Fiction
Bombs and Betrayal, Chapter Five
Back in the office Sally was smiling. “I’ve found him, but Valerie is struggling, when you have had a coffee, can you sit with her.” “Who is he?” “Stephen Williams, aged twenty seven, I have [more…]
Blog
20th Century
A History of Pop Music – Albums 1964
Featured Album: In Dreams This is a series of articles looking at albums from 1960 to whatever year we end up in. I will select a featured album for each year and the link for [more…]
Democracy
Always Worth Saying’s By-election Review
The Puffin is a well-travelled bird gracing a wide variety of habitats. Rural France, various parts of Spain, the New World, the Debatable Lands, territories where the leopard runs free, Norn Iron, the Philippine Islands, [more…]
America
The Eternal Triangle
Sit yourselves down, Puffins, pour yourself a large one, & harken to the sorry tale of a chorus girl, the son of a US railroad robber baron, and the murdered architect Stanford White, in a [more…]
Conservatives
Labour’s bad boys – Part 16 Mike Amesbury
There have been instances of MPs getting a bit punchy after over indulging in the in-house bars in the House of Shame. This has largely been fisticuffs between MPs themselves. However, in what may be [more…]
20th Century
When We Was Fab – The Sydney Cricket Ground in the 1980s
40 or 50 years ago the SCG was probably the best place in the world to watch cricket. Sure Lord’s was more dignified and places like the MCG and Eden Gardens were bigger but this [more…]
Culture
Personal Situational Awareness
Anyone who’s ever taken a moment to watch animals in the wild – birds in particular, can’t fail to have noticed they are constantly on the lookout for danger and predators, and are always primed [more…]
Politics
YooKay2026…… A State broken by Corruption (Part 1)
When a bank flags a transaction as suspicious, it is not usually because someone has confessed to a crime. It is because the numbers do not make sense. A property sells for three times its [more…]
19th Century
Timothy Hackworth: The Third Northumbrian of the Railway Revolution
Born in the same village as George Stephenson, 5 years earlier. The man who saved the Stockton and Darlington when the engines kept breaking down. The man who built Russia’s first locomotive… and then vanished [more…]