Wolves have returned to the neighbourhood in which I have my house in France. It borders the département in which the so called Beast of Gévaudun, presumably a wolf, a pair or a pack of wolves, terrified the population in the middle years of the eighteenth century, killing perhaps a hundred people. Three miles from my house, local people have … [Read on]

The man stares rudely at me as if I don’t know my job. ‘But my ears and my throat are painful so I need antibiotics.’ Patiently, I explain that his ear drums both look normal. His throat and glands are fine too, that his multiple symptoms fit with a viral infection, so antibiotics wouldn’t help. In any case he’s already … [Read on]

 ‘As you have utterly failed to unify these dark tones how are you now going to manage the half tone correctly?’ ‘What are these?’ She rasped. I tried to explain to the art course teacher that in trying to find the correct half tone I’d discovered a second colour which looked better. ‘So now you’ve got two of them?’ she … [Read on]

I met someone on the bus who I know from my church. I was glad to see her, meeting people in the street and chatting is so different from my former life in London. Unfortunately, some of these conversations are all too predictable. ‘I’ve just been to the memorial gathering for Hiroshima,’ she breathed, barely audible with self-righteous satisfaction as … [Read on]

About a year ago, I shared a train compartment with a seemingly reticent Canadian fellow, a man heavily shielded by a newspaper, and I doubted I’d catch a syllable from the stolid moose. But after gobbling a handsome steak sandwich with yellow dressing and downing a pint, he eased into a happier frame of mind. And after another pint, and … [Read on]

Book Review. Dangerous Hero, Tom Bower, William Collins, 2018, £20. Before 2015, the most high profile figure to have had his retirement plans ruined by a leadership election in a political party was Denis Thatcher when his wife’s ambitions dragged him from the golf course for a decade as a political consort. Among the many ironies Tom Bower reveals about … [Read on]

Three years after the June 2016 there are still people beholden to the Brussels gravy train for personal, financial, and (perhaps) ideological reasons. They’re still sabotaging Brexit. Their slurs, smears, and lies still have Britain trussed up in Lilliputian red tape and tied to the eurovillage. For a good slice of the last three years the voice of Tony Blair … [Read on]