The Queen was after all, still dead
Is it over? Can I go to Centre Parcs now? Can I ride my bike? I may have had my operation cancelled or needed emergency access to the food bank but thank goodness I could feel proud to be British.
City secrets: outsider art and lost rooms
A city of lost rooms: where Jewish scholars vanish, artist seers battle their obsessions and twisted worlds thrive.
Civil disobedience in the shadow of a radical ancestor
2020 started with death and trauma. Then there was a pandemic. So, clearly civil disobedience was an entirely reasonable reaction. Yet my rebellion never strayed far from the path of a radical ancestor.
Plague and coronavirus: Bring out your dead, then it’s revolution time
The third and final instalment exploring today’s coronavirus crisis and comparing it with the historical documentary fiction of Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year.
The hangman’s mementos
A mysterious pair of boots and one of England’s most prolific hangman create an intriguing Glasgow mystery.
London plague 1665 vs coronavirus 2020: city lockdown and streets of suffering
We explore more similarities and differences between the coronavirus of 2020 and the plague of 17th century London. City lockdown, silence and noise in the streets, wild rumours and pandemic inequality.
London plague 1665 vs coronavirus 2020: early days and lockdown
Contagion, fear, fake news and quackery. There are striking similarities between today’s crisis and the Great Plague of London centuries ago. Has anything changed?
Unbuilt Glasgow: a city nearly lost
Can a city make you sad and die young? Can a city destroy itself? How Glasgow’s unique mysterious curse was born from a city nearly lost.
Firth of Forth: walking the coast of witches and war
War machines, tav avoiders, climate change. If you want to escape politics, walking along the Firth of Forth is not the place to do it.
Walking 450 miles to freedom
In 1918, my grandfather and seven other British officers escaped from a Turkish prisoner of war camp. That was the easy part. They then faced 450 miles of deadly heat, hostile terrain and trigger-happy brigands.
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