Refugees Welcome

The story could have had a different outcome. With an alternate set of policies and priorities, 3 year old Aylan Kurdi might have lived. He could have settled in Bedford or Peterborough, gone to school, torn holes in his navy blue jumper, gotten scrapes on his knees after falling off his bike, done well on […]

A Time of Chaos

East Anglia’s summer is at its height. The flat land doesn’t readily retain its temperature, so the evenings are generally cool: the moment the sun tucks in over the horizon, the heat left over from the day rises up from the lawn and the fields full of growing sugar beets. An open window lets in fresh […]

A Reticent Wagnerian

I work in an open plan office; there are positives and negatives. On the plus side, at least I’m not confined to a cubicle and I can converse with many of my colleagues without leaving my chair. Less happily, when it’s a particularly busy day and the phones are going off every few minutes and […]

An Ex-Catholic’s Guide to the Papal Succession

I was once a Catholic; I went to a Catholic school. I recall receiving my first Holy Communion on a bright Spring morning; all the children taking part were obliged to have a banner made by their families proclaiming their love and support. My Swedish grandmother, though she was Lutheran, made my banner. It read: […]

At the Opera

At the end, there will be a beginning. New Year’s Eve heralds the premiere of a new production of Donizetti’s largely forgotten work, “Maria Stuarda” at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. The lead role of Mary, Queen of Scots will be performed by the well known mezzo-soprano, Joyce DiDonato. I can imagine what it will be […]

The Bottomless Man

We all give off false impressions. The man who seems crass may be trying to protect a sensitive side. A person who appears to be overly ambitious may actually be very fearful. The strong are often weak, the commanding are sometimes morbidly uncertain, the happy are frequently morose. Human society is based on an amalgam […]

Breakfast with Sexism

I usually get up early, just before “Farming Today” and just after the extended weather forecast on BBC Radio 4. After my clock radio goes off, I sit up, take my vitamins and medication which I store in my night table drawer: this morning I washed them down with lukewarm Diet Dr. Pepper. Generally, two […]

The Summer of Uncertainty

At long last, the bunting is coming down. As I walked through the darkened Accounts department of my company this morning, I saw that the last vestiges of visible patriotic fervour were to be found in the scant remains of a chocolate bar whose wrapper was emblazoned with a Union Flag. The Queen has retreated […]

Toadies of Tyranny

It’s upsetting to see a defence of tyranny coming from a citizen of a free nation. Lord Haw Haw, otherwise known as William Joyce, did his level best to demoralise English-speaking Allied soliders with his radio broadcasts during World War II; he performed this service for a regime that slaughtered 6 million Jews in the […]

Eurodämmerung

It is a time of waiting. If the G8 and NATO summits over the weekend proved anything, it’s that politics have gone into a deep freeze. At the G8 meeting, the Americans and French wanted to emphasise growth over austerity, the Germans and British, rhetoric aside, feel the opposite: this debate is nothing new. The […]

Me And My Blog

Picture of meI'm a Doctor of both Creative Writing and Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering, a novelist, a technologist, and still an amateur in much else.