Blog
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Talking about Midnight in St Petersburg with Angie Greaves of Magic FM…
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Pictures from my launch party for Midnight in St Petersburg
We found a pair of rooms overlooking Lincoln’s Inn Fields and turned one into a kind of Russian turn-of-the-century drawing
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Happy ever after
How people flourish. Andrei Lugovoi, the man the British police would have liked to interview in connection with the murder-by-tea-or-sushi in London of Alexander Litvinenko in 2007, now a nationalist MP in the Russian parliament, has just married a 23-year-old babe from the Russian Far East.
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A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra – a great novel set in Chechnya
Anthony Marra’s wonderful novel, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, is set in Chechnya – which, sadly, has been back in
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The rage of young men: from comical ineptitude to terror
It’s no joke being young and male. Those bundles of raging id impulses and testosterone may still have childish minds, full of TV games and unreality. They can seem only half aware of the damage their big new dangerous bodies can do. It’s in this unresolved state of immaturity that a very few become attracted to extremist violence – making working out what to do with its young men one of the hardest tasks for any society.
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The violin I’m making, in pictures (Part 2)
A few pictures showing my violin beginning to come together.
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How the Inquisition found secret Jews in Spain: by sniffing their kitchen smells, and rooting through their garbage
If Christianity was defined by its seasonal dietary rules, so were other medieval religions. The eating habits of the Jews of medieval Spain and Portugal were the Inquisitor’s main clues in hunting them down
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When is the end of Lent?
The six-week Lenten fast of Christian ends at Easter, in glorious springtime, with feasting. But what if spring hasn’t come yet?
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THE KETCHUP OF TIMES PAST (AND THE HP SAUCE)
It’s hard to imagine, but oily sauces like mayonnaise, which we think of as an intrinsic part of European food,
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THE VIOLIN I’M MAKING, IN PICTURES
I’m excited that I am spending 10 days over Easter at the workshop in Cambridge where, for the past couple of years, I’ve been very slowly making a violin. It’s the first time I’ve been there since last summer. I’ve missed it. The project started as research for a book. But the book’s written now and coming out this April. So going back now is purely for pleasure.
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A self-explanatory letter from Wellington, 1812
Feeling frustrated by too many layers of administration is not as modern as you might think.
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LENT IS UPON US: a temperance sermon by an old-time Bishop of Treves
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THE MONK’S DIET 1
just in time for Lent, here’s THE MONK’S DIET, precursor of The 5:2 Diet: my handy improvised iturgical calendar showing the dates on which our ancestors feasted and fasted all year round for 1000 years and more … and an experiment.
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The last word
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ENJOY!
Here’s a free chapter from THE TASTE OF DREAMS: An Obsession with Russia and Caviar, a book I wrote a long while ago but have just republished on Kindle. It’s about caviar smuggling in the lawless Russian 1990s, and much more. (The rest of the book can be bought for a song on amazon.wherever-you-are …)
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Wow, it worked.
I’ve been dabbling in self-re-publishing a Kindle edition of my old book – THE TASTE OF DREAMS: An Obsession with Russia and Caviar … and …
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HUMAN HIBERNATION
This seems to have been a European phenomenon, a corollary to the nil level of labour required by European crops during the winter months. Historian Graham Robb claims in “The Discovery of France” that even well into the nineteenth century, 99% of all himan activity recorded in Pyrenean and Alpine France took place between late spring and early autumn …
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WHEN IS A VIOLIN SALE NOT A FIDDLE?
Musicians like my parents are always telling eye-popping stories about the dishonesty of the dealers they buy their instruments from. Exaggerations? Read these 3 true-life stories from the press and see what you think …
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The fasting diet? It’s so last millennium, sweetie
The 5:2 fasting diet that we are hearing about at the moment sounds so like the intermittent fasting of the traditional Christian year that I wrote a piece in The Times about how medieval people ate. Here’s my medieval version of the 5:2 fast …
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A creepy little picture of power in Russia today …
How Russia\’s leaders are greeted by their people in the streets of Moscow – a scared laugh at new Russia.
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RUSSIA: THE ROAD TO HELL
This hilarious video, RUSSIA: THE ROAD TO HELL, reminded me so much of the weirdly impressive, whatever, “don’t-give-a-damn-about-anyone-including-myself” attitude I enjoyed about
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MIDNIGHT IN ST PETERSBURG
The violin novel I’ve been working on for longer than I like to recall is finished …
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What I wrote about before writing novels …
In my previous life I was a foreign correspondent. Going through a cupboard, I’ve just found a very, very old long article/diary I wrote while working in Africa, maybe in 1991, about a whole country full of lost, frightened people looking for a home – the aid workers no less than the people they were supposed to be aiding. Writing it, as I now recall, helped show me how lonely I also was in Africa. Here it is.
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finished first draft!
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Literary agent slates Rupert Murdoch’s HarperCollins
BBC reports an intriguing comment from major US literary agent Andrew Wylie…
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Return to Absurdistan
Writing a book set during the Russian Revolution of 1917 is reminding me of the wild excesses of the country I knew in the 1990s, after a later revolution ended Soviet rule – a place my Russian friends always liked, wryly, to call “Absurdistan”.
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Taking liberties with Russia’s greatest pre-revolutionary play
The novel I’m writing is set before and after the Russian Revolution, so I’ve been keen to go and see Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard, one of my favourite plays, at the National Theatre. It’s a wonderful play, poignantly charting the decline of the gentry just before the events of 1917 itself. But it seems this production has problems – a tricksy, weirdly over-modernised script, ringing with anachronistic clangers from “Oh bollocks”, to “every single bloody time” and people earning “25 to 30K a year”. Having read the Telegraph’s delightfully hold-your-nose review (here), I’m not so sure I’ll be going after all …
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The Peasants’ Revolt remembered, in Islington …
Tony Benn unveils an Islington People’s Plaque commemorating the Peasants’ Revolt.
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“Philippa Gregory or Vanora Bennett this is not …”
Wondering whether to be pleased at this mention! Books Winnipeg Free Press – PRINT EDITION An unflinching portrait of a
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Some ancestor of mine – a violinist?
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Chekhov round my neck
Would someone please tell me the secret of a good short story?
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How to eat to save your life (and soul)
Beginner’s guide to the medieval way of feasting (and fasting)
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The Inns are alive with the sound of music
London barristers work in four enchanting patches of greenery, in tall, elegant (if austere) buildings – a quiet pleasure in the very heart of the city for anyone who knows them. But what else beside the law goes on at the Inns of Court?
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My top five historical novels
If you define historical novels as broadly as I do – that is, as books that show people living in an earlier time, not simply as those written for the genre ghetto – then here are five of the best.
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Making the front and back of my violin
For a whole week, from 9 to 5.30 every day, I carved out curves on the outside of the front and back of my violin. That’s getting on for 40 hours….and it’s not done yet.
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Was Rasputin such a bad guy?
We think we know Rasputin, because we can all hum along to RA RA RASPUTIN, LOVER OF THE RUSSIAN QUEEN, IT WAS A SHAME HOW HE CARRIED ON … but is that how things really were?
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My top summer read (so far)
Carsten Jensen’s extraordinary book, telling the story of four generations of salty Danish sea-dogs (and their women), has been a hit all over Scandinavia. Now I’ve read it, I can see exactly why.
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Violinists
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Violin
From listening to others making music to making my own violin, in one easy step
About the Monk’s Diet
I’m doing an unadulterated year of fasting/feasting, the medieval 5:2 diet - to see if it brings the serene peace of mind and balance of body and soul that people in the Middle Ages strove for.