Hobbies
Crossword No. 228
First correct entry out of ‘the hat’ wins a book of your choice (subject to T&Cs) Email entries to me by 6.00 pm Friday, subject ‘Crossword’. Contact here on email Winner of Crossword 227 and [more…]
Books
19th Century
Review: 120 Days of Sodom by The Marquis De Sade
Just as an 18th century Président may stalk provincial France looking for innocents to corrupt, so bots chew their way through blogs looking for relevant wares to advertise. We must proceed with caution. On these [more…]
Literature
Maintaining the status quo – the condemnation of the conspirational
Man’s most valuable trait is a judicious sense of what not to believe. Euripdes OK, I admit it. I am a conspiracy theorist. Or more accurately, a conspiracy realist. The synonyms for theorist include logician, [more…]
Book Review
New Grub Street by George Gissing: A Review
Russell Kirk the philosopher, compared George Gissing’s The Nether World to a literal Hell on earth. It was “the culmination of our social revolutions” which would make life more torturous. For New Grub Street, Kirk’s [more…]
Book Review
Castles in the air: the restoration adventures of two young optimists and a crumbling old mansion by Judy Corbett
Bit of a different style of review this time. I know there are a few who enjoy a spooky story on GP, as do I – especially when it’s one apparently based in reality. So [more…]
Book Review
Stories from the Shelf, Volume One
Browsing secondhand bookshop shelves has been one of life’s delights, from the time I was barely in my teens and visiting the Croydon Bookshop in the Old Town (now long demolished to accommodate the flyover) [more…]
Book Review
Ancestors: A prehistory of Britain in seven burials, by Alice Roberts
One of my favourite tv moments was when we saw Alice Roberts approach an eminent palaeontologist on site. He dropped what he was doing. ‘Hello, Alice’ he said warmly, walking towards the camera, extending her [more…]
21st Century
The future of UK Politics and the Rise of Islam
In 1997 Tony Bliar opened the floodgates to uncontrolled migration, then deliberately shut down debate and discussion, as anyone who mentioned anything about it was called a racist. The conclusion I reached was that by [more…]
Arts
The Dark Side of the Moon, by John Harris
This is a book which shouldn’t work – yet it kind of does. An in-depth look at one particular album from one particular band would, on the face of it, seem too niche to have [more…]