I signed up for a paid Substack subscription for the first time last month and I chose Ed West’s Wrong Side of History. I’ve been an admirer of Ed’s writing for some time, partly because I share his pessimistic-conservative outlook on the current state of the world and partly because he covers current affairs with a historical angle which I enjoy.
Author Archives: Kit Ward
Armchair travel with James Bond
Family summer holidays in my childhood were always spent in seaside bed-and-breakfasts or rented rooms. We never stayed in hotels and we certainly never went abroad. Hotel were too expensive and ‘abroad’ was impossibly exotic.
Opening the windows
On a recent trip to Paris, I experienced one of the simple pleasures of travelling abroad, which is the ability to fully open the windows of the hotel room you’re staying in.
Tools of the trade
In the extract above, Anthony Burgess is talking about his his trusty manual typewriter when he talks about ‘Qwert Yuiop’. Burgess was writing in 1986, before advent of the mass-produced, general-purpose personal computer, but a time when special-purpose word processors were beginning to edge out the typewriter.