Captain’s log 18191029 It was October, 1819. The Royal Navy sloop HMS Pheasant part of the new anti-slavery West Africa Squadron, was on patrol off Accra in what is today Ghana. For the research and writing on my latests book project, I was reading the log and came across a reference that I had not […]
Be subtle! Be subtle! And use your spies for every kind of business. Sūnzǐ 孙子 (Sun Tzu) The Art of War When nations are in a shooting war, they use spies. When nations are in a trade war, they use spies. On Wednesday, April 2, 2025, US President Donald Trump declared a trade war on […]
Canadian author, Nobel Prize winner and master of the short story, Alice Munro, has passed away at 92. This photo was taken on September 21, 2005 at Massey Hall,during the CBC Lockout, when the leaders of Canadian arts came together rally in support of CBC workes on the picket lines. Munro’s superb short stories gained […]
I’ve just completed five days of research for my Pennell Projects at the British National Archives at Kew. (And a couple of weeks earlier I spent the afternoon at the British Library in London). William Pennell was a diplomat and a spy under diplomatic cover from 1814 to 1832. That meant I had a […]
Version 2.0 Updated October 2023 Long read (Contains spoilers for It’s a Sin and may trigger some AIDS survivor readers. Names in quotation marks are pseudonyms. Many of the names from the 80s aren’t mentioned because I don’t remember. Other names are real, taken from my occasional diary or letters I wrote) This is an […]