The Coalition Government of the UK has managed, in a few short days, to establish a brutal new Occam's Razor - 40% less of everything is better. First, we get a £55 billion school housing scheme scrapped - let them build schools! No more ID cards. MP seats are to be cut. Then, we get the Food Agency cut, the one that protects consumers from food corporations. And today, the NHS is being entirely resteeled, so that all the money goes to the doctors to distribute themselves. Oh, dear. What next? Indeed. The next five years will see a total redistribution of the resources, powers, and responsibilities of government and society. Thatcher said there was no such thing as Society. Cameron-Clegg are aiming to prove that. At least 40% of the time.
THAT HANDSOME MAN A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought. Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that
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