Liverpool is celebrating 2017’s outstanding nostalgia anniversary. “50 Summers of Love” celebrates the brief and localised ascendancy of the flower over the gun, the pacifying power of rock music and, er, free love. San Francisco can claim authorship, but it was some boys from Liverpool who gave us Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and All… Continue reading
National Gallery of Ireland reopened and reborn
Restored and enhanced National Gallery of Ireland opens in Dublin. The Irish never need much of an excuse to celebrate. But this summer they have a deep and genuine cause for rejoicing. The restored and much-improved National Gallery of Ireland (NGI) opened in Dublin on June 15th (2017), after a six-year building programme in its historic… Continue reading →
Launching a literature festival in an English village – BeaconLit comes to Ivinghoe
Suitably dramatic skyscape over Windmill Field, close to the BeaconLit venue in Ivinghoe, Bucks. BeaconLit, our local literary festival, was launched in 2013. This year (July 1) is the fifth festival. It is now held in the dry and welcome warmth of the local school in Ivinghoe, Buckinghamshire. People attend to be inspired, informed and to… Continue reading →
Oxford meets Istanbul in new book by best-selling Turkish writer
Three Daughters of Eve, written by Elif Şafak, is set in Oxford and Istanbul and focusses on three Muslim women, several men, and one big question. Elif Şafak was the subject of BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs on June 2nd, 2017. Apart from London, I don’t think there is a city in the UK with more… Continue reading →
Sleek and silent killer returns to the skies of an English market town
A pair of peregrine falcons is raising a single chick on a nesting platform at the top of the 200 feet high County Hall in the centre of the Buckinghamshire town of Aylesbury. The falcons have been nesting here since 2011, and I don’t think our sense of wonder should diminish. All round the world, totemic… Continue reading →
Corals reefs worth an annual $36 billion to tourism in peril worldwide
Climate change is causing significant damage to a multi billion dollar sector of the tourism industry, the coral reefs of 100 countries and territories, and scientists say there is only a narrowing window of opportunity in which to preserve what’s left of it. A report published in April 2017 put the value of “on-reef and… Continue reading →