Journey to a chapel of war and hope
A journey to Orkney and a story of why Italian prisoners of war built a chapel on a Scottish island that became a symbol of hope.
Who goes Nazi (and who is going far right today)?
Why did people go Nazi in the 1930s, and how does it help us to understand what is happening today with those attracted to the far right.
What an abandoned mausoleum tells us about the passing of time
How an abandoned mausoleum tells us that a year many dread will pass to better times.
Surveillance at an abandoned psychiatric hospital
Wandering around an abandoned psychiatric village outside Edinburgh
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.
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