Campbell Kitts Blog

Oscar Wilde, the renowned Irish playwright, faced a series of legal battles in 1895, culminating in his conviction for "gross indecency" under the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885. Wilde initiated a libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry, who accused him of sodomy. The libel case collapsed when evidence of Wilde’s relationships with men was presented, leading to his arrest and subsequent trials. He was convicted and sentenced to two years of hard labor.  Wilde’s public image as a celebrated literary figure was destroyed. The trials exposed his private life to intense public scrutiny, with newspapers like The Times and The Daily Telegraph publishing lurid details. He was vilified as a moral degenerate, shunned by society, and his works were boycotted. The imprisonment at Reading Gaol was physically and mentally gruelling. Wilde’s health deteriorated due to harsh conditions, including malnutrition and illness. While explicit self-harm is not documented, his letters,...

Imagine a forest where the animals gather under the shade of an ancient oak, their voices rising in a cacophony of complaints. Among them is a frog, small and unassuming, who croaks loudly about the lack of order in their watery home.  The Frogs Who Desired a King, these amphibians, tired of their anarchic existence, petition Zeus for a ruler. Amused, Zeus tosses a log into their pond, declaring it their king. At first, the frogs are awestruck, but soon they climb atop the motionless timber, mocking its stillness. Dissatisfied, they demand a livelier monarch. Zeus, now irritated, sends a stork instead—a predator who promptly begins devouring them.  The moral:  as Aesop frames it, be careful what you wish for when disrupting the natural order. But beneath this simple tale lies a deeper question: Were the frogs mad to seek a king, or was their madness a sane response to chaos? This fable introduces us to the paradox of the "sanity of madness"—the idea that what appears irra...

In 2021 I went to dinner with a mixed couple. We chose a Caribbean restaurant in Brixton, South East London. During one of the conversations I had to describe where we lived. In Gravesend. We described Gravesend as “white trash”. I noticed the expression on their face, it looked like they just swallowed turtle poop or something similar. I have had numerous occasions where I have described something I’ve done or experienced and people have had the turtle poop reaction. But why? I grew up with white Italian middle class foster parents. I went skiing in the winter and beach in the summer. We had a German shepherd as guard dog in a colonial 3 floor house with a basketball court. I’m saying this to make the point, that I’ve seen what middle class looks and feels like. The other side of the coin was that we’d go camping, do charity at the local Catholic Church where my foster parents were personally involved, we recited 50 Ave Maria’s every May for a week, and I remember we housed a family o...