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

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

27 12, 2024

What have Michael Rosen, Frank Cottrell Boyce, Professor Irene Tracey, Korky Paul, Paterson Joseph and me in common?

By |December 27th, 2024|Categories: Ashoka, Buddhism, Events, India, Kennington, Kenya, Mixed relationships, Nalanda, Novels and short stories, Oxford, Oxford Castaways, The Bodleian library, The Oxford Times, The Stars ArtMovement|0 Comments

I love the Today programme during the Christmas period, when it has guest editors. Their choice of in depth subject matter is inspirational. First off was author and screenwriter, Frank Cottrell Boyce, on a subject dear to my heart -

8 05, 2024

My epic story based on the Beijing Spring(1979). Evidence that Brushstrokes in Time is still selling

By |May 8th, 2024|Categories: Ai Weiwei, China, Art & History, Lost History, Novels and short stories, Oxford Castaways|0 Comments

https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/proginfo/2024/17/the-invention-of I agree with Misha Glenny. It’s important. We need to know about the history of China. That was why I spent 6 years researching the Beijing Spring of 1979, the Stars Art Movement, the birth of the Democracy Movement