What is privilege?
When people hear about my background, they immediately think I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I went to Oxford, you see, and before that to a pretty exclusive private school (pictured), and even before that to…
The Kindle Report: does it beat paper?
I’ve owned a Kindle for almost a year now and so thought it was time for a comparison of ereading vs reading. I’ll look at several different categories, from the common issue of readability to more unexpected things like how…
Ten years ago: Tom Cornell profile
This post is part of a series in which I publish stories and articles I wrote exactly ten years ago. This one is a profile I wrote at Columbia Journalism School of Catholic peace activist Tom Cornell. For more stories…
There’s no such place as paradise
When I tell people I’m living in Barbados, the reactions are interesting. Words that come up a lot are “exotic”, “paradise”, “idyllic” and “jealous”. It’s understandable, of course, from people struggling through a grimy London winter, and I’m not criticising…
What we did before Google
Whatever did we do before the internet? How did we manage before Google? I’m hearing these questions more often these days, usually after someone’s discovered some snippet of astonishing information in just a few seconds. The questions are rhetorical of course,…
Capitalism & Slavery
This book does an excellent job of showing exactly how the development of British capitalism was dependent on slavery. The author is Eric Williams, an obscure PhD student at the time of writing, but later in life to become Prime Minister…
Beauty? No, thanks
As a side note to my post last week on the cafes I have killed, I wanted to add one more thing about writing locations. It struck me that in a country with so much beauty, I have latched onto…
Liebster Award reloaded
It was great to be nominated for the Liebster Award by Caroline of Beauty is a Sleeping Cat. Thanks, Caroline! In the spirit of her original post, I have taken the liberty of adapting the rules of the award a…
The cafe killer
I have a confession to make. I’m a natural born killer. Don’t worry – I don’t kill people, or even butterflies. I kill cafes. All I have to do is pick a place to do my writing, go there fairly regularly,…