The Orwell Prize is awarded each year for political writing. There will be an event on 22 October 2008 at the Frontline Club, launching the 2009 Prize. The question for debate: Is journalism failing failing states? The website also...

Young people under the age of 26 are to be given theatre tickets in a new government initiative and taxpayers will be paying £2.5 million. Will that be money well spent? Will the young people want to go to the theatre and if they do...

Two Tibetans have made a film Leaving Fear Behind including interviews with more than 100 Tibetans. They asked people for their views on the Dalai Lama, the Olympics in Beijing and the presence of the Chinese in Tibet. The two film...

A book that I am reading is Why do People Hate America? written by Ziauddin Sardar & Merryl Wyn Davies. So why do people hate America? George W Bush had a go at answering the question. "They hate our freedoms" he said but of course he...

Grassroots Bookshop in Manchester was one that I really liked and over the years I have been to radical bookshops in other cities, such as Leicester, Bristol and London. Grassroots Bookshop of Manchester is no more, I understand. Human...

We Shall Overcome became the anthem of the civil rights movement in the USA. The song was popularised by Pete Seeger and Joan Baez as well as by many other singers. Recently I have listened to the song on a CD by the Harlem Gospel...

A singer I have liked for years is June Tabor and she is doing a concert in Gent, Belgium on 10 Nov. 2008 with Huw Warren and Mark Emerson. The concert is to mark four important anniversaries including 90 years since the 1918 Armistice...