Arts
Another Perfect Weekend
I wrote recently about the perfect weekend I enjoyed with my son when he had to get up North to join the rest of his band to play at the 2017 Workington Festival. Writing it [more…]
England
Arts
Rosebud in June
Here’s a welcome to the busting-out-all-over month of June. As you know, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be. An ache for home according to the Greeks, and perfectly understandable if you were in your [more…]
Christianity
How to Save a Civilisation – the 10th Century Crisis
It’s very easy to be depressed and lose a sense of hope these days. Trump, lockdowns, climate scams, immigration and public finances out of control, race baiters trying to erase our history… The question arises: [more…]
Arts
Postcard From November, Part 5
Happy Birthday to Me My birthday is November 4th and as a child my main memory of it was always of my parents laying on a party for my friends who all turned up bearing [more…]
Arts
The Ugly Duckling County
When you think of the north of England, you think of fells and moors and hill farmers, of ruined abbeys and windswept Wolds, of gaunt mill chimneys, of terracing lurching crazily up bare hillsides, of [more…]
History
Mires, moats and manors
How could any true traveller ignore the lure of a name like Thorne Waste? It could be the title of a Brontë novel, or the kind of place the Hound of the Baskervilles was locked [more…]
History
Mancs, Marx and Mill Towns
More notes from 45 years of cycling If you are following this series, you will know that my kind of curiosity is one that is still making money, or at least providing a public service [more…]
History
Rail Trails
More notes from 45 years of cycling In its day, Tinsley Marshalling Yard in Sheffield was the world’s most advanced railway-wagon sorting centre. It specialised in computerised hump-shunting, which is not a fetish category on [more…]
History
Steeple-chasing
Whenever anybody says Britain has the best TV or the best health service in the world, I tend to bridle. I have seen a fair bit of TV overseas, and have found it much the [more…]