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…]
Joe Slater
History
Mires, moats and manors
More notes from 45 years of cycling 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 [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…]
History
Still in business, after all these years
I don’t know how fast you can cycle from Land’s End to Berwick. I dare say there will be a few people who have done it in two or three days, or even 24 hours. [more…]
Christianity
Korea, Suwon, Part 3
Attending a Korean Mega-Service Towards the end of my stay in South Korea in 2017, I attended one of the mega-services Korean churches specialise in. It was a meeting of the Baptist Church, which, the [more…]
Christianity
Korea, Suwon, Part 2
Christianity in Korea—Just Why? The Catholics formed the vanguard of Christianity’s march into East Asia. They first arrived in Korea in the late 1700s, and met with the same hostile reception as they had in [more…]
Hobbies
Korea, Suwon, Part 1
Samsung City Suwon is a city of about a million people, about an hour south of central Seoul by train. I suppose you could call it a scaled-up Korean version of Guildford, on the edge [more…]