A National Idea Born in the Darkest of Times There are few institutions in Britain that accompany us for quite so much of the journey through life as the National Health Service. It can be present before we have even drawn our first breath, through antenatal care and maternity services, Continue Reading
Kitaro: The Sound of Stillness in a Noisy World
There are musicians who fill silence, and there are musicians who understand it. For nearly half a century, Kitaro has belonged firmly to the latter tradition. His music seems to emerge slowly from somewhere beyond the speakers: a distant synthesizer, the breath of a flute, the low pulse of a Continue Reading
Pink Floyd: The Band That Took Rock Music to the Dark Side of the Moon
Few bands have altered the landscape of popular music as profoundly as Pink Floyd. Their music could be intimate enough to sound like a private thought and, moments later, enormous enough to fill a stadium. They wrote about madness, mortality, war, greed, loneliness and the strange machinery of modern life. Continue Reading
The Woman who made the World : Isn’t She Lovely!
The Women Who Made the World Larger From Ada Lovelace and Amy Johnson to Angela Burdett-Coutts, Marie Curie and Rosa Parks, history is filled with women who refused to accept the boundaries of their age History has a habit of remembering kings, generals and presidents. Yet some of its greatest Continue Reading
Onassis: The Shipping Empire, the Billionaire and Greek Tycoon
There was something almost cinematic about Aristotle Onassis long before cinema attempted to capture him. He was the Greek shipping magnate who built an international empire across the oceans, entertained politicians and royalty aboard his yacht, owned his own Mediterranean island and became one of the most famous businessmen of Continue Reading
John Travolta: The one i want!
Hero of Acting Who Refused to Disappear There are actors who become famous, actors who become stars, and then there are the rare performers who somehow become part of the furniture of popular culture. John Travolta belongs firmly in that last category. For nearly half a century, he has moved Continue Reading
