BY ROGER WATSON In China it appears you can take the peasant out of rural areas, but you cannot stop them being a peasant. Early in the last decade China initiated a project to move 250 million people from rural areas to the cities; from shanties and small houses to the high rise apartments that characterise so much of their urban environment. In fact, since … Continue reading Urban Peasants
BY ROGER WATSON It was a few nights before Christmas and I was in Manchester. It was late. I stepped out of the taxi into the cold night air and headed to where the driver had told me the hotel reception was located. I walked into the reception and my spectacles immediately steamed over. The room was very warm and humid. It was clearly a … Continue reading Canal Street
BY ROGER WATSON I had never heard of August Šenoa until a recent visit to Croatia. In the week before my visit, which was my first time in the country, I searched online for Croatian writers. With a preference for modern rather than classical writers, I encountered August Šenoa. My interest in him was heightened by the fact that he came from Zagreb where there … Continue reading August Šenoa
BY ROGER WATSON If anyone reading this can afford it, could they please pay the money to whoever it is who has captured the Roman Catholic Church and is holding it to ransom? This is not the first time my church has appeared on these pages. The past two years have seen an increasing level of politically charged nonsense from CAFOD (Catholic Fund for Overseas … Continue reading Captive Catholics
BY ROGER WATSON I have been to many Edinburgh Military Tattoos. It became ‘Royal’ in 2010. Over the years, since childhood, during my own military service when I took part and subsequently when I continued to live in Edinburgh, I went regularly. I had not been back for nearly 25 years but my youngest son, who is a regular, persuaded me to attend this year. … Continue reading The Edinburgh Tattoo
BY ROGER WATSON On the fiftieth anniversary of the Great Train Robbery, I recalled the fact that I went to school with a kidnapper. And there is a link between the kidnapper and the famous robbery. There can be few who do not know the story of the Great Train Robbery in 1963. I am old enough to remember it as I was eight years … Continue reading My Classmate was a Kidnapper
BY ROGER WATSON While vegans probably produce enough gas to solve the energy crisis, I am not referring to their flatus. The fact is that the vegan tail is beginning to wag the omnivorous dog. This does not have to be the case. The repeated reminders that food or drink are ‘suitable for vegans’ is nothing more or less than a subtle form of gaslighting. … Continue reading Vegan Gaslighting
BY ROGER WATSON “I just love Chinese culture.” I hear this often from people whose encounter with Chinese culture is limited to a weekly visit to the Yangtze River Chinese restaurant in town or having watched some ‘limited hangout’ documentaries by Michael Palin or Niall Ferguson on the BBC. My inevitable response is, “which aspects of Chinese culture do you like?” and offer them a … Continue reading Cultural Cringe
BY ROGER WATSON ‘That surprises me’ is a response I often get to something I have said or done when I am speaking with friends and relatives who are more left-wing than me. Admittedly, it is not hard to be more left-wing than me, adhering as I do to a set of very traditional and conservative values. I dabbled with left-wing politics as a student. … Continue reading No Surprise Lefties Are Moving Right
BY ROGER WATSON Elif Shafak is a Turkish feminist writer. A contemporary of Turkey’s ‘man of letters’ Orhan Pamuk, and, like Pamuk, persecuted by the present Turkish government, she chooses to live in England. Pamuk, on the other hand, under constant armed guard, chooses to remain in Istanbul. Being an outspoken writer in Turkey is a dangerous business. The topics covered by Shafak are wide … Continue reading The Island of Missing Trees
BY ROGER WATSON My fourteen-year-old grandson is a prolific writer. He blogs regularly on his favourite football team and has graced the pages of this esteemed organ. Progressively, he needs less and less of my editorial input. But in his final blog of the football season he referred to his ‘most favourite’ moment and I smugly pulled him up on that, informing him that he … Continue reading Something What I Learned
BY ROGER WATSON If you have a tendency towards depression, your lifelong marriage is on the rocks or if there are family skeletons that have long been locked up in a cupboard, this is not the film for you. Like most of the films in which he stars these days, this is another ‘Jim Broadbent and some other people’ film, such is the extent to … Continue reading The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
BY ROGER WATSON Mention the Jade Cabbage to a Taiwanese Chinese person, their eyes will be lowered in reverence and a look of awe will come over their faces. The Jade Cabbage, also known as The Green Jade Cabbage, is the finest exemplar of a jadeite cabbage and it is Taiwan’s most revered artefact. It is housed in the National Palace Museum in Taipei and … Continue reading A Very Dangerous Relic
BY ROGER WATSON Now that I am retired and have endless leisure time I can do crazy things like visit art galleries in the morning. Here in Kingston upon Hull we are certainly not spoilt for choice. We have a single gallery in town. Therefore, one visit goes a long way. The Ferens Art Gallery is in the old town of Hull, and we have … Continue reading Desperately Seeking Gays in Hull
BY ROGER WATSON “Welcome back to Taiwan…” “…do you still have diarrhoea?” Few, if any people arriving in the landside of customs at Chiang Kai-Shek airport near Taipei in Taiwan will have been greeted like this. The young student sent to welcome me, demonstrating typical Chinese directness and insensitivity, was referring to my previous visit when I arrived from Hong Kong following the worst bout … Continue reading Welcome Back to Taiwan
BY ROGER WATSON In Banalysis, Frank Haviland tackles an unpopular subject: that people are different from one another. To even the casual observer it is obvious that people are different, but to say so these days is virtually an anathema. In our increasingly homogenised world, we are expected to accept that nobody wins a race, they merely participate. Nobody fails an examination; instead they receive … Continue reading Banalysis
BY ROGER WATSON Having reviewed Philip Tucker’s book The Jasmine Sari in these pages, I was very keen to read his first novel An Englishman in Terror. It is an entirely different kind of book, but I was not disappointed. If asked to summarise this novel in one word, it would have to be ‘misery’. Still, this is the well-crafted misery of the main character … Continue reading An Englishman in Terror
BY ROGER WATSON Anyone with military connections will understand the term ‘patch’ which is a military colloquialism for accommodation where serving members of the armed forces live with their families. This is distinct from barracks and messes which are usually within the confines of a military camp. Living ‘on the patch’ therefore means living in military housing in the area immediately surrounding a military camp. … Continue reading The Patch
BY ROGER WATSON We have just entered the season of Lent, forty days during which we prepare ourselves for the zenith of the Christian calendar, the Easter Triduum, when we remember the torturing and execution and celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. I know that this season is upon us because Easter eggs and hot cross buns are already on display at Tesco. Of course, I … Continue reading Family Farce Day
BY ROGER WATSON Published in 2017, this book has had a recent publicity boost and one without which I may never have come across it. It is self-published by the author Philip Tucker, which may explain its obscurity, but the author has clearly and happily decided to invest in having it advertised on the London Calling and Weekly Sceptic podcasts, both of which feature journalist … Continue reading The Jasmine Sari
