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

“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.

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

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 […]

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 […]

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

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]