2018 is likely to be considered a year that many people would soon like to forget. It had its fair share of war, murder, famine, refugees being mistreated or ignored, stupid polluting, cruelty and political ineptitude. Historically, the Western powers, especially the United Kingdom and the United States, have not been this weak since the 1930s, or in as much disarray. 2018 saw many notable and world-changing deaths and many not noted, not least the deaths of those lost at sea, or killed while reporting (every death is the end of the world, as Derrida once said) - mention here is due, at least, to those figures who touched my life in some small way (usually only with their works or words): Morgan Tsvangirai, Aretha Franklin and Stan Lee, William Goldman, Pete Shelley and Philip Roth, Margot Kidder and R Lee Ermey, Sir Roger Bannister and Stephen Hawking, Jenny Joseph and Reg E Cathey, Emma Chambers and Billy Graham, Johann Johannsson (whose Sicario score is an ominous masterwork)
POETRY, POLITICS, PROVOCATION AND POPULAR CULTURE SINCE 2005 - 19 YEARS AND over 7 million visits - British Library-archived