On stage in York this Remembrance Weekend, then touring the UK from there, was Mark Payton’s Rupert Brooke. The play follows the soldier-poet through the turn of the century in Britain and into the throes of the First World War. It is a moving and fascinating story which resonates straight through the last century...
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There are many dreams in this world, yet none seem to be more renowned, or more sought after than the American Dream. Nevertheless, with its many interpretations, and its diversity of results in those which acheive it, I find myself asking; what is the definition of the American Dream? Historian and Writer James Truslow...
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The British Library has recently released a collection of audio recordings containing illuminating extracts of English literary voices. The Spoken Word: British Writers includes a number of writers in a variety of contexts: there is Aldous Huxley talking about threats to the running of a free society, Arthur Conan Doyle speaking wildly on spiritualism...
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With morbid anticipation, the UK media has awaited the death of the 100th British soldier in Afghanistan. On June 8 it happened: three soldiers from the 2nd Battalion Parachute Regiment  were killed by a suicide bomber in the south of the country. Quickly, Gordon Brown responded to the grim milestone. ‘They have paid the...
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At a seminar loosely arranged around Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations, I had the opportunity to discuss Amartya Sen’s Identity and Violence, a direct attempt to answer Huntington, with Ibn Warraq (who wrote Why I am not a Muslim). Sen wants to make a big deal out of the Muslim emperor Akhbar of...
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Do young bands these days play to cyber-publics? This question sprung up when I was considering my time as a guitarist in a small band formed with my friends. We were called Alnegator and mostly performed and practised in York. Making music with close friends,  performing mostly in front of close friends and their...
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