When she interviewed me for her podcast, Yang May and I discovered a common passion for libraries and storytelling. I hope my stories are global but they arise from the web of connections to all continents that you find in
I’ve just picked up the proof copy of the printed version of the Oxford Indie Book Fair Magazine from Andy Severn of OxfordeBooks. It is essentially an online magazine: you can read this third edition on the link. If you
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
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
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000p6dl Roger Penrose is one of the greatest minds in the world today. The Oxford Professor of Mathematics has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics . He was on Start the Week this morning talking about physics. After
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
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
I feel a poem coming on! Only Connect Build bridges not barriers and not barriers to bridges. Build bridges over walls. Build bridges from a narrow mind to a world of potential. Build arcs of energy and empathy.