For most of the last 45 years, the UK was the object of envy from its EU member state colleagues. Many felt that the UK had been able to influence EU institutions, policies and activities far more intelligently than any other member state. It was a widespread view, shared privately by many European politicians and […]
Category Archives: Writing
2026 Ahem
SCUDDED PROPRIETORIALLY TRIMMINGS: January 2026
Ahem, During this interminably long month of heaving weather, our far south-east corner, ancestral home [...]
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Feb
Feb
2025 Ahem
QUERYING PAKKELEG CONVULSED: December 2025
Ahem Our Christmas celebrations normally start after we celebrate Gwen’s birthday on the 12th, when [...]
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Jan
Jan
2025 Ahem
FOODELICIOUS WASHBOARD BELEAGURED: November 2025
Ahem, Richard and Marie, from Cholsey in Oxfordshire, where Alli and I lived just after [...]
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Dec
Dec
2025 Ahem
HYENA FUNGI HALLOWEEN: October 2025
Ahem There is a village close to the Toleza Farm in Malawi that goes by [...]
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Nov
Nov
2025 Ahem
SPIRITUAL CONTINGENT GONGS: September 2025
Ahem As August turned to September, I was with my Kiwi friends Ramon and Colleen [...]
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Oct
Oct
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Nov
Nov
The parish church of sleepy Lachapelle, dreaming deep in rural southwest France, offers a hidden but seismic surprise to the casual and unsuspecting visitor. In all its humility, the apparently unremarkable, ancient, and respectable church from the outside is a flamboyant show-off on the inside: an ecclesiastical Liberace in full regalia with knobs and twirls. […]
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Oct
Oct
Trickle down? Level up? Double down? Own up? Bring down? Build up? Hunker down? Cheer up! Pipe down! Speak up! Drill down? Dig up? Cast down? Chin up! Take down? Set up? Swallow down? Throw up? Come down! Meet up! Kneel down! Stand up! Draw down? Pull up? Calm down! Het up! Write down? Check […]
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Jun
Jun
The Celtic tribe of the Gauls, choosing the site for Loudun several centuries before the creation of Christianity, named it Lugh-Dun, ‘a fortified hill dedicated to the God of Light’. In the Middle Ages, Loudun was located on the edge of three provinces: Poitou, Anjou, and Touraine. Long and dead-straight roads span like spokes of […]
Early this morning, in our house in the Tarn-et-Garonne, in southwest France, I awoke in the darkness. Not exactly unusual for me these days but I had an idea that although it was still very dark outside, it was close to dawn. I checked my watch: it was around 5.30am. Normally I only open the […]
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Jun
Jun
A hyperbaton is when you put words in an order that seems or sounds wrong, which is difficult to do with confidence in English. When almost everything else in the English language is so careless, lazy, and slapdash, the rules for English adjectival word order are throat-tighteningly strict. Punishment for this crime, as ever, is […]
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Sep
Sep
Words are the least understood part of that crowded, undisciplined and noisy group of ill-fitting elements that together constitute communications. In fact, words often get in the way of communications, like rider-less horses in a race or like hooting cars in a traffic jam. We misunderstand each other every day, even when the meanings of […]
1. The Martyrs It wasn’t enough to take a deep breath, then expel it slowly in relief,as I rounded the slip road to the arterial Boulevard Latrille, wherethe cars were triple-stacked. Exhaust fumes corrugated the air.I had to climb closer to the breeze chugging from the air conditioningand remember when ice, snow and sleet wiped […]
Cote d’Ivoire Diaries November – December 2016 One early morning in a chilly, dark mid-November, I left a mist-engulfed Basel airport and emerged a few hours later into a golden afternoon wall of West African heat. I was picked up promptly at the airport and taken to a small studio flat in the north […]