History
No Country for Old White Men
I suspect many of us here will have seen the image of a young woman being hoisted on a fellow’s shoulders and gleefully bearing a banning which stated that “THIS IS NOT A COUNTRY FOR [more…]
Articles by Roger Ackroyd
History
Stand in the Trench, Achilles*
Most of us, if asked, would be able to name a fair number of WW1 poets and writers without too much hesitation. Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Edmund Blunden, Robert Graves, Rupert Brooke, Isaac Rosenberg – [more…]
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The Strange Death of Jack Moeran
Kenmare Pier, Co.Kerry Just after 4 p.m. on December 1st 1950 a single figure was seen walking down the length of Kenmare Pier in Co.Kerry, southern Ireland. It was already getting quite dark and the [more…]
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Uncle Bertie, Part One
It had been several weeks since I had visited my Uncle Bertie and as I walked down the driveway towards the substantial gothic edifice which loomed out from behind the fir trees bordering the front [more…]
Communism
Travel
Postcard from Devon
Roger Ackroyd © Buy ‘A Coin for the Hangman’, Ralph Spurrier (Roger Ackroyd)
Literature
Stories from the Shelf, Volume One
Browsing secondhand bookshop shelves has been one of life’s delights, from the time I was barely in my teens and visiting the Croydon Bookshop in the Old Town (now long demolished to accommodate the flyover) [more…]
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It Passeth All Understanding
In the early morning of a warm August day The Sir Winston Churchill, a 300 ton fore and aft schooner, slipped its moorings in Falmouth harbour and headed out into the straits preparatory to the [more…]
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No Shit, Sherlock
Sherlock Holmes. The greatest fictional detective ever created and despite other later iconic creations that have graced the cinema and television screens – Maigret, Poirot, Morse – he will remain forever at the very pinnacle [more…]
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The This Red Line
A fellow poster suggested that I should write a piece about the art of…er…writing since it has become, rather later in life than I would have liked, my profession. Flattering as this suggestion is – [more…]
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Little Englanders
Please excuse the headline, fellow GP readers. I do not deliberately exclude any from the other three dominions that make up Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is used here as a perfect example of [more…]
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“A Sort Of Stinking Delequescent Saccharine”
In Ezra Pound’s early poem of rhyming couplets, “L’Homme Moyen Sensuel” (1916) he takes a pop at the crassness, as he saw it, of American culture: The constitution of our land, O Socrates Was made [more…]
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Jeer and flout the Devil, for he cannot bear scorn
Deep below the Palace of Westminster, that seat of British democracy designed by Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin – the latter soon afterwards to be housed in Bedlam where he was to die – [more…]
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Make ‘em laugh (Part the second)
Gentle reader; you may recall my first foray under this heading in which I promised a second rumination on the British cartoonists of the 20th century. I have been somewhat lax in following up this [more…]
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Make ’em laugh
Donald O’Connor The study of history can be very tricky. You want to read the history of the First World War? Well, there’s Conan Doyle’s mammoth six volume work or Douglas Haig’s sumptuously produced two [more…]
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“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you” Friedrich Nietzsche
My profession is writing. I am sure seasoned visitors to this site will know this from my previous offerings but my real (and occasionally paid) profession is indeed writing. Apart from commentary and critiques I [more…]
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After the Battle
Noel Benson, 19, fresh out of school and like most young men of his type, was pretty keen to get in the driver’s seat of his machine and see what it could do. It had [more…]
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Out of the Box
There is a cartoon in the History of Underground Comics (1974) which I wish I could head up this piece today. Unfortunately my copy of this large format book fell apart some years ago and [more…]