Labour
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Four men are in custody. £44 million is missing. And the woman who oversaw it all just got promoted to Energy Secretary. This is not politics. This is not incompetence. This is institutional decay wearing [more…]
Month: August 2026
18th Century
Nicholas Wood: The man who wrote the book on railways
He taught Robert Stephenson his trade, judged the Rainhill Trials, and wrote the first proper book on railways, the one that engineers across the world actually used. Not all of us can be gallivanting around [more…]
America
Ordo ab Chao
Ordo ab Chao, the motto of the 33rd degree of Freemasonry, is the art of bringing order from chaos. The connection will become clear pretty soon in the article. Of course if the Hackney Abacus [more…]
Animals
Larry’s Diary, Week Three Hundred And Thirty-Six
Monday Good morning, my happy readers, and welcome to another week of “stuff” from your intrepid cat reporter. The sun was back to being rather warm again this morning, and I hear another heatwave is [more…]
Going Postal
Marking Your Homework
Rules Pay attention, Puffins! Your last homework entries were excellent — well done. Now it’s time for the next challenge. Before you put pen to paper (or rather fingers to keyboard), here’s a reminder of [more…]
Fiction
Bombs and Betrayal, Chapter Twelve
Simon Pegson was dressed in grey prison clothing, he was around fifty, had once been fit, possibly a rugby player, but a lot of the muscle had now turned to fat. Jane stood away from [more…]
Arts
Fabulously Flamboyant Fridays – A Nice Firm Bottom Pt.3
Welcome back my friends, to the flamboyance that never ends, as Fabulously Flamboyant Friday delivers yet another light-loafered, groin-polished, googly from the gasworks-end pavilion of musical magnificence. Tonight, dear reader, as we respectfully mark International [more…]
Communism
Postcard From Jerry
Jerry Westerby? Yes, Jerry Westerby. The Honourable Clive Gerald Westerby to the likes of you and me, but Jerry to his chums in the secret world and to his readers at the rag, especially those [more…]
Arts
Manouche – Part One
Ernesto sang a beautiful haunting rhumba from his native Brazil, and then Chocote took the guitar to accompany Memé’s singing. Chocote’s big labourer’s fingers were transformed as they danced nimbly around the chords, his other [more…]