Richard D North.

On culture, Nature, liberal issues, monasticism, spirituality

Page 11 of all posts

Poem: Sir Percy “Hobo” Hobart, a 3-parter (text)

This long poem is in three parts. All of them are long, and intended to flow one from another, but each to make sense on its own. They have been written with an eye (or ear) to being read aloud briskly. An audio version is available here. Sir Percy Hobart (1885 – 1957) was a great man: he was crucial to the formation and training of Britain's WW2 tank units, but he was also creative and - in effect - a military publisher. Sir Percy Hobart, Part 1 Hobo, the man and commander Sir Percy Hobart, Part 2 Hobo the man of design and fabric Sir Percy Hobart, Part 3 The Hobo, his generation and their books Read more...

Published

19 August 2015

Filed in

RDN's poems

RDN on BBC Scotland: “Scrap the BBC!”

I had quite an interesting outing on BBC Radio Scotland's Call Kaye phone-in show on the BBC's charter review which begins in earnest today. I argued as usual for the "nuclear option" of getting rid of this antiquated institution. Read more...

Published

16 July 2015

Filed in

National Media Trust, On TV & Radio, RDN's media outings

EU obligations to Med-migrants

I have had a couple of recent outings on BBC Radio Scotland's Call Kaye phone-in show, on the UK's obligations - and Scotland's in particular - toward the "Med-migrants". My line, I am almost sorry to say, was that we will probably need to be cruel to be kind.... Read more...

Published

14 May 2015

Filed in

Mind & body, Politics & campaigns, RDN's media outings

RDN on democracy on BBC R2 Vine Show

I had an outing on the Jeremy Vine Show, discussing the anger which many people seem to feel that "their side" didn't win. Yes, I said: democracy involves a contest between two or more parties, and they all need to be as electable as possible, and the process as civilised as possible.... Read more...

Published

12 May 2015

Filed in

Politics & campaigns

Vera Bax poems for “The Fallen”, her WW2 sons

Vera Bax, poet and painter, lost two sons in WW2. Both were RAF pilots. She wrote a sequence of four poems on losing them. Some of the poems have been in various anthologies ever since. Read more...

Published

11 May 2015

Filed in

Mind & body, RDN's poems

Remembering Billy, killed in Burma, May 1945

I want to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the death in action of my half-uncle Billy Filson-Young in Burma on 15 May, 1945, aged 25. His mother was the poet and painter Vera Bax (it’s complicated) and she wrote a series of poems about the deaths of her youngest son Richard (a pilot killed in action in 1942, aged 21) and Billy himself. They are of course grief-stricken poems. But they embolden me, too. Read more...

Published

03 May 2015

Filed in

On art

Be the Brightest and Best: vote Tory

Many people in the creative, inventive and caring industries - the Brightest and the Best - have never socialised with people who openly espouse the Conservative cause, or have only met them to have a row. This why they should expand their horizons..... Read more...

Published

27 April 2015

Filed in

Politics & campaigns

RDN on “Do we need The City?”

I have been invited to discuss  "Do we need The City?" at  The World Traders' Tacitus Debate 2015, Wednesday 6 May 2015, King's College London. My response is that as an engine of public trust, we don't, because The City says nothing of interest. Read more...

Published

23 April 2015

Filed in

The Establishment failed decent Tories

There is a class of Tory who would have liked to believe in a benign Establishment that looked after them, and indeed looked after everyone. Instead, they feel betrayed. Such Tories knew that (expensively and only after a fashion) the state looked after  the poor; but they believed Tories should provide for themselves. By the mid-1990s many such people from every class had started businesses and bought pensions. Many watched their pensions wither, and then were whacked - let alone petrified - by the crash. Read more...

Published

23 April 2015

Filed in

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