change, were neglected. .... (read more)

12th October 2022

TRUMP’S BOXES

Well, not exactly his boxes; that’s the crux of the issue: that the FBI and DoJ claim their contents - particularly the secret bits - belong to the nation’s federal government, and not any one person, not even an ex-president, can claim them. .... (read more)

CHICKEN RICE IN TAIPING

Half the fun of travelling to faraway places and intermixing with different cultures is to be found in the simple - but most essential – daily task of eating and drinking. We think all the answers are at home … until we go abroad. Often, as well as new foods that unlock new taste buds, it’s the setting around those foods that provides extra divergence from our norms. .... (read more)

IN UMBRIA WITH THE BELGIAN LADIES

Dad! Dad! Look dad, there’s the Belgian Ladies.” My younger daughter yelled excitedly from the back seat, pointing ahead to two silhouettes on the side of the road. “You’d better stop to pick them up. It’s a long walk to Spoleto. “Yeah, please dad,” the older one chimed in. “we love the Belgian Ladies.”

21st November 2021

EQUITY IS PERHAPS THE MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENT

Sustainable change is a broad church - not always about discarding charcoal and growing trees - it comes in a thousand and one shapes and sizes: people for example. One of the most challenging issues of this 21 st Century is just how we relate to each other; how haves relate to have-nots, historied citizens to traumatized migrants, rich to poor. ..... (read more)