Published in Country Squire Magazine It was the spring of 2003. Amidst a vortex of gorging humanity, the statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad was being ripped off its plinth by excitable vandals. Many western television viewers sympathised with these young men dressed in thawbs who...
The Scent of Angelica The day begins on the quay at Tvøroyri on the southernmost island of the Faroes. Held by their horns, rams are loaded into the make-shift wooden pen that occupies the stern of a fishing vessel. These dozen or so rams belong to...
I arrive at the station early. This is my first trip on a train with a dog in Russia. The information online regarding the do’s and don’ts of pet travel in Russia had been somewhat conflicting and I am eager to be prepared for every...
A bare-chested man gazes out of the window watching the queue of passengers that wait on the platform to have their travel documents inspected. Content his entourage have made it onto the train, he walks towards me down the extremely narrow corridor that runs alongside...
Listening to the Faroese, published by Little Toller Books Listening to the Faroese A visit to the church at Sandvík, the Faroe Islands Sunday morning. The houses are sleeping. From a distant window, a spinster can be seen sidling into her sitting room with spools of wool. Time...
Article published in Country Squire Magazine: No country for straight white men The weather was disagreeable: damp, diffident and almost apologetic. It was not surprising. It was a Tuesday. The morning toast sat there silently, waiting to be marmaladed, and for a moment the world seemed...
Article published in Country Squire Magazine What you need to know before you pack your son or daughter off to university this autumn Ripples of laughter could be heard from the Senior Common Room where undergraduates dressed in ‘I am a feminist’ hoodies wrestled on the sofas....
Published in Country Squire Magazine What is it like being a Eurosceptic at a British university? The Common Room was full of snuff-coloured indefinite suits and strange phlegmatic noises coming from behind Broadsheets. Tonight it was Schools Dinner – the one occasion in the year when students...
The research on my latest fieldwork in Colombia where I worked with ex-hostages of the FARC is published in Language & Communication 69 (2019): 1-10 ...
Colombian families of former hostages turn to radio for justice I am sitting in the reception of the Marriott Hotel in Bogotá. I have come here to meet Herbin Hoyos. Herbin, one of the most well-known journalists in Colombia, ran a radio programme called Voces del...