Let’s deal with the railway’s problems in turn – blanket nationalisation won’t work

The first week back at work after the festive break is rarely as busy as the one I’ve just experienced. The idea goes that we ease gently into the new year, the workload begins to pile up gradually. No sooner than I had stumbled back from the pub and the flat cleared of party poppers,

Place your trust in politics tomorrow

Tomorrow’s the most important election I can *ever* remember, and I’ll be strolling along to the polling station as soon as it opens – then spending most of the day doing everything I can to make sure other people vote. It’s a cliché, but I’ll never forget people protested and even died for my right

A moving memorial

There is something quite special happening this year around the centenary of the First World War. The social history of what happened to people who either served in or lived during WW1 – and the huge opportunities for storytelling and reporting elements of our past that we’d otherwise have buried away in archives – is

Football’s big taboo: time for some real leadership on homophobia in sport

  The Swedish player Anton Hysen: a “one off” as the only openly gay professional footballer in the world   I’ve never been a big fan of football, although my whole childhood was dominated by it. Many of my family are big fans of our local team, Ipswich Town (“The Tractor Boys”). Some of my

Chavs, the Mystery of the Disappearing Working Class, and Other Stories

Whatever happened to the working class? A new book by Owen Jones tries to find the answer… A debate on class in 2011 seemed like a rather archaic idea. We all define one way or the other though, and I suppose I’m middle class, if anything. Two degrees, a good job and living in a

Some thoughts on Pride

Here’s a short piece I penned for the Guardian’s Comment is Free. They didn’t want it after all, so here it is in its full, unedited glory. It’s a common grump among the gay community that Pride is no longer political. Worse still, meaningless. Civil partnerships, equalising the age of consent and the abolition of

In defence of the journalistic dark arts

  In defence of the journalistic dark arts. Not mine, but a fellow City University student has written a great piece on hackeryblog in defence of phone-hacking, when it is in the public interest.

What does the ‘Dunkirk spirit’ mean today?

A reflection on what the ‘Dunkirk spirit’ means in 2011, with a fair bit of personal knowledge and experience thrown in for good measure. What does the ‘spirit of Dunkirk’ mean today? It’s a question that Matthew Cain tried to answer in his film for Wednesday night’s Channel 4 News, but in which he sadly

The start of something new

Hello, and welcome to my WordPress site. This is really just a way of posting to http://www.hackeryblog.co.uk in a few weeks’ time. In the meantime, you’ll find my writings over at my Blogger site.

Sunday June 27 2004

9am An early start, then to a long eight miles to the beach, which is well worth it. A marine mist soon lifts and the sun shines radiantly all day. We lay on the beach and have lunch for one and a half hours then hike back to the van, where Cori is waiting for