I am amused by a coincidence which has, with the receipt of your last letter, come about. As you have probably guessed, if I didn’t mention it before, letter writing is one of my main creative interests at the moment, and I can guarantee to spend at least two hours every day following this hobby;…

I’ve been thinking about the idea of friendship for quite a while, spurred on by your comments about all your friends deserting you in a time of greatest need, and not just what it means for me, but also what it means for society. We all know and accept that society is changing, and so…

I am an old-fashioned letter writer, which is probably why all my first time letters to different people across the globe tend to surprise, tend to make the recipients stop and think for a while; this, at least is what I have been told by many who have answered. This strange style of writing, though,…

One of the hardest things a letter writer has to come to terms with is not so much how long it takes to receive a reply, or even how much time they spend writing themselves, but what to write about. The very core of a letter is information passed on in this one, simple manner…

I’m going to have to come right out and say it, no prevarication, no hedging, no dodging the truth: I have a cat. This is rather like one of those Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, or what we see in films: My name is Cedric and I am a cat owner; I have owned a cat for…

There are so many different aspects to creativity, so many avenues an artist can follow, so many individual styles and tastes, it is almost impossible to say whether one person is more creative than another, whether one work of art deserves a higher position in the public eye than another. We look at some of…

I was wandering through the various cyber-highways this evening and came across two items which fascinated me, partially because they are hidden away, and partially because they have a great deal to do with one of our shared interests. The chances are that I would have come across them anyway, regardless of whether I had…

One of the more interesting philosophical arguments Plato and his School were involved in was whether a newborn child was conscious of certain things at birth, whether it had intelligence or even knowledge. For some the idea that a child could know nothing of the world it had been born into was inconceivable: they believed…

I’ve heard it said that if you are not nervous before going on stage, if you do not feel butterflies in your stomach, your hands jitter and your voice shakes, you have not understood the power of performance, the pleasure of standing before others and creating, and whatever it is that you present will, as…

I cannot remember the first time that I received an unexplained and strange looking letter through the post, and by that I mean one which was clearly not of an official nature, a bill, reminder or anything from a government agency. I know that it has been many years since anyone has written to me…