‘Filling Station’ by Elizabeth Bishop (1965)

Oh, but it is dirty! —this little filling station, oil-soaked, oil-permeated to a disturbing, over-all black translucency. Be careful with that match! Father wears a dirty, oil-soaked monkey suit that cuts him under the arms, and several quick and saucy and greasy sons assist him (it’s a family filling station), all quite thoroughly dirty. Do they live in the station?…

Trump’s Hasty Withdrawal Leaves Defiled Paris Climate Agreement

After teasing and tormenting his fellow world leaders and pledging an announcement only sometime this week, finally on Thursday – in the White House Rose Garden, surrounded by anti-environmentalists for the sort of bathetic display which has come to characterise every administrative ‘success’ – Donald Trump confirmed that he is pulling the United States out of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement….

Monthly Horoscopes: June 2017

Aries (20 March – 19 April) More and more every day your partner is acting like an infant, and you wish to practise the art of swaddling, only wrapping up extra tight. * * * Taurus (19 April – 20 May) Mmm, Belgian pralines, île flottante, how utterly delicious, those macarons might be sheer divinity, but you’re at a time in your life…