A Political Refugee From The Global Village

Hallowe'en is an ancient Catholic tradition but now just an excuse to make money and for American cultural imperialism. But whatever yo...

No-one knows what these paintings on the church tower at Csikrakos (Racu) mean. The tower is said to have been built in 1080 though no-...

The heart is the undiscovered country. You travel to a foreign country to discover your unconscious mind. Laurence Durrell said you have ...

This was first published in  Vivid  in 2004. Life in  Bucharest  has been transformed since the bloody events of December 1989 b...

I published this deeply irresponsible article in the Bucharest Daily News back in 2005 and it was and is a cri de coeur . Someone pointed o...

This is a very interesting article on sex in Iran, by Afshin Shahi in Foreign Policy . It shows how very Westernised Persians are, th...

I just came across this brilliant remark about Ireland by Hugh Trevor-Roper, thanks to Henry Hopgood-Phillips. I love it though though I kn...

This article first appeared in Vivid magazine in 2003 and the world it describes has changed enormously, but not completely beyond...

John Stuart Mill That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of our time. Ronald Firbank  `O, help me heaven,' she...

Roger Scruton The fact is that the people of Europe are losing their homelands, and therefore losing their place in the world. I don’t envi...

It is clear that there are certain people who are free and certain who are slaves by nature, and it is both to their advantage, and just, ...

I came across these insightful words by John Shelby Spong, about priests facing the congregation, which seem accurate. Spong is  the wildl...

21 September, 2013 HRH the Prince of Wales wa s already the heir to the throne who has remained heir apparent the longest. Today he passe...

I always loved second-hand bookshops above all things - they were my true alma mater, not my university. But now I see that old books are a...

In Zanzibar they advertise Sunset Dhow Rides for tourists and this will be the fate of Ibo, but at the moment there are just teenage bo...

I always loved second-hand bookshops above all things - they were my true alma mater, not my university. But now I see that they are also t...

I think the Prince of Wales is one of the best dressed man in the world but his good taste is not innate. At Cambridge he wanted a suit...

A.J.P. Taylor once asked this question. In 1938 Czechoslovakia was betrayed. In 1939 Poland was saved. Less than one hundred thousand C...

I am in London for several days for the first time in fifteen years and the hot city (scorching hot by British standards) is discussing pro...

The dhow caught the six o’clock tide and after a silent, pellucid journey through mangrove swamps we spent three and a half hours waitin...