Damian Le Bas was born and bred a gypsy. We’ve all got ideas what that means. My middle name is Damain. I had to check if it’s spelled with an ‘a’ or ‘e’. I don’t use it much, but it’s there, lurking. Le Bas dedicates his book to his dad who died in 2017. His gypsy dad is my age, or would have been, if he hadn’t died. I’m pretty sure I’ve read this book before. Most books become mush in my head and I can usually pick out highlights that resonate...

Claire Mitchell and Zoe Venidtozzi (2025) How to Kill a Witch: A Guide for the patriarchy. ‘This book is dedicated to the people, mostly women, who were accused, tortured and executed as witches, and those who still face these unfounded accusations today.’ Claire Mitchell and Zoe Venidtozzi write about their ‘journey’ which began around 2020. What they wanted was a public apology and a memorial for those involved in these ‘historical outrages’...

I don't know if it's just me (although I'm sure it isn't), but is anyone else's inbox stuffed full of emails like this? Hello Dear Author, After careful evaluation this month, your book has been identified as a strong candidate for our 2026 Book of the Week program. We would be pleased to highlight your title across our platform, positioning it directly in front of our engaged readership and industry audience. Our website welcomes up to 1.7...

Our Story and Poem of the Month for February, very kindly chosen by Marandina:

Another fund raising challenge for you. 32. Teeth Tales. Anything toothy, from teething, tugging your own molars out etc. Prose, poetry, any style that you can think of Four awards on offer. Gold, Silver, Bronze and runner up. Posts please from Sunday March 1st till…Monday 16th March. Or from whenever you next visit your dentist. £32 pounds so far pledged in advance of entries. All smile for the camera please…altogether now…say…abc…louder… ABC...

“Real” ... What is “real”? How do you understand “real” in your headspace? Is it different to your heart-space? Is it influenced at all by a soul-space, or faith-space? In a meal-time conversation I was involved in a few weeks back, I was shocked to hear a gent say that: "everything we see is real". Something irked me deeply. I think that my Journalism and Theatrical background, which all involve the manipulation of presenting a story, have...

I see dinosaurs every day. So do you. We call them birds. Hone addresses What We Don’t Know. What We Can, and What We’ll Never Know. He cites John Maynard Keynes Dictum: ‘When the facts change, I change my mind’. The study of fossils from tens of millions and millions of years ago is finite. The number of palaeontologists studying dinosaurs Hone suggests would comfortably fit in a research institute in the UK studying health. China has the...

I lost this book and found it, which added a bit of emotional heft. On the cover, Daniel Kahneman’s publishers remind of us of three things about Thinking, Fast and Slow based on print size. The International Bestseller, Winner of the Nobel Prize and quote, ‘a lifetime’s worth of wisdom’. On the 5 th November 2024, a large group of people got to place a small bet. They could bet on a narcissistic, psychopathic, rapist, tax dodging, cheating, dim...

The economy in Britain is doing quite well. We have spent the last few years at a growth rate of about 1 per cent. That's not excellent but it's not a recession. There is no shortage of people who can afford a car. Most of the problems that we have with parking restrictions or with traffic jams come with having too many cars on the road. I am 59 and can remember clearly back to 1971. When I was a child, half the people we knew had a phone and...

Bobby White: seven marathons, seven continents in seven days. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c75e3dny5ygo I’ve been following Bobby White’s story. It helps that I know him. He’d walk past me in the street, but we played in the same team for a wee while. I also played against his dad, Bobby White. He was a great football player as well. And they’d a younger nephew and cousin. Bobby White, naturally. They all played centre forward for some...