No Filters, No Limits, No Romance

Regency and Georgian romantic dramas remain very popular; is it because we long for the constraints of civility?

Review: “One Day” starring Ambika Mod and Leo Woodall

“One Day” is refreshingly different: it is a portrait of a romance but it is painted in generally dark colours. There is regret, memory, tears, bitterness, and yet it is beautiful.

The Writing on the Wall

All things eventually decline; is the phenomenon of far right populism a symptom of this?

The End of a Second PhD

I finished my second PhD on January 11th. This further degree, in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, proved to be a stark contrast to my first, which was in Creative Writing. I recall the exact moment of completion: I was sitting at my desk in front of my computer. Earlier, I walked for 2 miles in […]

Review: Married At First Sight Australia, Season 10

I generally don’t watch “reality TV”. I remember when British television launched Big Brother. It was baffling. It was as if the contestants were lab rats in a maze and we were watching them eat, sleep, and claw each other. The firm behind Big Brother, Endemol, apparently has gone in for an even more torturous […]

Farewell, Monarchy

Charles may very well be the last King of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.  The conditions which support monarchy no longer exist.

Tech Bros, Twitter, and Toxicity

I am old enough to remember the dot com boom. It was like the Palaeolithic Era. It was well before the “tech bros” had evolved, though the Neanderthal versions were there. At the time, I worked for a start up that was attempting to turn itself into a major corporation. The original owner was still […]

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 […]

The Very Model of a Modern Labour Candidate

My black suit was clean and pressed. My white shirt with a herringbone pattern embedded into its weave had been ironed. A silk maroon tie was neatly tucked underneath my stiff collar, tied into a Windsor knot. The head of fresh red rose was pinned to my lapel. I had shaved around my beard that […]

Standing

Democracy, contrary to what some may think, is not just about mentions in the press, appearances on television or cleverly contrived advertising campaigns. Often, its processes take place in humble locations among relatively small groups of people: just so, otherwise supposedly representative government would become solely a product of the media, who would spoon feed us […]

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.