Community
2 November 2023I 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
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Archive
Anticlimax
5 October 2023I 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 2023Just 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 2023I 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 2023Great 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 2023Lively 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 2023Great 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 2015I’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 2015If 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 2015A 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 2015Gearing 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 2015If 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 2015This 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 2015Spoiler 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 2015I 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 2015Went 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 2014A 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 2014Thanks 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 2014Stand 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 2014No 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