Category Archives: This sceptred isle

Advocates of inclusion are often those who will be least affected by the policies they advocate. Halting sites, social housing schemes, rehabilitation centres are seen as laudable enterprises, provided they do not affect the ambience of middle class areas, provided … Continue reading →

The Year 7 lesson was on karma and rebirth. The four Year 7 classes I teach engaged with the ideas with the same bubbly enthusiasm with which they engage with the rest of life. They designed their own samsara drawings, … Continue reading →

The BBC report of a 1913 menu being found during renovation work at a Liverpool cafe shows there is a long tradition of using cuisine as a mark of social class. How many Liverpool diners would have been familiar with … Continue reading →

The polling station was a marquee in a pub car park. Standing in the queue meant having to hear the loud conversation of a group of drinkers whose vocabulary chiefly consisted of obscenities used as nouns, adjectives and verbs. There … Continue reading →

What is the fuss about? What difference does it make if someone paid for Boris Johnson to have the flat decorated? Where does such behaviour rank compared to ministers awarding friends contracts? All of it is a diversion, it is … Continue reading →