How to begin what may be a one-off, or may be the first of a series of such articles? Where am I coming from, and what's this all about? Whilst my previous writings in Sofia establish some activist/Green Party credentials(*) I do not want this piece or its possible...
In the same way as 9/11 has become a 21st century memorable date for the West – and to many areas beyond it, and 7/7 has become another, especially for Londoners, 7/10/23 in our British calendar will be a date that not only the Israeli nation but the Jewish diaspora...
Download full issue PDF Contents Editorial Utopia, Dinah Livingstone Articles Utopian Visions, David Boulton Nicaragua's Failed Utopia, Francis McDonagh Christmas, Tony Windross Who is Human? A Short History of Race, Dominic Kirkham Arthur Shearly Cripps, Digby...
One fine day back in 1999 the future editor of Sofia and the editor of its predecessor, Sea of Faith Magazine, were among several hundred utopians marching to St George's Hill, 'an affluent satellite of London, a wealthy community of stockbrokers studded with gated...
Many aspects of the society created by the 1979 Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua qualify it to be described as a utopia. Perhaps most notable is the literacy campaign launched less than a year after the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship. It is estimated that the...
It all began one Christmas – well actually, a few months earlier. A few months earlier I'd found a battered copy of HJ ('Bert') Richards' The First Christmas in my local second-hand bookshop, and as the festive season had almost arrived, it seemed an appropriate thing...
The word 'race' first appears in the English language in the sixteenth century, probably from an Italian root. It is often a bit of a mystery as to exactly how new words appear in a language, but one thing that seems certain is that their appearance denotes some new...
My mother's and, I think, my grandfather's hero was Arthur Shearly Cripps (1869–1952). He had attended Charterhouse and Trinity College, Oxford, where he knew the poet Laurence Binyon (remembered as the composer of 'For the Fallen') and won a prestigious poetry prize....
I am surprised to find myself reading with great interest things like cotton harvest twenty five percent up on last year coffee exports US$124.2 million 17.5% up on last year a 13.6% increase in sugar is expected maize production down -5.9% gold 10% down because of...
So often I've decided to forget you as if you were a cruel lover who slams the door in your face or one of those who, the more you love, the quicker they forget. But however hard I try, I can't forget you, your rain, your wind, your greenness, papers rustling in the...