This Britain

After the fall Henry became cruel, vicious and paranoid

The accident that turned Henry VIII into a tyrant

Henry VIII became a tyrannical monster following a serious jousting accident. Michael McCarthy reports.

Inside This Britain

Minor British Institutions: The Barbour

Saturday, 18 April 2009

Sometime in the late 1980s the Barbour, or "waxed jacket", emerged from its country ghetto and found itself in the City. It was the sartorial equivalent of the Range Rover, a statement to the world that the wearer has a nice place in the country as well as in town, and is much more at home there. Not that all wearers are: it's often a tool of the impostor. It is, in other words, yet another manifestation of the English snobbiness about the rural being superior to the suburban, aided and abetted by Barbour's royal warrants to supply "waterproof and protective clothing" to the Queen.

Perfect places to live: Tuscany, Kefalonia, Rome... and Burford?

Friday, 17 April 2009

Forbes magazine ranks Cotswolds town sixth most idyllic place in Europe

The Big Question: Is Britain going to be able to support an ever-expanding population?

Friday, 17 April 2009

Jerome Taylor: First Friday prayer service for deaf Muslims

Friday, 17 April 2009

Nice little development happening in East London today where the first ever service for deaf Muslims is being held later this afternoon.

Britain in 2009

Thursday, 16 April 2009

A nation of bullied social networkers who don’t believe in global warming, according to annual Social Trends study

Jerome Taylor: The force is with the police force

Thursday, 16 April 2009

Haha! You've gotta love silly freedom of information requests. Cop shop magazine Police Review put in a load of FOI's to see whether any forces have Jedi knights in their ranks.

The £850,000 bet that paid off for Knoydart

Monday, 13 April 2009

A decade ago the residents of Knoydart bought out their absentee landlords and took control of their own destiny and their lives have been transformed.

Minor British Institutions: The Royal Society of St George

Saturday, 11 April 2009

It is difficult to know quite what to make of the Royal Society of St George. Having purloined the Union flag, the Far Right has also, over the past few years, annexed the flag of St George to its cause, and the idea of "English nationalism" is now no more savoury than that of Scottish nationalism (though it has a less bloody history than Irish nationalism and is not as comical as Welsh or Cornish nationalism).