Politics
The Falklands War – 40 years on
It’s difficult for me to believe the Falklands War took place over forty years ago In April 1981 I was a 30 year old captain in Specialist Forces reserve, at the training school in Grantham [more…]
Margaret Thatcher
Arts
Happy Margaret Thatcher Day!
My dear old boy – Delighted to say we are back at last. Safe and sound in dear old Blighty after a perfectly hideous 16000 mile round trip to the arse end of the world [more…]
20th Century
Postcard From Birmingham, Part Four
Earlier this year, as my wife and I passed Birmingham’s Town Hall during our day trip from the North, we hummed Mendelssohn’s Elijah which debuted in the city’s triennial music festival of 1846. At that [more…]
Politics
Forty Years On
Forty Years On is the name of a play by Alan Bennett based on the title to the Harrow School Song. This year is forty years since the start of the Great Miners’ Strike and [more…]
Conservatives
The Milk Snatcher
Many puffins seem to be big fans of Margaret Thatcher. I have to agree that she was the best Prime Minister since WW2 and was very patriotic. So good was she that all subsequent ones [more…]
20th Century
Conservatives
“Conservative” government?……if only!
The Conservative government has strayed so far from the principles on which it was elected that it is scarcely recognisable as the party most people voted for. Its colour on the political spectrum has undergone [more…]
Arts
The Swaling, Part Fifty Five
Myself and my colleague Natasha Williams are at our department’s private election night party at a packed and noisy Dolphin Square bistro. In the early hours of the tenth of June nineteen eighty-three, a colour [more…]
Authoritarianism
Hong Kong Protests – the Prequel
The recent ‘Hong Kong Protests’ piece attracted several comments and questions, but notably ‘Why now?’ and ‘What started this?’ So here is ‘Hong Kong Protests – the Prequel’. A long time ago, during the premiership [more…]