Planes, Trains and Plantagenets

The Briton’s Protection, Manchester

Posted May 28, 2015 in History

Unfortunately, I only passed the Briton’s Protection on my last day in Manchester, on the way to the train station, with no time for a pint. But I was interested by the sign, showing soldiers on horseback chasing down people carrying ‘REFORM’ banners. I took a picture and looked up the story behind it when I got home.

It refers to what happened at nearby St. Peter’s Field on a summer afternoon in 1819, when around 80,000 people gathered to peacefully demonstrate for voting reform. The British Library site has a good summary of the context and what happened that day.

Ed Miliband, what has the internet done with you

Posted April 26, 2015 in Travel

I’m sorry.

I really didn’t want to talk about the election on the internet. (For those of you not in the UK, we’re having a general election in 10 days and it is e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e.) Maybe instead of ‘talking about the election’, think of this a kind of travel writing, to a very strange place, which Britain is right now. On Monday I got back from two weeks in North America, and found this was happening:

Milifandom tweet

National Portrait Gallery and restaurant, London

Posted March 17, 2015 in Eating, Food and Drink, History, London

Last December I had an afternoon unexpectedly free up, so I decided to spend it at my favourite big art gallery near Trafalgar Square. Not the grand one with the pillars, the National Gallery, but the one around the corner on Charing Cross Road, across the street from Pret, the National Portrait Gallery.

Both arrange their collections by chronology, so you go forward in time as you move through them. But while the National Gallery’s halls are just by century – “16th: Leonardo, Cranach, Michelangelo, Raphael, Holbein”, you can practically hear the curator yawning – the National Portrait Gallery, which has to fit into smaller rooms, has also grouped each era into themes.

I’m already not reading books by white men in 2015, here’s how it’s going

Posted March 1, 2015 in Books

Last week my friend Lydia retweeted a mention of “that widely discussed no-white-male writer challenge”, and I said “Er, what?”, and she linked me to this XOJane article by KT Bradford:

I Challenge You to Stop Reading White, Straight, Cis Male Authors for One Year.

This was both pleasing and surprising, because I’ve already been doing this in 2015 – I decided to do something like it last November, and here’s what I wrote then (on Booklikes – I like Booklikes a lot for keeping track of my reading, and it’s not-popular enough that I feel comfortable sticking unfinished and quick thoughts up):

Gloucestershire: Berkeley Castle and Britain’s Best Pub 2015

Posted February 22, 2015 in Food and Drink, History, Shakespeare travel, Travel

It’s a golden Tuesday in September and I’m the only person in my carriage on the 9:15 train from Paddington, going west. The inspector comes by after a quiet three-quarters of an hour, and I hand him my ticket. “You’ve been there before?” he says. It isn’t really a question; it’s to a tiny station in Gloucestershire, where there’s no good reason to go unless you know what you’re doing.

“Oh – no,” I say.

“Someone picking you up? It’s out in the sticks, mind.”

Drunk Theatre: Earlham Street Clubhouse and “City of Angels” at the Donmar

Posted February 5, 2015 in Drinking, Food and Drink, London, Theatre reviews

The drinks: Earlham Street Clubhouse

The evening’s story actually started last October during London Cocktail Week, that most magical of times in the capital. A £10 wristband gets you cocktail bars across the city, from Mayfair hotels to Bethnal Green dives, throwing open their doors and sliding over £4 drinks, most of which are specially created for the festival.

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Planes, Trains and Plantagenets

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The Briton’s Protection, Manchester

Ed Miliband, what has the internet done with you

National Portrait Gallery and restaurant, London

I’m already not reading books by white men in 2015, here’s how it’s going

Gloucestershire: Berkeley Castle and Britain’s Best Pub 2015

Drunk Theatre: Earlham Street Clubhouse and “City of Angels” at the Donmar