Community

2 November 2023

I gave a talk last night at an event celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Rawdon Community Library. A once fiercely independent small town on the … Read More


Anticlimax

5 October 2023

I had an anticlimactic ‘talk’ at the annual lunch of a branch of Yorkshire Cancer Research yesterday. We were just sitting down to lunch when all the lights … Read More


Pity and scorn

27 September 2023

Just back from a trip to France that stirred memories of the attitudes of many of my parents’ generation to “the Continent” and indeed, foreign countries … Read More


1956

27 September 2023

I did a talk for a luncheon club recently which was founded way back in 1956 – the year of the Suez crisis, the Hungarian Revolution, … Read More


Lea Valley

12 September 2023

Great afternoon with the Lea Valley U3A at Hoddesdon in Herts, yesterday. Lively and enthusiastic crowd of 130+, great venue (The Spotlight, Hoddesdon) and the … Read More


Raucous

26 August 2023

Lively event last Saturday at the Cedar Court Hotel, Harrogate, for one of JG Travel’s Heritage Tours. Despite the competing attractions of a raucous wedding … Read More


Ribble Valley Macmillan Cancer Support

17 August 2023

Great event for Ribble Valley Macmillan Cancer Support at the Mytton Fold Hotel yesterday. Good food, good company and a substantial sum raised for Macmillan. … Read More


World Tour of Yorkshire

5 November 2015

I’ve been on an intermittent book tour since the start of August but, barring a couple of “outliers” next year, I reach the end of … Read More


Flying Pigs Airborne

17 August 2015

If you’re out and about in Yorkshire over the next few weeks and want to know more about Pigs Might Fly or The Inn At … Read More


Look North

13 August 2015

A really nice piece on “Pigs Might Fly” and the real life “Inn at the Top” (aka Tan Hill), filmed by Philip Chapman , was … Read More


Flying Pigs

30 July 2015

Gearing up for the launch of my new book Pigs Might Fly on Monday, the first self-published one I’ve been involved in, after more than … Read More


Sheepish

28 May 2015

If you’re at a loose end today and fancy a little trip “Oop Dale” you can catch one of the great Yorkshire experiences: the annual … Read More


Only In New York…

11 May 2015

This from my New Yorker best mate, Barry Fast, in today’s NY Times Diary http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/08/translating-the-muni-meter/?ref=topics&_r=0: I was parking on the Upper East Side, on Second … Read More


Secret Britain

20 April 2015

Spoiler alert: I watched a programme called Secret Britain on BBC TV the other night, mainly because it included a segment on The Inn at … Read More


Back on Top

31 March 2015

I was up at the highest inn in Great Britain http://www.tanhillinn.com a couple of days ago and was delighted to find it in rude good … Read More


Burns Night

26 January 2015

Went to a Burns Night dinner this weekend – great time, though general overconsumption of whisky did turn the post-dinner Scottish country dancing into human … Read More


Millennials

27 July 2014

A tip of the hat to Amanda Foreman in today’s Sunday Times for unearthing this quotation by a US college professor about his students: “Indulged, … Read More


Why I Write

21 July 2014

Thanks to the largesse of the estates of A.A. Milne, Somerset Maugham, et al, the Royal Literary Fund probably supports more living writers than many … Read More


ALCSoholics

9 July 2014

Stand by for a tune on the world’s smallest violin: There’s cheerful news for authors this week in a survey by ALCS aka The Authors’ … Read More


Bliar, Bliar, pants on fire

18 June 2014

No surprise that Tony Bliar should claim this week that the Bush/Blair invasion of Iraq in 2003 had played no part in the country’s current … Read More