Courage. Discipline. Respect for others. Integrity. Loyalty. Selfless commitment.
First are posts on my journey as a writer. The struggles, and what I have learnt. Maybe they will provide other authors with helpful insights. I do hope so.
May 1, 2026
The Beginnings
Like most, I came to writing by accident. Divorce was the first real spur. My sojourn in that particular wilderness gave me a great deal to get off my chest. And sitting in the frigid interior of the yacht to which life had banished me, hammering away at the keys of …
May 9, 2026
Aristotle
Aristotle The army has a habit of leaving soldiers in places where the stories make themselves. I started keeping notes. At the time it was for no particular reason. Now I am grateful, the notes jog my memory, fuel my writing. One late …
May 15, 2026
Knowledge Gap
There is another thing I have learnt from David Baboulene. It is a learning I immediately grasped. And have been unable to ignore ever since. Nowadays – post Bab, as I like to term it – I can hardly watch …
June 5, 2026
The Orphans of Aleppo
A story has to have a structure. A beginning, a middle, and an end. The cleverness – the joy of writing – is in the construction. Granting a reader his first awareness of a situation, teasing a realisation that all …
June 12, 2026
The Character
I met him in a room in Saddam’s Ba’ath Party Headquarters. Baghdadis called the building Qasr-al-nihayah – the castle of the end. It squatted like an angry potentate, scowling out over the oily filth of the Tigris. On its roof …
June 26, 2026
The Chinook
The aircraft was almost unbearably loud. A Chinook with the ramp half open and a loadmaster in a helmet with a mirrored visor staring wistfully into the desert. Engines that made any sort of conversation impossible. Ten of us on …
These are all my posts so far. They cover a wide range of topics in my area of interest. And some would say, expertise!
March 17, 2026
The Washington Post Post
The Washington Post’s motto: ‘Democracy dies in darkness.’ Then Jeff Bezos took $50 billion in government contracts, kissed Trump’s ring, and proved democracy dies in broad daylight too. The Washington Post, winner of multiple Pullitzer prizes and famed for exposing …
March 13, 2026
Even the criminal underclass despises a snitch
While everyone debates Labour’s policies, Anas Sarwar just committed political suicide. He demanded Starmer resign. In Britain, disloyalty is unforgivable. Ask Heseltine. Ask Gove. From the late sixteenth to the mid twentieth century a tiny island nation in the middle …
March 10, 2026
Is Starmer the integrity Britain’s been waiting for?
Everyone’s debating the Mandelson scandal. Reality: Starmer is Britain’s first PM in years with actual integrity. Lose him now over a distraction, lose the country’s best shot at fixing politics. Sir Keir Starmer arrived in Downing Street in July 2024 …
March 8, 2026
Unforeseen Consequences
In June 2014, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, leader of the world’s 200 million Shi’a Muslims, stares gloomily at the success of the lightning-fast advance of Daesh1 through Northern Iraq. The fighters of the group known as the Islamic State in the Levant have conquered most of Northern …
March 3, 2026
Middle Size States
When US secretary for defence Pete Hegseth briefed the Pentagon’s case for the US’ current attacks against Iran he was clear. The US action, he said, had been unencumbered by the usual. There had been, he said: “No stupid rules …
February 26, 2026
The unedifying spectacle of kicking a man while he is down.
Andrew’s alleged actions would be, in my view, unpardonable if proven. MPs with expenses scandals, Partygate survivors, and Boris defenders kicking him while he’s down are hypocrites. Both are wrong. It is, in my view, an unedifying spectacle, the sight …
February 25, 2026
Hamas survives to fight and govern another day
Everyone wants Hamas gone. Reality: Gazans are turning back to them for security because occupiers destroyed everything else. This is what happens when you think only in military terms The Movement for Islamic Resistance – Hamas – with its charter …
February 24, 2026
Shelley wrote Ozymandias 200 years ago
Shelley wrote Ozymandias 200 years ago about a fallen tyrant’s hubris. Trump’s ‘King of Kings’ act follows the exact same pattern. Nemesis is coming. ‘Percy Bysshe Shelley’s sonnet “Ozymandias”, written over two hundred years ago, is a description of hubris that sounds remarkably familiar. Shelley describes what remains of a fallen statue to …
February 23, 2026
Israel – ally or liability?
Prime Minister Netanyahu, in many ways the architect of his nation’s extraordinary success, has for long harboured concerns that his country may not survive to celebrate its 100 birthday. The PM likes to use the Jewish Hasmonean dynasty of 140 BC as his model. …
February 21, 2026
Attacking Iran
Attacking Iran will reduce the nuclear threat but do the likely catastrophic consequences for Iranians provide sufficient moral justification? The Middle East, like nature, abhors a vacuum. America’s ill-considered adventurism in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq saw it bogged down in hopeless wars for decades. More …