The sequel to Todd Phillips’ 2019 movie Joker was one of the most anticipated films of the year. Not only would Joaquin Phoenix reprise his role as Arthur Fleck, he would be joined by Lady Gaga as the Lee Quinzel, the earlier incarnation of the Joker’s hell-raising girlfriend Harley Quinn. Continue reading →

One a recent trip to the village shop, I was greeted by the sound of a middle-aged man – not unlike Nigel Farage in appearance – loudly proclaiming his personal strategy for stopping asylum seekers crossing the English Channel: Continue reading →

Just off the A2 Highway, about five miles outside Canterbury, there is an area of ancient woodland where, it is claimed, the last battle on English soil was fought on 31 May 1838. In reality, the “Battle of Bossenden Wood” was not a battle at all but a massacre of protesting agricultural workers by soldiers armed with rifles and bayonets. Nevertheless, the designation persists. Continue reading →

On this day, 196 years ago, two dozen men gathered at a farm in the Elham Valley hamlet of Wingmore and systematically set about destroying a threshing machine.

The following evening, the gang moved on to the nearby farm at Grimsacre and broke the machine there. Three days later, on the evening of the 28 August 1830, the emboldened saboteurs struck again, destroying three more threshing machines on isolated farms on the hills above the valley. Continue reading →

In late June, British viewers tuned in to a provocative new mini-series, Douglas is Cancelled, about a distinguished television news reader who faces a social media backlash after allegedly telling a sexist joke at a private function.

A month later, life imitated art when the British Broadcasting Corporation was faced with a far more serious scandal. Continue reading →

On 18 August 1772, an estimated 20,000 raucous fans crowded into the grounds of Bourne House, the imposing Queen Anne mansion on the outskirts of Bishopsbourne in rural Kent, to watch a game of cricket between Hampshire and England.
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In early March, a secondary school student from Hong Kong was stopped by a mainland Chinese customs officer who demanded to see their school text books. When the customs officer discovered that the map of China used in one textbook did not conform to the official version of the national map, they ripped out the offending page and reportedly finger printed the traumatised student.
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When I first heard about the Camden Highline, a £42 million project that hopes to transform a long-abandoned railway track in north London into a green space for pedestrians, I thought it would be a great addition to my old neighbourhood. The New York Highline that runs along the old elevated railroad through Chelsea has proved to be a great success, so why not attempt the same for Camden?

But then I looked more closely at the proposed route and realised that it follows basically the same course as the multi-purpose, and occasionally scenic, towpath that runs beside the Regent’s Canal.
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One of my favourite summer jobs as a student in London in the early 1980s was cleaning the toilets at the Customs House office building on the banks of the Thames, next to the old Billingsgate Fish Market.

I would get up at dawn, cycle from my house in Peckham along near deserted streets to London Bridge, down Fish Street Hill and breathe in the heady aroma from the market. I would begin my shift at six o’clock, and although the building was quite extensive, I could usually get all my work done by nine, assuming there were no major blockages or spillages to deal with.
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It started with a text message from Southern Water late Friday afternoon apologising for the loss of water supply. I checked the taps and everything seemed fine so didn’t pay much attention. But then, the water pressure gradually began to fall and by late evening everything had dried up.
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