June 1976 What I enjoyed about ‘Peanuts’ is hard now to say. Charles Shultz’ strip cartoon appeared in The Observer’s colour magazine, which my parents bought on Sundays, and each week, I devoured the four-panel tale. Snoopy’s fantasy’s life as …
Roast Peanuts, how Charlie Brown introduced me to girls Read more »
With nearly eighty bicycles on display, in the Design Museum’s Cycle Revolution exhibition, enormous variety is the initial impression. Even among those created with a single purpose in mind – going very fast around a track for a short space …
Article first appeared in Amateur Photographer 8 April 2017 WITH A COUPLE OF HOURS between meetings one afternoon last summer, I walked the perimeter of BMW’s Oxford plant. My hope was to take a photograph that somehow conveyed the idea …
This article first appeared in Amateur Photographer in December 2017 WHEN MY BROTHER DIED unexpectedly at the age of 40, my family was distraught. Like others struck by grief, we flapped around searching for ways to celebrate a life cut …
In Hollywood blockbusters (and countries run by despots) attacks on the free press see journalists dragged to prison, presses smashed and tv stations forcibly shut. In Britain’s liberal democracy, undermining our ability to investigate, and to express freely what we …
A tribute to Pete Burns, and many others Late ‘70s Leeds was monochrome, hacked apart by urban motorways, choked with disused factories and fringed with bleak system-built housing. It was a metropolis of lost purpose – at least in my …
Much of the time, Trades Union Congress’ annual get-together is reminiscent of a revivalist meeting – true believers gathered in the certainty of salvation. Nearly every motion is endorsed by unanimous acclaim, the General Council’s opinion on each proposition is …
“To know better your enemies is to better chances of your eventual victory”, wrote Sun Tzu in the Art Of War. So an eyeball-to-eyeball encounter with one of the European Union’s competition tzars provided provided a rare chance to understand …
Rigged competition: how EU law works against freelances Read more »
“Taking a picture is to take away, not to put in, otherwise it is mediocrity”, the gruff Oliviero Toscani barked at a contestant on Sky Arts Master of Photography last week. It is a gnomic gem he has dished it …
Camera wobble: Sky’s photo contest misses its subject Read more »
Reaching the riverbank in Grantchester, my instinct was to first test the water’s temperature. The grassy bank is nearly two feet above the lapping surface so I inched forward from a sitting position before fully committing. It wasn’t to be. …