Gill and I in the unventilated basement. Compare it with Maxwell's council house, Headington Hall https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000rtxv?f Good programme about Robert Maxwell who rented Headington Hall from Oxford City Council for £7,500 in 1978 http://www.headington.org.uk/history/listed_buildings/headhillhall.htm? Before we set up at the
On Saturday Live this morning, the poet Simon Armitage was talking about his poem Event Horizon. In 2007, I had the privilege to review an Antony Gormley exhibition also called Event Horizon at the Hayward Gallery - one of the
Today , BBC4 Saturday Live asked listeners to share their stories of leaps in the dark. It started with Ian Rankin describing how he and his wife gave up well paid jobs to renovate an old house in rural France
Did you listen and watch the first Reith lecture by Mark Carney? The topic was ‘From moral to market sentiments’ https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0900t1x/the-reith-lectures-2020-mark-carney-how-we-get-what-we-value-lecture-1-from-moral-to-market-sentiments? It came as a surprise when in answer to a question by Anita Anand, he said he had taken
When I read about Ashoka the 3rd century BC ruler of much of India, my curiosity was aroused. Ashoka began as a warlord but felt remorse at the waste of life on the battlefield. He invited followers of the Buddha
It’s taken these surreal times for me to appreciate the outstanding locations and crowded book launches I've enjoyed. The most special was the launch of Oxford Castaways in the Cast Gallery of the Ashmolean which Sir Roger Bannister wound up,
When Claret Press suggested my tagline should be ‘Stories for the Global Reader’ , I froze for a moment. It became obvious to me – that is what I had been writing since 1998 when I started freelance journalism
Why are there , to my knowledge, few statues in the UK to truly good people like Sir Roger Bannister but plenty to men who exploited their fellow human beings or made their mark using legal violence in war? My
More memories . I am often surprised that Newsquest recycle features of mine that I wrote for The Oxford Times. They publish them online all over the country like this one in The Warrington Guardian . http://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/10582069.Turner_and_Constable__Sketching_from_Nature__Compton_Verney/ It’s interesting reading
Has Covid affected readers of my blog as it has me? Because many of us have more reflection time have you found yourselves remembering something which leads you on a nostalgic journey? Every time I walk by the Radcliffe Observatory