Please say NOT IN MY NAME
These inhumane times are hard to bear. It’s easy to feel helpless in the face of evil. There is one thing we can all do and that is to say or express, in any form we prefer, NOT IN MY
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02, 2026
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01, 2026
The Great Trigonometrical Survey of India – dry sounding but incredible! As others see Us
The need to tell the WHOLE story of Empire. The reason our country looks the way it does is because of Empire and it's not taught enough in schools or universities. We can’t properly understand this country without knowing about
24
11, 2025
The Joy of the Oxford Indie Book Fair
The joy of the Oxford Indie Book Fair: inclusion, creativity, connection, fun & thought. The Lord High Sheriff gets it and describes it as ‘uplifting.’ https://highsheriffofoxfordshire.co.uk/a-morning-among-oxfords-storytellers Oxib is run by a volunteer committee, and you can see from the faces
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11, 2025
The tables turned & Oxford Lives interviewed ME!
...and my life in one picture thanks to the artist Diana Bell. Last week I was interviewed for Oxford Lives by Jeremy Allen and Graeme Fry produced this podcast from the interview. https://oxfordlives.libsyn.com/oxford-lives-episode-69-with-sylvia-vetta For ten years, I wrote the life
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11, 2025
Writing ‘Reptiles’ evoked memories of Bagley Wood
https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/4430842.run-bagley-wood/? Reptiles, my latest novel starts with Toad Patrol in Bagley Woods. In this pic, I’m wear my high viz jacket but the month wasn’t appropriate, the amphibians move at the end of February and in March. This
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09, 2025
Meeting Giorgio!
Meeting Giorgio! https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/italian-fashion-designer-giorgio-armani-dies-91-2025-09-04/ Today the death was announced of Giorgio Armani. What’s my connection with the fashion designer? My journey to becoming a novelist began when I took up freelance writing for magazines mostly about art, antiques and books. The
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08, 2025
Why was India’s greatest ruler & the destruction of the great library at Nalanda forgotten for 1000 years ?
I wrote this blog in 2020 but am returning to it because, in 2025, the world needs GOOD GOVERNANCE and hope that change, in the interests of humanity, is possible. Today the Madras Courier published an opinion piece by me
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06, 2025
The Rise and Rise of Oxford Indie Book Fair. Why? Is it tapping into a need?
(See the programme at the bottom of the blog) I’m one if the organisers of the Oxford Indie Book Fair. Our fairs are in Oxford in the University Examinations Halls and, on July 13, as the last event of the
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06, 2025
Come Together – Flow Together: the only way to solve the world’s problems.
We need hope in these dark times and Confluence Collective founded by Malcolm Atkins and friends never fails. I wrote a poem celebrating how the group bring creative people from every community together, from India and Pakistan from Ethiopia and
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04, 2025
Memories of Helen Peacocke: The importance of my talk at Headington LitFest on May 10
On May 10, I'll talk about the importance of telling your story. Yesterday was the funeral of the former The Oxford Times food writer, chef, author and drama critic, Helen Peacocke. The Humanist celebrant, Ian Wilcox used