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Tag Archives: writing

To the beat of her own conundrum

Sunday, August 1, 2021

Conundrum by Jan Morris Ukemi Audiobooks read by Roy McMillan . Born in 1926, into Anglo-Welsh upper-middle comfort, James Humphry Morris was educated at Christ Church, Lancing, and Christ Church again, served in the dashing 9th Queen’s Royal Lancers during WWII, climbed much of Everest and broke the news of Hillary and Tenzing’s successful 1953 […]

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged Adolf Eichmann, audiobooks, cabbies, cars, Casablanca, class, gender, identity, in-laws, Jan Morris, Journalism, Lancing College, memoir, men, Mount Everest, Oxford, Perspective, Roy McMillan, Suez, surgery, the Olympics, the Queen's Royal Lancers, transsexuals, travel, women, WWII | Comments (0)

Trouble at’ Mill

Monday, May 31, 2021

Notes on the life (and afterlife) of JS Mill, philosopher . The classical liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill was born and died this month – in, respectively, 1806 and 1873 – and in between he wrote (or co-wrote, with his wife, and then his step-daughter) On Liberty, Utilitarianism, Principles of Political Economy, Considerations of Representative Government, […]

Filed in correspondence, Journalism | Also tagged Amazon Kindle, Avignon, Bertrand Russell, bookshops, champagne, Charles Darwin, Colombo, death, Dilsiri Welikala, economics, education, Edward 'Clerihew' Bentley, Eliza Jarvis, Falkland Islands Radio Service, finance, Florence Nightingale, France, Frederick Langmead, furniture, GF Watts, Greek, Harriet Taylor Mill, health, Helen Taylor, Homer, housing, India, James Mill, Jean-Henri Fabre, Jeremy Bentham, John Milton, John Stuart Mill, Journalism, Joy Lo Dico, Kalpitiya, Latin, Matt RIdley, medicine, Millicent Fawcett, Monty Python, obituaries, philosophy, politics, Rupert Jarvis, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sri Lanka, the Chapman brothers, the East India Company, the Falklands, the London Stereoscopic Company, The Spectator, The Times, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Thomas Carlyle, Tom Holland, UCL, Utilitarianism, Vernon Bogdanor, Westminster, women | Comments (0)

My first Carr

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

On my personal discovery of eccentric English novelist (and teacher, and artist, and airman, and footballer) JL Carr, the night before what would have been his 108th birthday. — For The Critic

Filed in feature, Journalism | Also tagged Andy Miller, architecture, Backlisted, Booker Prize, books, Byron Rogers, clergymen, Colin Firth, coronavirus, education, Englishmen, football, Frank Muir, Gambia, Goldsmiths College, Guardian Fiction Prize, JL Carr, John Clare, John Mitchinson, Joseph Conrad, Kenneth Branagh, Kettering, Laurence Sterne, maps, Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Berkmann, Methodism, Nicholas Lezard, novels, painting, Penguin, publishing, Pushkin, Quince Tree Press, RAF, religion, Richard Coles, South Dakota, The Critic, Thomas Hardy, Vogue, WW1, WW2, Yorkshire | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, October 7, 2019

. The Paris Louvre is in future to be guarded by watch-dogs. — The Nelson Evening Mail, Monday, July 13 1908 . The human population has almost doubled since we landed on the Moon. Genital preferences are transphobic. The third umpire will have the final say on the snatch. It is against the rules to take a […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged Adolf Hitler, anatomy, Argentina, babies, Bertha, business, cell-phones, chewing gum, coconuts, cricket, death, dogs, drink, education, Florence, German, girls, Greeks, history, humans, lambs, law, Nelson Evening Mail, newspapers, Paris, philosophy, satire, singing, Stalin, the Louvre, the moon, West Sussex, wisdom | Comments (0)

‘Bad in life, good in the book’

Thursday, September 12, 2019

A Q&A with writer and artist Dan Richards. — For Geographical

Filed in interview, Journalism | Also tagged Alice Oswald, Amazon, art, Bath, bears, Bob Dylan, climbing, Dan Richards, David Bowie, Denis Johnson, Geographical, Horatio Clare, Iceland, JA Baker, Jan Morris, Joan Didion, Max Porter, mountains, North Korea, Norway, Outward Bound, post, Rebecca Solnit, Richard Brautigan, Royal Geographical Society, Spetses, Svalbard, sæluhús, Ted Hughes, Tim Severin, TS Eliot | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE #8

Thursday, January 17, 2019

Of queens, Slovenes, and the birthplace of James Douglas Morrison. — For Queen Mob’s Tea House

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged Bach, bulls, construction, crime, Denmark, Europeans, family, George Herbert, Gilgamesh, Italy, Jim Morrison, money, Nelson Evening Mail, obscenity, poets, Queen Mob's Tea House, royalty, running, satire, Sheba, Slovenians, Special Branch, the English, vomit, wood, Zbigniew Herbert | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE #2

Thursday, November 15, 2018

The Spanish Inquisition, and other matters unexpectedly arising. — For Queen Mob’s Tea House

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged Angola, anthems, Bosnia, Brazil, cricket, Croatia, De Selby, death, Denmark, Ecuador, film, Finland, Fox News, France, Germany, Greece, Guinea, Guyana, Haiti, housing, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Laos, libraries, money, Mongolia, Nelson Evening Mail, Nepal, New Zealand, November, peace, Portugal, Queen Mob's Tea House, rainbows, religion, roosters, satire, Senegal, sex, sexting, Spain, Spike Lee, Switzerland, Tajikistan, the Forth Bridge, the Marseillaise, the Victorians, Tonbridge School, train-travel, Trinidad and Tobago, trousers, UK, Venezuela, Yorkshire | Comments (0)

M.O.’s m.o. – or; Everybody wants to be like Mike

Thursday, June 7, 2018

A review of Michael Ondaatje’s Warlight. — For The Spectator

Filed in Journalism, review | Also tagged crime, ethnography, fiction, Florence, geography, intelligence, Libya, London, memory, Michael Ondaatje, spies. Aramaic, St Lucia, The Spectator, the Thames, Trieste, writers, WW2 | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, December 18, 2017

. Band instruments in use by the Salvation Army are worth £86,000. — The Nelson Evening Mail, July 17 1908 . A transgender man has had a baby five years after having one as a woman. Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Crown Prince of Dubai, is known as ‘Fazza’. ‘Ein Volk, ein […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged Adolf Hitler, advertising, Alastair Cook, Aristotle, babies, Boris Starling, cricket, crime, death, domestic affairs, Dubai, food, German, health, Hergé, homeopathy, magic, marriage, men, money, music, Nelson Evening Mail, novels, philosophy, religion, royalty, Salvation Army, science, Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, shopping, spies, The Waltons, Tintin, United Arab Emirates, walking, West Malling, Western Australian Cricket Association, women, writers | Comments (0)

NEWS AT A GLANCE

Monday, November 27, 2017

. In the United Kingdom 200 out of every million persons are employed as writers or editors. — The Nelson Evening Mail, April 2 1907 . No-one has been found in a major search along the Torridge. ‘Pog mahone’ means ‘kiss my arse’, in Gaelic. Some people do not like to read instructions. In South Africa […]

Filed in Journalism, NEWS AT A GLANCE | Also tagged Adolf Hitler, Afrikaners, anatomy, death, demons, editors, employment, food, Gaelic, girlfriends, Hastings Banda, insects, Kilburn, kissing, lampposts, medicine, men, Nelson Evening Mail, painting, Peleliu, politics, Reading, rivers, Royal Navy, slavery, South Africa, suicide, the Bible, the Nile, the Pacific Ocean, the Torridge, USMC, Vincent Van Gogh, war, WW2, youth | Comments (0)