Journalist.
Writer.

Journalist and author who writes about travel for the Daily Mail and about arts and science for everyone else.

Features

Port Magazine, August 2022

The real monster in Deliverance

Daily Mail, July 2022

Dark heart of Deliverance

WhyNow.co.uk, June 2022

Choose your own adventure

Financial Times, June 2022

What a gas

Travel

Daily Mail, June 2022

Carry on campervanning

Daily Mail, May 2022

A sunny spot by the Black Sea

Daily Mail, April 2022

Antalya adventure

Daily Mail, March 2022

Yes, you Moroc-can

Book Reviews

Marlowe? . . This portrait, said by some to be the

Marlowe?
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This portrait, said by some to be the poet and dramatist Christopher Marlowe, was found in a builder’s skip during renovation work being done to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in either 1952 or 1953, when Queen Elizabeth II came to the throne. Marlowe was a student there around the same time as this picture was painted, though as far as I can tell that’s about the only evidence that it might be him. The Latin inscription—quod me nutrit me destruit—means “the thing that nourishes me destroys me”. Apparently this was a familiar sentiment in Elizabethan times. I guess we’ve all been there.
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#elizabethanpoetry #christophermarlowe #cambridge #englishpainting #elizabethii

Man not reading. . . Man Reading by Yosef Francoam

Man not reading.
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Man Reading by Yosef Francoamericano.
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In his artist’s statement on the Saatchi website, Francoamericano says his work portrays the constant struggle within the human psyche to find a harmonious balance with the world. This guy makes it look like a losing battle.
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#menreading #menreadingbooks #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #mennotreading #manreading

Casanova in Corfu. . . I only recently learned tha

Casanova in Corfu.
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I only recently learned that the great ladies man Giacomo Casanova spent a year in Corfu serving in the Venetian garrison. During that time, while chasing the hotties, he got into scrapes that beggar belief. For example, he… accused a man claiming to be a prince of being an impostor and got slapped; waited for the guy on the esplanade and beat him almost to death with his cane; then went and drank a glass of lemonade without sugar at the coffee house (which was next to today’s Cafe Bristol, seen in pic 5); on learning he was about to be arrested, he ran away to Kassiopi; there, at least by his account, he seduced all the local hotties; after a couple of weeks news arrived that he had been right about the impostor; so he returned to Corfu Town and a hero’s welcome; at which point he again began chasing the most beautiful woman in town, one Andriana Foscarini. I have an article about all this which is due out at some point. But the big surprise in this section of his memoirs is how clumsy he is, bungling his seductions and lurching from one disaster to the next, all while keeping up a stream of self-congratulation.
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Anyone who is in Corfu and wants to learn more can book a tour with the incredibly knowledgeable Antreas Grammenos at corfuguidedtours.com.
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Pic 2: the Old Fort
Pic 3: Casanova
Pic 4: David Tennant as Casanova in a 2005 TV drama.
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#casanova #giacomocasanova #corfu #corfutown #pua #greece #hiddengreece #hiddencorfu #cafebristol

Blackboards. . . A random selection of blackboard

Blackboards.
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A random selection of blackboard shots taken at the London Institute. If anyone can correctly identify which of the scrawls on the slate was done by me, and what it represents, they get a bonus point. Clue: it has nothing to do with theoretical physics—or almost nothing, because, let’s face it, theoretical physics is everywhere.
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#londoninstitute #theoreticalphysics #maths #royalinstitution #realtennis

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