Mr Jones, the movie, opened in the UK in Feb, 2020. It’s the story of a Welsh journalist who breaks the news in the western media of the state-induced famine in the Soviet Union in the early 1930s. Director: Agnieszka Holland; Writer: Andrea Chalupa. Starring: James Norton, Vanessa Kirby, Peter Sarsgaard. Scoop! A scoop is rather prosaically defined… Continue reading
Peak District tourism website relaunched
I recently came across a useful walkers’ website – www.10adventures.com/england/ . This is a page looking at the Roaches ——— Promoting a destination through a website has been obligatory for some time, if the place wants to attract today’s web-savvy travellers. But now we are into the second and third generation of tourism websites, and the… Continue reading
Silent Seven go green in Central London
Update Feb 2020. A ban on selling new petrol, diesel or hybrid cars in the UK will be brought forward from 2040 to 2035 at the latest, under government plans. It’s been a slow start for the small electric city car. I wrote the following piece in 2011, in that optimistic pre-Olympics age. In… Continue reading
Former government chief scientist Sir David King calls for urgent climate action
It’s encouraging that the need for urgent action on the climate emergency is finally being being widely accepted by politicians, business and the wider public. The message must be relentlessly proclaimed throughout the 2020s. Until recently so many opportunities have been squandered, so many experts ignored. One is the former government chief scientist Sir David King. I remember an… Continue reading
Vienna – city of the New Year and all the grand days beyond
Vienna steals the show for televised glamour on the first day of the year with the New Year’s Day Concert, and it’s hard to see how it can be matched by any other world city, at least in terms of classic grandeur in magnificent old buildings, through the rest of the year. I was in the Austrian capital… Continue reading
Clean, green city – with monster cinnamon buns
This clean, green city on Sweden’s western shore (Goteborg in Swedish) is a comfortable introduction to Scandinavia. I took a short break. There are canals not so unlike Amsterdam’s, monster cinnamon buns, another of the world’s most exciting young orchestra conductors (the last was Dudamel), bags of Swedish style, and taxi drivers who… Continue reading