20th Century
Wendyball – flair or organisation
Back in the good old days, say the 60s and 70s, the top team in world football was arguably Brasil. You were only allowed to play for the national team if you plied your trade [more…]
Blog
Arts
How Good it Was – End of Season Football Trips – The Weekend
Once we were all safely checked into the motel it was time to get ready for the evening’s activities. A digression here on the two main destinations: Port Stephens is about 150 miles north of [more…]
Labour
Starmer’s Resignation
I watched unloved Starmer’s self pitying tearful resignation speech outside Number Ten & was struck by one sentence in which he referred to Britain as ‘the Country I love’. I was dumbstruck. The reason he [more…]
Arts
A Trip to the Summer Exhibition
London is still our capital with a wealth of artistic and architectural gems to explore so I like to visit a few times a year. So.. Mr A and I went to town on the [more…]
Politics
YooKay2026…… A State broken by Corruption (Part 4)
The revolving door describes one route through the system. There is another. Between 2013 and 2023, 68 of the 284 peers nominated by party leaders were political donors, giving a combined £58 million. Fifteen of sixteen [more…]
Engineering
Daniel Gooch: the Northumbrian who shrank the Atlantic
At 21 he was building the locomotives for Brunel’s Great Western Railway. Then he took Brunel’s Great Eastern and used it to lay the first lasting telegraph cable across the Atlantic. This is the man [more…]
Labour
Gentle Fracking
On Thursday the 9th my ears nearly fell off and it was nothing to do with nominations for the Labour leadership opening. It was because a bitcoin mining company in North Yorkshire is going to [more…]
Politics
The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor — IMEC (Part 1)
It is being called one of the largest and most ambitious infrastructure projects in modern history. The Donald called it ‘one of the greatest trade routes in all of history.’ But IMEC is not just [more…]
Animals
Larry’s Diary, Week Three Hundred And Thirty-Two
Monday Good morning, my happy readers, the cat is back. It’s been an eventful few weeks while my scribe has been stuffing his face on a cruise. When I last wrote a column, Mascara Man [more…]