Author
In Dark Sovereign, Truth introduces herself to her audience. She finds it difficult. Truth’s audience has already met her identical twin sister, Rumour. People cannot tell the women apart. So, are they listening to Truth, or to Rumour? The audience must decide. Having identified herself, Truth explains how the queen, Elizabeth Woodville, has caused many … Read more
Drawn from ‘Dark Sovereign’, ACT 3, SCENE 7 ‘Lord Hastings calms a mob‘: When news spread that the dukes, Richard Gloucester and Harry Buckingham, had seized young Prince Richard, the heir to the throne, Londoners began to choose sides and take up arms. Mobs formed, weapons came out and men drank heavily to build up their courage. … Read more
It’s extraordinary the way things happen: Think of a set of events that occurred in the dark days of ancient history. Then loose your mind to wander. Likely you will find parallels, not slight similarities, but actual parallels. Hence — Old Lights on Newish History! It has happened to me a few times. The best example I … Read more
In the tumultuous year of 1812, around the time the French were freezing in the ruins of Moscow and American troops were burning Fort York (Toronto), a London printer issued a quiet little book entitled Arbores Mirabiles, a collection of “curious Anecdotes” about “the most remarkable Trees, Plants, and Shrubs, in all Parts of the World.” … Read more
The character of Rumour, in Dark Sovereign, explains herself Key questions for anyone writing about the life of Richard III are: Were ‘the little princes in the Tower’ of London foully done to death? If so, who killed them? On whose orders? Answers have eluded historians for four centuries. At this remove in time the truth may … Read more
From: The Mirror, UK News, 24 May 2015. Headline: ‘Monster jellyfish invade Dorset coast and surround swimmer and his 10-year-old grandson’ ‘Record numbers of the giant jellyfish, which live off plankton, have swarmed on the UK’s south-west coast this year’ South West News Service (SWNS) Steve Trewhella took the amazing image when he and his ten-year-old … Read more
Добро пожаловать, Вернадский вентиляторы || Ласкаво просимо, Вернадський вентилятори I hope that the Cyrillic text above reads, in Russian and Ukrainian, ‘Welcome, Vernadsky fans!’ — or something very similar. The concept of biosphere exerts a powerful tug on people these days. In pre-technological times humanity lived within it; might be overwhelmed by it; and knew it … Read more
These are the opening paragraphs in my Wessex Tales story, ‘Whose Pig?’ At the end of an especially hard winter, two starving peasants emerge from their huts at dawn to find a large, pregnant sow. Who owns her? The men almost come to blows. ‘Whose Pig?’ is set on Okeford Hill above Shillingstone in the Late Stone … Read more
If the tree of the field is man’s life (Deuteronomy 20.19), what is the nature of a tree? Not in and of itself, but from the human perspective. Through history and the changing imperatives of human societies, there have been many modes of viewing trees. The perspective of time and social evolution changes the view; … Read more
Walking along a Toronto street one day I noticed a new split-pin on the sidewalk and picked it up. I’m lucky with that sort of thing. Serendipity smiles my way. The split-pin would come in handy to fix our son’s tricycle.
Two weeks later I was in the North West Territories directing a film for CBC at Wood Buffalo National Park, some miles