A Window on the Past I HAVE REVEALED in previous posts my love of historical fiction―especially that set in the Tudor and Stewart period (1485-1714). When written with authority and grounded in solid research, historical fiction can act as a richly textured window onto the past by animating facts with lived experience. While it does …
I AM A 50s child. My formative years were the 1960s and 70s ― for which I am extremely grateful. Now, at sixty-seven years of age I think I've earned the right to reminisce a little. Indeed, with more life behind me than ahead, my personal narrative becomes ever clearer; memories more precious. Memories become …
Discovering Küehne + Nagel’s Dark WWII Past WHEN I worked for the shipping and transport giant Küehne + Nagel, I was pleased to be a small part of the global logistics heavyweight. It was a company built on precision, reliability, and efficiency. Containers, tilt trailers, freight rates and manifests: this was the language of our …
Jeremy Brett and the Price of Being Holmes WHEN WRITING my two previous posts — 'The Timeless Detective' and 'The Melancholy Moor' — I was prompted to reflect on the actor who, for me, epitomised perfectly the precision and intensity of the Sherlock Holmes character. His was a performance that redefined the role for my …
IN MY PREVIOUS post—'The Timeless Detective'—I declared who, of the innumerable literary characters in English fiction, is my all time favourite. I also explained why. 'Few reading pleasures rival a Holmes mystery. Each feels like a game played in candlelight — a test of wits where the clues are laid before us, daring us to …
I PLACED MY first order with Book Club Associates sometime in 1977. The now defunct mail-order book company ran six specialist clubs at the time, and I'd elected to join their Mystery & Thriller Club. Of the six books that eventually arrived, two remain on my shelf today. Their dust-covers are now sun bleached, with …
I HAVE MADE no secret of the fact that I like playing computer and console games. In July, in my post 'Becoming Arthur Morgan,' I described my experience of playing the Western blockbuster, Red Dead Redemption 2. Arthur Morgan - 'He became a mirror, a guide, and strangely enough, a companion.' More recently, September's 'I …
THERE ARE moments in life when the unconscious seems to reach out ahead of us, sketching symbols of what is yet to unfold. During a particularly stressful period of my life — one that would soon culminate in a nervous breakdown — I created a stave rune charm; one to carry with me in my …
WHEN I BEGAN using Tarot cards in July 2021, I followed widespread advice for beginners by opting to use the classic Rider-Waite-Smith version. That iconic deck stands as the cornerstone of modern tarot — the definitive version upon which nearly all contemporary interpretations are based. Its imagery is rich in archaic symbolism and steeped in …
A COUPLE OF weeks ago I wrote a post about my favourite Al Pacino portrayal—that of 'Lefty' Ruggiero in the movie 'Donnie Brasco.' As I wrote that post I realised that I've been hooked on stories such as that one my entire life. There's something captivating about the hugger-mugger mobster underworld with its loyalties, codes, …
RAVEN MOON 