Tag: travel

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Vanishing skills and traditions

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Craft Land Britain was once a craft land and for generations what we made with our hands shaped our identities, built our communities and defined our regions. Historian and fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, James Fox travels the length of Britain to seek out the country’s last great craftspeople in Craftland and chronicles the vanishing skills and traditions that used to govern every aspect of life on these shores. Stepping inside the workshops of blacksmiths and wheelwrights, cutlers and Coopers, thatchers, bellfounders and watchmakers, we glimpse not only our past but another way of life, one that is not yet … Continue reading Vanishing skills and traditions

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Onam celebration at Barking, London

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Over 350 Malayalees  and their families gathered at St Thomas Moore Catholic Church Parrish Hall, Barking, East London, organised by Kirali UK East London Unit. Kirali UK, is a UK-based cultural platform aiming to promote progressive thinking, has over 43 branches all over UK. Onam sadya (feast with over 27 curries) on with Onam musical event. Organisers from the Kigali UK East London, Arun Raj (President) Secretary Anaz Salam, Treasurer Lailaj also attended the event. Onam is not only for us to enjoy for a minute, but also it is an experience which unites us irrespective of your religious beliefs. Onam is … Continue reading Onam celebration at Barking, London

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Ending reign of the Spinach King: “Behind every great fortune lies a great crime”

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Life magazine’s photo on Seabrook Farms in 1955 New Jersey, calling it the “biggest vegetables in the US, stood triumphantly in front of 5, 000 workers and his father Charlie (CF) Seabrook, known as the Henry Ford of Agriculture.  “Having left this material for his writer son, my father must have wanted the story told, even if he couldn’t bear to tell it himself”. This is the story of a forgotten American dynasty, a farming family from the bean fields of southern New Jersey who became as wealthy and powerful as aristrocrats – only to implode in a storm of lies. … Continue reading Ending reign of the Spinach King: “Behind every great fortune lies a great crime”

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How can we love, or make sense of our lives?

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One night in August 1977, ten-year-old, Louisa and her father take a walk on the beach. He’s carrying a flashlight. He cannot swim. Later Louisa is discovered suffering from hypothermia and half-drowned found washed up by the tide, barely alive. Her father is gone, presumed drowned. Despite prolonged searches no trace of her father and the pair’s sandals remain side by sided where they were placed at the end of jetty. They become the objects of a temporary shrine of rice bowls, flowers, fruit and trinkets donated by local people, until they are washed away. What is left following this … Continue reading How can we love, or make sense of our lives?

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Boeing accused of putting the pursuit of profit over passenger safety 

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The Aircraft Accident investigation Bureau in India is focusing on engine thrust. Investigators have discovered in the preliminary investigation into the Air India Flight 171 crash which killed 260 people on 12th June 2025. Just seconds after take-off both of the 12-year-old Boeing 787 Dreamliner’s fuel-control switches abruptly moved to the “cut -off” position, starving the engines of vital fuel and triggering total power loss. Switching to “Cut-off” is a move typically done only after landing. The Cockpit voice recording captures one pilot asking the other why he “did the cut-off”, to which the other pilot replies that he didn’t. The … Continue reading Boeing accused of putting the pursuit of profit over passenger safety 

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Lucid, ambitious, and provocative

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Indian historian, 1990 Kerala-born, Manu Pillai’s Gods, Guns and Missionaries is a survey of four centuries of Hinduism’s interaction with other faiths to explore the myths of true Hinduism. When European missionaries arrived in India in the sixteenth century, they entered a world both fascinating and bewildering. Hinduism, as they saw it, was a pagan mess: a worship of devils and monsters by a people who burned woman alive, performed outlandish rites and fed children to crocodiles. But it quickly became clear that Hindu “idolatry” was far more layered and complex than European stereotypes allowed, surprisingly even sharing certain impulses … Continue reading Lucid, ambitious, and provocative

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Wolf in Sheep’s clothing

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Historian Dalrymple whose visceral understanding of India, in Anarchy tells the remarkable story of how one of the world’s most magnificent empires disintegrated and came to be replaced by a dangerously unregulated private company, based thousands of miles overseas in one small office, five windows wide, and answerable only to its distant shareholders. This relentless rise of in August 1765, the East India Company, who defeated the young Mughal emperor and forced him to establish in his richest provinces a new administration run by English merchants who collected taxes through means of a ruthless private army- what we would now … Continue reading Wolf in Sheep’s clothing

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Saudi: A country that is all too easily misunderstood

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A new history of Saudi Arabia spanning its eighteenth-century origins to the present day. Saudi Arabia on the wealthiest countries in the world, a major player on the international stage and the site of Islam’s two holiest cities and also one of the world’s only absolute monarchies. David Commins narrates the full history of Saudi Arabia from oasis emirate to present-day attempts to leap to a past-petroleum economy. Moving through the ages, Commins traces how the Saud dynasty’s reliance on sectarianism, foreign expertise, and petroleum to stabilize power has unintentionally spawned secular and religious movements seeking accountability and justice. He … Continue reading Saudi: A country that is all too easily misunderstood

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The City that never sleeps

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Manhattan Down is a pulse-pounding contemporary thriller which dares to imagine the unimaginable, a leaderless world being held to ransom by forces unknown for reasons unknown. The questions it asks are terrifying- and so are some of the answers. Manhattan the city that never sleeps just said goodnight. On September 10th,  one day before the anniversary eve of the 9/11 terror attack, New York swelters under a a heat dome of record temperatures. Even the global leaders assembled at the UN HQ are forced to admit that the climate crisis has reached boiling point and the world’s time is running out. … Continue reading The City that never sleeps

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Curious history, endurance of English as a global phenomenon

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Would you believe it, two thousand years ago English was confined to a handful of savage tribes on the shores of north-west Europe, today, in one form or another, it is spoken by a billion people around the world. More widely scattered, written and spoken than any other language in history, English has become a global phenomenon. Exploring this amazing success, The Story of English is an essential companion for student and general reader alike. The Story of English discusses the influence of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible on the English language as well as how Early Modern … Continue reading Curious history, endurance of English as a global phenomenon