Goodbye to all this
And now for something from the ‘We’re All Going To Hell In A Handcart’ department … A piece by George Monbiot that appears today on the website of THE [...]
World Affairs
The unvarnished truth
The depressing news that the US and Canadian coastguards’ search for the four experienced British sailors on board the 40 foot yacht Cheeki Rafiki, which got into difficulties returning to Britain from the Caribbean, was called off on Sunday evening continues to feature in the media. I have a [...]
A piece worth reading
It was inevitable that 2014 would see the beginning of a four-year media blitz in honour of the centenary of the First World War. So far, based only upon those I have come across, there have been many novel and insightful items – including contributions from ordinary members of the [...]
What’s the bloody point of it all?
After reading Keith Lowe’s review of a new book War: What Is It Good For? by Ian Morris, I cannot help reflecting – against the raft of 21st Century conflicts and crises such as that now unfolding in the Ukraine – that maybe the concept of Western-style democracy is little more than [...]
Is our project any good (and P.S. what is it anyway?)
For nearly four years now, with others, I have been working upon a small WW1 research project based around an event that took place behind British lines on the Western Front in the spring of 1915. At the outset, the original fantasy was that the fruits of these labours – assuming, of course, that [...]
Court drama thrills
Yesterday, having nothing to achieve beyond booking my car in for an MOT and egged on by my brother who telephoned to recommend it, I spent most of my morning watching the Sky News coverage of the Oscar Pistorius trial, live from South Africa. Well, I say ‘live’, but (according to the screen [...]
Remorse is also a dish best served cold
As a reasonable and logical lady, I naturally doff my hat to the notion that all men are innocent until proven guilty. I also acknowledge that, not having been in court to actually see the evidence being given, I probably have little basis upon which to make judgements about the key participants [...]
A trip to Flanders
Yesterday, after about eight months of excuses – both genuine and spurious – as to why I could not return to the continent in furtherance of my current WW1 research project, I finally made it under the Channel to northern France and Belgium. In many respects, given the frequency with which I [...]
Variety is the spice of life, but sometimes also puzzling
As the weather clears again today, and the multi-country search for the missing Malaysian airliner MH370 resumes in the southern Indian Ocean, I venture with some trepidation into the world of media comment, mindful of the anguish of the relatives of those have been lost as they seek closure upon [...]
What goes around comes around
Over the weekend the crisis in Ukraine deepened at least two notches as Russian-backed militia overran several Ukrainian military bases in the Crimea and General Philip Breedlove, supreme commander of NATO, warned that the Russian military forces now massed on the Ukrainian border could be [...]