Tag: Philip Larkin
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The iron crab
Sean VarnerBaltimore, Maryland, United States You only live twice:Once when you are bornAnd once when you look death in the face.— Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice In 1955 the thriller writer Ian Fleming traveled to Istanbul for an Interpol conference, which at first he found “spectacularly dull.”1 This was to change dramatically on the…
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The professor and the playwright on what it means to care
Fergus ShanahanWilton, Cork, Ireland Illness words are seldom simple. They can hurt or heal in different contexts or change their meaning over time. Nor are they always understood the same way by patients and doctors. Borrowing from Philip Larkin, it is “difficult to find words at once true and kind, or not untrue and not…