nothing in the rulebook

A collective of creatives bound by a single motto: There's nothing in the rulebook that says a giraffe can't play football!

recent posts

about

Category: Professor Wu’s Rulebook

  • 7 Brilliant pieces of literature you can read for free on your lunch break

    In 1930, the great economist John Maynard Keynes predicted the working week would be drastically cut – to perhaps 15 hours a week, with people choosing to pursue leisure as their material needs were satisfied. Yet despite rising living standards, we are working longer hours than ever before. As the post-war compromise between big business…

  • The wit of the bard: 100 of Shakespeare’s greatest insults

    With recent news that a new copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio has been discovered on a Scottish island, we’ve been thinking of ways to celebrate the works of the bard. With his 400th Anniversary fast approaching (fortunately you only have to remember one date for both his birth and his death – 23rd April), we…

  • David Foster Wallace: the teacher’s spiel

    By now, David Foster Wallace has acquired a quasi-mythical status among followers of both literature and pop-culture. That there has recently been a film made about him, The End of the Tour, starring Jason Segal, has only fuelled the fascination and discussion that follows the late writer around. He is certainly no longer seen as…

  • Well blow little ducks: 12 bizarre idioms, what they mean and where they come from

    Well the carrots are cooked! We hope you’re ready to start swallowing grass snakes, because we’ve got some of the most bizarre idioms – along with some information about their origins and meanings – for you to get excited about. It’s time to pay the duck (unless an elephant has stomped on your ear, of…

  • Turning ideas into reality: the four stages of creativity

    One of the defining features of humanity is our ability to create; and to turn flashes of inspiration and new ideas into solid creative constructions: be they works of art; photography; writing; film; dance or any other one of the forms through which creativity can be channelled. Yet just as creativity is an intrinsic part…

  • How we read: Theodore Roosevelt’s rules for reading

    Some of the greatest thinkers in human history have long pondered the power of books. Aristotle found that reading surpassed “all stupendous inventions”, while the great author and critic E.B. White suggested books could produce “a sort of ecstasy”. Not only have these great minds tried to give a reason to why we read; they…

  • Writing and psychology: the key to writing a great story

    Books and literature are entwined with human culture. Reading brings with it a touch of magic, saves us time, and turns us into citizens of the world. But when it comes to literature, we tend to think only of those books that we have enjoyed, or those we know have sold well, or those that…

  • 10 Writing Rules from Zadie Smith

    Writing, and advice for writers on how to write, is the topic of so many internet articles and forums. There can, at times, be a feeling that writers spend more time talking about writing and how to do it than they spend actually, well, writing. Yet of course there’s a balancing act between ‘going at…

  • Poets on poetry – poems for the soul

    The importance of poetry, and the innate, natural beauty of it has been acclaimed for generations. JFK wrote that poetry was “the means of saving power from itself, for when power leads man towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness…

  • Bad Sex In Fiction Awards: The Connoisseur’s Compendium

    Spasming muscles, groans, whispers, licked ears, sweat, bucking, otherwise central zones: if you hear those terms, you know you can be only be reading about one thing: the Bad Sex in Fiction Award, a prize established 25 years ago by the Literary Review. Each year since 1993, the Bad Sex in Fiction Award has honoured…