Early on when lockdown was about to begin in the UK, a friend asked how to support UK vegan food businesses. She asked whether I knew which were delivering or doing no-contact collections. I knew of some and quickly realised there were many! I needed to get organised. So, I started a list and update…
Essays
Notes on the 63rd BFI London Film Festival 2019
These are my notes from LFF 2019. They were written either immediately after my seeing the film or shortly thereafter. I am not a film reviewer, so these are impressions rather than full-blown reviews. Continuing from last year, I once again noticed the continued increase in stories about women and made by women. There was…
"This dispatch is being written from a bamboo covered hillside near the Bay of Bengal along the coast of central Burma"
I have a friend who served in the 82nd (West Africa) Division of the British Infantry during the Burma (now, Myanmar) campaign of 1945 and has a Burma Star to show for it. Earlier in the War, he served in West Africa as well as in London during the Battle of Britain. You will not be…
Notes from the 62nd BFI London Film Festival
These are my notes from this year’s LFF. They were written either immediately after my seeing the film or shortly thereafter. I am not a film reviewer, so these are more impressions than full-blown reviews. One of the themes I noticed this year was the increase in stories about women and made by women. Good…
It's About The Conversations
Co-authored with Damon McDonald and first published on Ecorazzi on 10 September 2018. Photo credits to Vegandale. Empowering, positive and unapologetic vegan advocacy while having fun at a vegan food and drink festival are not mutually exclusive activities. From the clever, and often laugh out loud funny, vegan artwork that reinforces the simple idea that to help…
Vegan in Kenya and Rwanda
We recently spent three weeks between Nairobi, parts of eastern Kenya, Rwanda and even one night in Uganda. There is no magic to being vegan in Kenya or Rwanda. It is easy. Many of the traditional foods are vegan and in every town there will be a market where to purchase grains, beans and seasonal…
What About Zero Waste?
The most recent green bandwagon is “zero waste”. Zero waste is generally understood to mean moving towards generating nothing that gets disposed of in the general rubbish. People are meant to reuse what they have, compost, recycle, not use plastic bags and so forth. This is all admirable and necessary and if, like me, you…
My Notes from London Film Festival 2017
I love film. I am not a critic or an expert; I don’t recall all the names or know all the facts. I am a spectator. I love the stories, the experience, the new worlds, the different realities. The London Film Festival is a sort of holiday for me and I look forward to those…
Zambia: Meds, Schools and Kids
Our recent trip to Zambia had been overdue. We went for a variety of reasons, including to help a volunteer medical mission, to see schools, meet students we had been supporting for a number of years and run a life skills workshop for young people. Although it took us 30 hours door to door to arrive…
Vegan in Zambia
As our friend Andrew T. said at the end of our three weeks in Zambia, “you’ve discovered that most of the traditional Zambian foods are vegan!” And that pretty much sums it up. There is a vibrant variety and availability of vegetables, tubers, pulses, grains, nuts (mostly groundnuts, aka peanuts) and fruits and that’s just in the…
