Jim Lewis-Clarke

High hopes

The low tenor of ewes calling their lambs, a modest wind section of cuckoo and the busy notes of skylark ‘sans rigeur,’ provided the backing music to my daily moorland walk.

The delivery of The Spectator – and therefore my brother’s weekly ‘Low life’ column – had the same effect upon our mother as the receipt of another threatening letter from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, addressed to him: she winced like a salted snail.

Brotherly Love

Being the youngest of three by several years, thanks to our mother’s uncharacteristic love affair with the family GP, I was considered to be something of a golden child. “Darling James,” as one relative put it. I was teasingly reminded of this awful tag at family gatherings and Christmases ever-since.

Writing thoughts.

I’ve been wondering what I should write about. The general advice is always to ‘write about what you know.’

Policing, funny or factual has been written about everywhere -so that’s out.

Cancer has been done to death, if you’ll forgive the expression.

A Tribute To My Brother

Jeremy Clarke- a tribute.

By James Clarke

My big brother Jeremy, or ‘Jum’ as he is affectionately known by me and my sister, was the most voracious reader of books you’ll probably ever meet. He will be known to most of you as a writer- The Spectator’s Low Life columnist- but to me he was a reader. He had hundreds upon hundreds of books and had read them all at least twice.

A Tale of Two Churches

Lent is the holiest time for Christians and Palm Sunday leads up to the crucifixion of Christ Jesus and his resurrection, three days later.

Poem- The Activist’s Alphabet

The Activists Alphabet- a guide for the budding hypocrite..(Please don’t be offended)

Waiting for God(ot)- an existential crisis

As we sat in the morning traffic on a rare trip to Exeter, we noticed a man walking along the pavement.

A walk with God

The moor smelled of the heavy musk of horse manure blended with dry grass.

Summer Heat

We Brits are fickle about the weather.

We complain when it’s too cold, too windy, too wet or too hot. We complain especially when the country’s main weather provider, the Met Office, is unable to predict our changeable weather from one day to the next. I reserve special animus for this forecaster’s tactic of getting it all wrong, again, then updating their site on the day in a shameless attempt to pass it off as though they had known it all along.

Author: Jim Lewis-Clarke