Arts
Postcard from Lille, Part 13
Over chai in the subcontinent, balut in the tropics or roast swan in an Oxbridge refectory the topic of conversation might turn to ‘given the chance, would you kill baby Hitler?’ In Latin this would [more…]
Culture
Arts
Winnie The Pooh and the Brexit Delivery Group
“So,” said Pooh, scanning the assembled animals who had joined his Brexit Delivery Group under the misapprehension that there would be free biscuits and tea, “Following the Downing Street Coup, we have been given the [more…]
Arts
Euthanasia Machine
It all started innocently enough with my dad. Namely, with a botched Chinese take away for his 79th anniversary. He got so badly over it he had to go to hospital and had to stay [more…]
Arts
Postcard from Lille, Part 12
I had an uncle who was an excellent chap from a very proud, hardworking but rather modest background. He’s the one who was on the railway (a reserved profession) during the war but managed to [more…]
Arts
Postcard from Lille, Part 11
You may wonder, dear reader, after ten episodes and a prologue, where all this is leading. It certainly doesn’t seem to be leading to Lille. Bear with me. You’ll recall that, for obvious reasons, the [more…]
Arts
Postcard from Lille, Part 10
Previously I mentioned my ‘backs and forwards’ between the north of England across the Atlantic to North America. You may recall the ‘drink the air fare’ mile high club. These happened between the Pan Am [more…]
Arts
Inside the Neolithic Mind
This is a rather niche book, but I know there are (at least) a few Puffins keen on archaeology, so I thought it might be of interest. It explores, as the subtitle says, ‘consciousness, cosmos [more…]
Arts
Placard-waving and Marching to Exit
The undoing of Brexit has been incremental so that it has been difficult to pin down any one point at which to say “Stop!” We may be reaching the end of this Brexit saga to [more…]
Arts
Postcard from Lille, Part 9
On a previous trip across the English Channel many years ago, I was returning to England via Calais to Dover on the ferry as a foot passenger. I was sat on deck minding my own [more…]