Blog Posts
Food, Culture and Identity
A story of food, culture and identity Possibly my favourite cookbook, and certainly my most used, is Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian. I can’t recommend it highly enough, even if you’re not vegetarian (I’m not). I might have mentioned before that I mainly cook because I like eating, and so I’m naturally drawn to the work…
Tinned Salmon and the Totality of Life
Tinned Salmon This is last month’s article that I never managed to publish. It was holiday season at Castle Sefton Press and we also had some uninvited visitors. Even though I was going away, the blog was due to go out before I went but at the last minute we had a rodent incursion in…
Don’t Mention the War: Memories of World War II
“With all the care and compassion at our command, let us tend the flower of life, for it is for that our brothers and sisters died and we were spared.” J B Priestley, Journey into Daylight, broadcast on the BBC, May 11th, 1945, in Priestley’s Postcripts, BBC Sounds. Memories of World War II I hope…
Fred Astaire and Singer Sargent: Inspiration and Entertainment
By the Skin of My Teeth April’s blog post is finally here with some new artwork of Fred Astaire, just in time! It’s been an eventful month that has flown by packed with stress, achievement and family commitments. The stress was mostly due to the new Castle Sefton Press online store, which proved to be…
An Inspector Calls, Integrity and Imaginary Cooking Friends
An Inspector Calls Regular readers of this blog will know that I am an admirer of the work of English author J. B. Priestley, now best known for his play An Inspector Calls. My enthusiasm for his writing was, as far as I remember, first ignited by the 1981 BBC adaptation of that very play.…
The Fawlty Towers Spanish Omelette
Seasonal Considerations Valentine’s Day is fast approaching, but having written about love at some length in my last post, I thought about food. Festivals and special days like Valentine’s Day are celebrated the world over by feasts of special dishes, and archaeology suggests that has been a feature human societies for a long time. In…
Epiphany
Packing Christmas away Epiphany: time to take the decorations down and go back to work. (Actually, we take ours down before Epiphany these days, as no one visits after New Year’s Day and there is a lot more celebrating in the run up to Christmas than there was in the time of the twelve days’…
Merry Christmas
Busy I’m tired. What with the launch of Castle Sefton Press‘ first book – Ghost Train – and preparations for Christmas, I think that’s only natural. And it’s good to be tired from doing productive things. At the last minute too, CSP also had to deal with some new EU legislation, the new General Product…
Ghost Train Publication Day: Pitching at the Hole in the Fiction Doughnut
Ghost Train is published. Ghost Train is published today – and will be on its way to those of you who have pre-orders – just fifteen months after I began writing it. I’m excited that it is finally on offer to readers everywhere, because all those who read it as part of the production process…
What Will You Carry Through to the New Year?
Christmas is fast approaching. It is once more the time of short, dark days, warm glows and twinkly lights, hearty meals and inward pleasures. Like Clyde in Ghost Train, I have prepared the dark, rich foods of the heart of winter: mincemeat, fruit cake and a round splodge of a Christmas pudding. The first mince…
