Literature
Of war and war’s alarms
About this time for several decades past I set out to spend a month or so in Lapland. Lapland is a not well defined region that spans Norway to the north, a part of Sweden [more…]
Travelogue
Cycling
West Country Rides, Three
It takes a week to cycle from Penzance to Berwick. It took me 40 years. Because on the way, I wanted to include every town in England, in what amounted to some two years of [more…]
Cycling
West Country Rides, Two
It takes a week to cycle from Penzance to Berwick. It took me 40 years. Because on the way, I wanted to include every town in England, in what amounted to some two years of [more…]
Cycling
West Country Rides, One
It takes a week to cycle from Penzance to Berwick. It took me 40 years. Because on the way, I wanted to include every town in England, in what amounted to some two years of [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
Return To The Jernbanemysterium, Part Three
Let’s cut to the quick and get down to brass tacks. Or rather cut to a railway line on the icy wastes of central Norway and investigate a strange trackside anomaly only visible to sharp-eyed [more…]
20th Century
Return To The Jernbanemysterium, Part Two
Did we ever get to Lille? Those who know, know. Yes, we did, at about episode 70 of this humble racenteur’s hitty-missy Postcard of the same name that was once a staple of Saturday evening [more…]
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…]
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…]