The things I knew about the Knights Templars - OK, the things that I'd picked up along the way and thought they were true to varying degrees - were as follows: They wore white smocks with a red cross …
Don DeLillo's Libra takes on the great rift in the American psyche; that which opened up on 22nd November 1963 when Kennedy was assasinated. Whatever the nature of the man, one thing became true form…
Over the last couple of days I've taken a break from Don DeLillo's 'Libra' and have returned to one of my all time favourite horror / science fiction writers, H P Lovecraft. In particular, I'm re-rea…
Andrew Mawson (now a Cross Bencher in the House of Lords) has written a very important book with this work. It chronicles his experiences in Bromley-by-Bow, an impoverished area of East London, from …
As the copy I have of 'On Walden pond' also includes this essay, it seemed churlish to not feature it here. Thoreau spent a night in prison during his time at Walden, because he neglected to pay a loc…
Bugger. Like a lot of things, I guess that in my heart of hearts I knew that eventually all the venerable old writers of science fiction, the folks who I grew up with, would all pass away. When it st…
I cam across a reference to one verse of this poem by Rudyard Kiplingthe other day when I was reading, and given the news at the moment of collapsing banks and general financial turmoil, I thought it …
As you can see I didn't do an exceptional amount of commuting last week, and Walden remained the Bus Book for this week as well. As I've progressed through it I've come to the conclusion that whilst I…
One of the long term running gags in our family is that given half a chance I would either run off to live in the woods or become a hermit in a Monastery. Well, I spottedthis storyrecently that made …
This week's book was a very old favourite of mine - Mikhail Bulgakhov's 'The Master and Margarita'. If you haven't read it - all I can say is get a copy. It's a lovely, funny, sad, enchanting book w…