Sensitive cover design
The other week I was reading My Friend the Mercenary by James Brabazon. It’s actually a very well-written and intelligent book about the practical and moral complexities of war reportage…
Knivsmed
I made a knife the other day. Speaking as a man who spends most of his life cranking out words, pictures, spreadsheets and diagrams that exist mostly on screens, it’s…
Modest beginnings of urban orchards
Sitting in my back yard on Sunday afternoon, engrossed in some freelance proofreading and wrapped up in a jerkin against the incipient autumnal weather, I heard a loud thump. I…
Le Mans and the Nuit des Chimères
I spent the most recent bank holiday weekend in France. My old mate C was getting hitched in a fairytale castle in Pays de la Loire on the Friday, so…
Wingshooters
I’ve never really been a ‘gear’ sort of person. Generally when it comes to outdoorsy apparatus I tend to get something decent then use it year after year until it’s…
The allergy man and the purple flower
I have a fairly severe nut allergy, discovered at a very early age – and with some drama – when my mum fed me a bowl of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes.…
A Pullman to Pickering
Train travel is a perpetual disappointment to me. No reader currently resident in Great Britain will need me to expand upon this statement, but I always think it’s a shame…
Rottweilers and bumblebees
The best thing about setting out for a walk is that you just never know what the day ahead will bring. Of course you can know your route, and how…
Editorial propaganda
I used to work for a well-known youth charity. In many ways it was one of the best places I’ve ever worked, while there were a few things that occasionally…
Routemaster serenades
‘I always wondered why people didn’t play gigs on buses…’ announced the band’s lead singer, wedging his head tightly into a hollow in the roof of the top deck and…
