20th Century
The History of Pop Music – 1985
Featured song: David Bowie & Mick Jagger – Dancing In The Street This is a series of articles looking at pop music from 1955 when in my opinion proper pop music began up to 1999 [more…]
21st Century
20th Century
Always Worth Saying’s Railway Review
One tires of the streetcars of Paramaribo, the mineral railways of the Amazon, and even of rural Albania in the 1980s. Railway Review’s roving reportage shall change continents and seek excitement (but not too much) [more…]
21st Century
Big Boys’ Rules
In yet another BBC documentary on the subject, a Panorama edition entitled Special Forces: I Saw War Crimes dropped on 12th May and investigated serious allegations against UK Special Forces, in particular the SAS and [more…]
21st Century
Warfare – Snake style
Puffins that have their ears to the ground (or is it ears to the clouds?) will no doubt be aware of the excellent series of lectures by David Betz which very convincingly argues that we [more…]
20th Century
Beautiful Kashmir
Never travel to a country that’s a funny colour on the map, or worse still, described by different coloured diagonal lines. Disputed territory is not only the cartographer’s nightmare, but also that of the traveller. [more…]
20th Century
Always Worth Saying’s Railway Review
How I miss Question Time. One hankers after £30,000-an-hour Fiona Bruce pontificating on inequality before a representative audience of progressive liberals who have a relative at the BBC. As our £110,000-a-year elected representatives take a [more…]
21st Century
Always Worth Saying’s Easter Railway Review
Last week’s trip to Albania being too mainstream, this edition of Railway Review (how I yearn for the return of Question Time!) was going to be of an obscure South American mineral line. Observing the [more…]
21st Century
Always Worth Saying’s Railway Review
Boy, how I miss Question Time. The witty repartee, the razor-sharp cut and thrust of debate. George the Poet. The £22 billion black hole. Foodbanks, the statutory tranny, and the obese woman with the purple [more…]
20th Century
Lands At Stake
A conversation that stuck An old conversation sticks in my mind. A decade or so later, through the synergy of passing time and the illumination provided by events, one plus one becomes three. On the [more…]