Hobbies
Cruising From Malta, Part One
I won’t bother taking you through all the preliminaries for this cruise except to say this time I choose to fly to Malta to pick up the cruise ship, P&O Azura. It cuts out a [more…]
Travel
Arts
Postcard From Edinburgh Castle
Mrs AWS and I are enjoying our day trip to Edinburgh. Although we’re used to exploring Princes Street, this time we are swept in a crowd of alighting passengers at Edinburgh’s Waverley station in the [more…]
20th Century
American Journey 1952, Part Five – Iowa
Dubuque, Iowa The first thing you learn about the Middle West is the bigness of it. You could, for example, sink without trace the whole of Switzerland in Lake Michigan. The Illinois River at Peoria [more…]
16th Century
Postcard From The Scottish Reformation
I have a strange sensation in my trousers while strolling Edinburgh’s Royal Mile arm in arm with Mrs AWS. Behave yourselves. Regular readers will be unsurprised to learn my work colleagues pay me not to [more…]
20th Century
American Journey 1952, Part Four – Atlanta
On a chill November night in 1864 a small boy lay trembling behind a rock — not a hundred yards from where I am writing this — and watched a city burn. It was the [more…]
16th Century
Postcard From The King’s Gallery
On our day trip to Edinburgh, Mrs AWS and I de-trained on Waverley’s Platform 9 at 12:17 prompt. While a disappointing first-class breakfast rattled in our tums, we allowed ourselves to be swept out of [more…]
20th Century
American Journey 1952, Part Three – Washington
John Doe is Asking Awkward Questions The last thing I expected to pick up in this capital city of a great Republic (“the greatest Republic on God’s Footstool,” as I heard a Senator from Illinois [more…]
Arts
Postcard From Edinburgh
Gentleman and lady travellers of a certain age may be divided into two tribes: Princess or Market. I’ve always been a Princess man. Let me explain. Arrival at Edinburgh Waverley always drew me up the [more…]
20th Century
American Journey 1952, Part Two – Providence
Over the main entrance of Providence City Hall is a bust of one Roger Williams, the founder of this city. You can see another representation of him in Roger Williams Park, where yesterday the youth [more…]