It was in the first week of November that London had its first harbinger of Christmas. In the dead of night – a full month before the beginning of advent - Starbucks decked their stores in festive red, began serving their festive Ginger-Bread lattes in Santa-red cups, and assailed coffee drinkers with Sting's latest album of festive folk music.
Posted at 23:25 GMT, 25th December 2009.
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My local library in a down-at-heel suburb of East London survived blanket bombing in the Blitz with only minor damage and a fire thirty years ago that saw the destruction of its precious collection of Russian manuscripts. But it faces perhaps a more mortal foe in surviving the era of "accessibility".
Posted at 00:41 GMT, 21st December 2009.
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Interview with Rowan Williams at Lambeth Palace - 23rd October 2009
Tagged: Interviews for the Financial Times , Financial Times Reportage
Posted at 15:26 GMT, 23rd November 2009.
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A much shortened and edited version of this piece appeared in the FT on the 21 November 2009
Every morning at around seven the Archbishop of Canterbury leaves his sparse living quarters at Lambeth Palace and heads down to the even sparser crypt chapel, completed in 1220, to pray. Here, with candles burning and the first rays of autumn daylight penetrating through the latticed windows, the Primate of All England kneels before the altar, head bowed, for half an hour of silent prayer. He is dressed in simple parish priest black with his Greek orthodox proportioned beard the only arresting feature. Eventually one of the two nuns living at the Palace, kneeling beside him, breaks the silence by reading a passage of scripture – the daily offices of the Church of England – and matins begins.
Tagged: Interviews for the Financial Times , Financial Times Reportage
Posted at 00:00 GMT, 23rd November 2009.
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A Transcript of my Interview with Dolly Parton conducted on Friday 12 June, 2009. There was a lot of material that didn't make it into the piece.
Tagged: Interviews for the Financial Times
Posted at 01:04 BST, 30th July 2009.
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Observations on life in a suburb of Capetown as South Africa goes to the polls.
Tagged: New Statesman
Posted at 00:00 BST, 1st April 2009.
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Interview with the Graham Harvey, the Agricultural Storyline Editor of the Archers.
Tagged: Interviews for the Financial Times , Financial Times Reportage
Posted at 00:00 GMT, 1st March 2009.
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Rob Blackhurst