17 02, 2025

Politics, Lives, Page Turners:  The Courage of Claret Press publishing Sylvia Vetta and Pen Farthing  

By |February 17th, 2025|Categories: Ai Weiwei, China, Art & History, Cultural Appropriation, Events, Lost History, Novels and short stories|0 Comments

Politics, Lives, Page Turners:  The Courage of Claret Press publishing Sylvia Vetta and Pen Farthing   I first made this blog  before Pen Farthing and I talked at the Oxford Indie Book Fair . Today's Guardian feature warrants re-posting it.

14 02, 2025

The Fifties : Don’t romanticise them not even on Valentine’s day!

By |February 14th, 2025|Categories: Biography, History, Letters to the press, Lost History, Oxford, Oxford Castaways, Shepherd.com, The Oxford Times|0 Comments

 The Fifties: Don't romanticise them not even on Valentine’s Day! Yesterday, I watched two one act plays by Terrence Rattigan at the Oxford Playhouse. They took me back to the fifties like a time machine! When I interviewed Sir Roger

18 01, 2025

Simon Schama and I  

By |January 18th, 2025|Categories: Biography, Cultural Appropriation, Events, History, India, Kennington, Lost History, Mixed relationships, Novels and short stories, Oxford|0 Comments

Simon Schama and I   https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0026zyn/simon-schamas-story-of-us-series-1-2-whose-britain-is-it-anyway I may not have Simon Schama’s brains and erudition but, watching episode 2 of 'Whose Britain is it any way' made me realise that we share the same attitude to the evolution of this

18 01, 2025

The Water of Life: Bill Nighy, Victor Glynn and I

By |January 18th, 2025|Categories: Ashoka, Buddhism, Events, India, Kennington, Kenya, Lost History, Mixed relationships, Nalanda, Novels and short stories, Oxford, Oxford Castaways, The Bodleian library, The Stars ArtMovement|0 Comments

The Water of Life: Bill Nighy, Victor Glynn and I   Do you find that life is like water –rivers flowing alongside crossing, meeting and blending? Thursday was like that for me. The film producer Victor Glynn suggested I be

23 07, 2024

My Town /Gown Literary Walk Inspired by Sculpting the Elephant

By |July 23rd, 2024|Categories: Antiques, Art, India, Lost History, Mixed relationships, Nalanda, Novels and short stories, Oxford, Shepherd.com, The Bodleian library|0 Comments

https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/19607563.novel-walk-around-oxford-author-sylvia-vetta/ Most visitors to Oxford cluster around a few streets of Dreaming Spires and, in my opinion, miss out on the complexities of this beautiful city. I recommended a few books on the subject for  https://shepherd.com/best-books/oxford-and-where-town-meets-gown In Sculpting the Elephant,