Category Archives: Uncategorized

Yes, they’ve come at last, flying into Manchester last Tuesday; and were treated to a fish’n’chips supper on arrival in Hull. In return they took us next day to a new Ukrainian restaurant (‘Lena’s’) in the city centre, where the … Continue reading →

Yes, it was an awful year, wasn’t it? Not for me personally – I’ve not got much to complain about apart from the natural effects of old age. (And there are compensations there.) But for most of the world, including … Continue reading →

Is privacy a particularly British obsession? Walking round our snowy Stockholm suburb the other night, well after dark, I was struck by how every ground-floor room was open to view from the outside, lights full on, no curtains in any … Continue reading →

As an 81-year old I’ve never known a bunch of leading politicians as sheerly incompetent, corrupt and stupid, even laughably so, as our present British lot; and as a historian I’ve never read of one – at any rate since … Continue reading →

In Britain they make conditions so dreadful for refugees that – or so Suella Braverman hopes – they’ll all be deterred from applying. So we get asylum seekers locked up in disease-ridden camps, or run-down B&Bs, or dumped in London … Continue reading →

I’m thinking once again of writing something semi-autobiographical. Have I mentioned this before? Anyway, here’s my new first draft of a Preface. Whether it will go much further I can’t tell. But it’s something to do, during the cold Swedish … Continue reading →

By the Swedish satirical artist and writer Max Gustafson. (My thanks to Kajsa, who found it!)

Why is it that so many of the leading and most right-wing members of our present British government are former subjects, or the children of subjects, of the old British Empire? Not a majority of them, of course. And not … Continue reading →

Villagers near where I live in the UK are objecting to asylum seekers being accommodated in a local hotel. They even took it to the High Court in order to get it stopped, but lost. ‘If you’re so keen on … Continue reading →

At the age of 81 (82 if you count it from conception) I realise that I have very little time left to me for writing. Which may be just as well, in view of the abject failure of my latest … Continue reading →