21st Century
Teargassing a Baddie
September, 2024 The log had fallen from my eye. It was time to come from behind the screen and take action. If you were to ask 16-year-old me whether a day would come when I’d [more…]
History
20th Century
European Journey 1953, Part Five – Vienna
Where a smile masks a city’s sorrow This a Tale from the Vienna Woods. A Tale told on a spring morning when, from the white cafe tables perched high on the Kahlenberg, the Danube really [more…]
20th Century
Postcard From Birmingham, Part Five
There are two schools of thought, volunteer for everything, never volunteer for anything. I knew a chap sent to the South Atlantic. At Mount Pleasant airfield in what the Guinness Book of Records describes as [more…]
History
The Birth of the Angry Young Man
In 1956 the play Look Back in Anger was first staged in Britain. Written by John Osborne, it was the story of Jimmy Porter – who came to symbolise a new force in postwar Britain – the [more…]
History
Postcard from Saint Nicholas
Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat, Keir Starmer is stealing pennies from the old man’s hat, and we continue our journey around the Isles of Scilly. Tresco was once called St Nicholas, or [more…]
21st Century
Debt and the Gen Z protests
31 August, 2024 A generation after the 1980s debt crisis triggered the rebirth of democracy on the continent, will Kenya’s youthful idealists spark a pan-African revolt? The protests in Kenya mark a turning point [more…]
Culture
A View From The Greenhouse; Edizeone Apulia (Prima Parte)
And so to Italy, but not before making sure the Buildings and Maintenance team had been fully drilled in the routines required to ensure I didn’t return to any kind of disaster. I needn’t have [more…]
20th Century
The Battle of Arnhem
Having parachuted nine miles to the west of ARNHEM during the early afternoon of 17th September 1944 2nd Parachute Battalion, reinforced by elements from the 1st Parachute Brigade reached the road bridge at dusk. In [more…]
20th Century
European Journey 1953, Part Four – Berlin
When my friend Alfred Friedel comes off duty it’s usually somewhere around one o’clock in the morning. For Alfred is a newspaperman. And morning newspapermen the world over live like owls. Take a good look [more…]