Second Afghan War Six British soldiers were killed in Kandahar province this week. The oldest was 33, the same age as Jesus when he died, and the youngest was 19. The Afghan War has been going on for 10 years and 153 days. World War Two lasted just under six years in comparison. British [...]
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The King Is Dead, Long Live the Queen
Princesss Elizabeth and her dashing consort Philip at a polo match in Kenya, just days before she succeeded to the throne in 1952. The 33 daughters of the Roman emperor Diocletian, cast adrift in the grey sea (after murdering their 33 dreary husbands), saw land – a white land, rising from the [...]
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Thatcher’s Legacy, Saturn and Iron
Thatcher: Saturn Rising Recently, I asked a businesswoman friend, who was complaining about bankers’ bonuses, when she thought the rot had set in. She answered with one word: “Thatcher.” And she’s right, what we are experiencing now, financially and socially is the [...]
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Primavera: Love is All Around
Yesterday, we walked through purple violets, pale yellow primroses and cowslips, pink campion and bluebells. White petals from the mayflower tree spattered the ground beneath our feet and scented the air around us. Truly, the goddess of beauty, Venus, rules. Who doesn’t love this time of [...]
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Brotherhood of Romantics: Neptune in Pisces Redux
Daydreaming by DG Rossetti London 1848: capital of the largest empire the world has ever seen, a city where the rich live in lace and cream and fripperies, children work as chimney sweeps and bootblacks, where the streets run with sewage, and where everyone is – more or less – for sale. Just [...]
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How I struck oil on holiday
On Winchelsea Beach, the mud is dark sable. Sometimes, you slither across the top of it. But sometimes your foot sinks right in, mud spurts between your toes. And sometimes, you sink much deeper, over your ankles, up to the knees. When that happens, your feet encounter another texture, silkier [...]
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