This is a true story. It happened yesterday (as I write). I boarded the Elizabeth Line train at its South-Eastern terminus, Abbey Wood, opting for the train that wasn’t rammed-and-about-to-leave, in favour of getting a seat. I plonked myself down opposite a man perhaps in his fifties, bearded, big glasses, a little rotund, wearing a … More A Tale of Two Travellers.
J.R.R. Tolkien, writing to his son Christopher, commenting on how long and sprawling The Lord of the Rings was becoming, compared with The Hobbit: ‘It is a curse having the epic temperament in an overcrowded age devoted to snappy bits!’ And to think that he wrote this in 1944, not 2024… but perhaps the sons … More Tolkien and the curse of the epic temperament
What is this fascination with looking into the inner workings of people’s private lives that has arisen in the social media age? The private belongs to the past; privacy no longer has primacy, is no longer held in security; our privacy is now the plaything of private companies, made publicly available for all the world … More The end of privacy 📱
Ben David Trigg 