Theatre Europe (screenshot from C64 Wiki) When I was growing up there was a computer game called Theatre Europe. It allowed you to play out, from the comfort of your Commodore 64 or ZX Spectrum, a 30-day campaign between Nato and the Warsaw Pact countries, and it had three possible outcomes: either one of the … Continue reading Vladimir Putin and the fiction of war
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Faith in endings: how grief nearly killed my love of books
Not long ago my son said something that hit me like a sniper’s bullet: ‘You’ve got loads of books in this house but you never read them.’ I felt ashamed. While never a gluttonous reader, I always enjoyed books and usually had two or three on the go. In a typical year I’d get through … Continue reading Faith in endings: how grief nearly killed my love of books
Coronavirus: one faceless killer can conceal another
At first, when the shutdown was announced, I joked that my lifestyle as a widowed parent had become fashionable. If a government minister hadn’t announced on television that the bars and restaurants were closing I'm not sure I’d have noticed. After self-isolating for years, I felt as if the world had come to me. I … Continue reading Coronavirus: one faceless killer can conceal another