Culture
A Potteries Idyll
This will be quite brief for a Sharpie article (I can almost hear the collective sighs of relief) but it acts as a bit of a paean to The Potteries, and one not only from [more…]
Literature
Animals
Larry’s Diary, Week Two Hundred And Seventy-One
Monday Good morning and welcome to another week of my ramblings. It’s rather wet this morning but still not cold. Legohead went off to Scottishland to speak to a half-empty hall of Scottishland Liebore supporters. [more…]
20th Century
Return To The Jernbanemysterium
A phrase lingers in the mind. In passing, Mr. DH — my colleague, a fellow Puffin to us all, and master of that mysterious gift known as the turn of phrase — once summed up [more…]
Fiction
A Price Too High, Chapter Thirteen
It would take almost five hours to drive into London, he decided to park at Hillingdon and take the tube the rest of the way. Hopefully he would be there whilst Jane Goodley was still [more…]
Arts
Always Worth Saying’s Question Time Review
Question Time 6th March 2025 The Panel: Bridget Phillipson (Labour) Harriett Baldwin (Conservative) Richard Tice (Reform UK) Adrian Ramsay (Green) Venue: Skipton This present situation reminds this humble reviewer of the end of the Cold [more…]
Arts
Jinnie’s Story, Book 8 – Chapter One
Dame Jinnie De Luca strolled across the departure hall at Heathrow Terminal 5, looking for the check-in desk for her BA flight to Montreal. She was flying to Ottawa to attend her first board meeting [more…]
20th Century
Lessons from Churchill
Many of you may well be familiar with this outstanding biography of Winston Spencer Churchill first published in 2018. Over 982 pages, and splendidly subtitled “Walking with Destiny”, the eminent historian Andrew Roberts manages to [more…]
America
A View (Some Miles Away) From The Greenhouse; The Art Of Diplomacy….Innit?
I’m sure that by now we’ve all seen at least the ten minute clip of the White House “spat” and I know I’m far from alone, at least in the august company of Going Postal [more…]
Book Review
Book review: Values, Voice and Virtue: the new British politics, by Matt Goodwin
Matthew James Goodwin is a political commentator and former academic, most recently Professor of Politics at the University of Kent which he left in the summer of 2024. Unlike most of his contemporaries, he reached [more…]