Category Archives: Out and about

I must declare an interest. My mother’s family have been farmers for generations, raising stock, milking cows, growing crops, in a small area of Somerset, definitely since the Eighteenth Century, and probably for centuries prior to their recorded activities on … Continue reading →

‘Hell is other people’ wrote Jean Paul Sartre in his 1944 play No Exit. Watching a television production of the play in my teenage years, it would have been hard to disagree with such a description of the plight of the … Continue reading →

Being of a compulsive disposition, after classes on Friday, I wiped the board and wrote the date for Monday. 24th October? Isn’t it the date for something? I remembered after a few moments. United Nations Day. I recalled school assemblies … Continue reading →

A warm summer’s afternoon in Glastonbury and the town was full of its eccentric diversity. Yet as as Glastonbury may be, it is a model of sane and peaceable conduct when compared with the world beyond. From the humdrum existence … Continue reading →

My supervisor told a story of academic intrigue. ‘It sounds something that might make a plot for an episode of Morse, culminating with a murder among the dons.’ ‘Goodness me, no’, he laughed, ‘it was Hull. It w, more soapas … Continue reading →