The staff of life

Few things are quite as primal as our daily bread. The Biblical staff of life, it has occupied a position of social, cultural and nutritional significance whenever and wherever mankind has turned its hand to baking it. ‘Making bread is what I do and the fact it helps support the lives of the people that Read More…

Dorchester’s Bones Museum

Already something of a mecca for museum-lovers, Dorchester now has another one thanks to the restless curiosity of local entrepreneur Stephen Ware. Having collected film and sci-fi memorabilia since the age of eleven, last year he decided to sell it all and invest the proceeds in a new collection… of skeletons and taxidermy. In October Read More…

Friendly Society that reached around the world

This month marks the 185th anniversary of the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers. Today the name is all but forgotten yet it is a landmark in the development of the trades union movement. Formed to right a vindictive wrong it ended up costing its founders almost everything. Towards the end of October 1833 the men Read More…

Peter Noble MBE, pixel pioneer

There’s at least one in every smartphone. They’re in webcams, drones, CCTV cameras and movie cameras as well. Since the turn of the 21st century, if not before, the solid state ‘active pixel’ image sensor has become one of the world’s most ubiquitous technologies, an integral part of a global industry worth billions. And it Read More…

A Hardy biennial

Few places on Earth are completely immune to change, but lovers of Thomas Hardy’s writing must count themselves fortunate that large swathes of the Dorset landscape are proving remarkably resilient. To those attending the 22nd biennial International Thomas Hardy Conference and Festival the appearance of the Dorset landscape is essential to the understanding and enjoyment Read More…

Thomas Hardy: The ‘Facts’

In its continuing quest to understand more about who we are by exploring where we came from and how we got here, the Time and Tide Theatre Group has assembled an all-Dorset company for its latest revue, Words Take Wing, which premieres at Eastington Manor in Worth Matravers as part of Purbeck Art Weeks. Drawing on Read More…

Billy Bragg 2013

He’s been the Milkman of Human Kindness and a Victim of Geography, now Billy Bragg is back with a new album, a new beard and a new role – the Sherpa of Heartbreak. For all his protest singing, Billy Bragg has always been as much about the personal as the political. “I don’t want to Read More…

Billy Bragg 2010

SATURDAY afternoon in November in a quaint Dorchester tearoom and Billy Bragg is as hungry as ever – for music, for politics, for love and justice… and cake. Between mouthfuls of a rich fruit number and sips of tea he’s looking to the future, making sense of the past and finding his way through the digital Read More…