Tax that must not be named

Standing in the Great Hall of Hogwarts one day this summer in the company of my youngest son and half of the picture-popping population of Japan, I was the only muggle who, when asked by the Warner Brothers Studio Guide which House I would want the Sorting Hat to direct me to, did not reply Gryffindor. To my…

Brave New World?

When, at 3 o'clock on the morning of September 30 , I flopped, bleary-eyed, into a chair  in a Berlin hotel room, activated my laptop and started to write about John Le Carre's Cold War Trilogy, it did not occur to me that the ensuing post was to be the beginning of my (first) trilogy. The story so far: A…

Going Back To Sunday School

If challenged to a game of Word Association, top of my list of responses to "Berlin" would not be "Morality"; in fact it would be hard-pressed to make it as high as the bottom of my list. Dietrich (The Blue Angel), Liza with a Zee (Cabaret) and  Political Movement with a Zee (every war movie between…