Kazakhstan: Part I

I kept a diary when I went with three friends to Kazakhstan in 2002.

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Categorised as Travel

Henry Percy-Pole

Outside Masterpiece 2018 yesterday I met Henry M Percy-Pole whose exceptional life story and achievements I will relate to you (in his own words) today. Of course younger sons carry a bit of a chip and like to feel that they are nearly as good as their brothers but Henry’s treatment as an eldest son… Continue reading Henry Percy-Pole

Published
Categorised as History

Travel Writing

It was only towards the end of June that I wrote about Frank Gardner’s memoir, Blood & Sand. I may have omitted to mention that I was given three of Frank Gardner’s books for my birthday this year.

AWBC

On Friday morning I left home at 7.15, exactly the time I used to leave to trudge into my office. I had a much more enticing destination: the Ancient World Breakfast Club.

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Categorised as Art

Asian Waters

The Spratly Islands have been off the agenda here since June 2016. On Thursday evening Humphrey Hawksley’s Asian Waters was launched in London.

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Categorised as Politics

A Tide in the Affairs of Women

The BBC Weather Tide Tables is the place to go to find tidal timetables in the UK. It’s especially useful as you can look up to a week ahead.

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Categorised as Art, Local

Another Rule of Seven

In December 2015 I discovered The Rule of Seven, now I have invented another Rule of Seven (κανόνα επτά).

A Fly in the Ointment

This is St Mary’s, a quintessentially English church just twelve miles from my front door. What makes it so English?

Numbers

The fourth book in the Old Testament is the Book of Numbers, sandwiched between Leviticus and Deuteronomy. As we seek the Promised Land outside the EU, Numbers has a chilling resonance: the first generation of Israelites are condemned to wander in the wilderness for forty years, the second generation are led to Canaan.

Death in the Afternoon

I really don’t recommend DitA, a cocktail invented by Hemingway. If you have a death wish here’s how to make it, in his own words: “Pour one jigger absinthe into a Champagne glass. Add iced Champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness. Drink three to five of these slowly.”