Showing results by narrator "Charles Johnston" in All Categories

Selected poems from a couple of decades in South East London.

Pushkin’s story of thwarted love is set in Russia of the early years of the C19th. In verse at once satiric and penetrating, it tells the tale of a bored young man and the country girl, brought up on romantic novels, whose love he rejects. His behavior leads indirectly to tragedy. The tables are turned some time later when he in his turn becomes obsessed with her. In a final confrontation, she rejects his advances.

This is a tale of witches and wishes, tales and trees, stepmothers, spells and a girl who sleeps in the ashes by the fire.... But it's not the one you know.

Retired Italian detective, Giuseppe Bianchi, travels to England to escape one tragic death, when he comes face-to-face with another. When the body of a teenager is found on a Sussex beach, Giuseppe is drawn to the case - a case with no witnesses, and a case about which no one is prepared to talk. National news reports of a missing 12-year-old in Manchester spark fear across the nation. The phrase "stranger-danger" filters into public consciousness. Local reporter, Christina Rossi, already has concerns about her local community. Families are not as close-knit as they first appear.

When a violent storm blasts England’s south coast, it’s up to retired Italian detective Giuseppe Bianchi to sift through the devastation and piece together the tragic events left behind in the storm’s wake.

This is a succinct biography of Schopenhauer and provides a glimpse of his philosophical thinking.

Steeped in history, culture and traditions, London remains one of the largest and most populous cities on the planet. Small wonder then, that some of history's greatest poets have been inspired by it.

Set two seasons after the coronavirus devastated the summer game, Close of Play is a humorous rustic rural romp looking at what happens when property developers want to turn a village cricket ground into a new housing estate. The planning laws offer no protection. Protests do not help. And when the players can earn £40,000 each by selling off the land, everything seems lost. Until they decide to settle the issue by holding a £1 million village cricket match.

A Forgotten Poet follows the fortunes of diffident and reluctant man of letters, Harold Humber, from his early life in the English Midlands through his post-war career as economist, jazz aficionado, expert in industrial architecture, and, in the final reckoning, author of four slim volumes of popular verse.

Father Fred is not without guile, but that doesn't mean he won't half get up to some naughty mischief! His hearing aid goes missing at a festival, and that's where the doggy comes into this adventurous story indeed. Mystery and shenanigans abound.

An essay by Edward Lucie-Smith on David Hockney's portraits exhibited at the Royal Academy's "82 Portraits and One Still-Life", and also "David Hockney and the Yorkshire Landscape" at RA in 2012.

2019. Russia's Web Brigades have created a divided West, but both the European and the American intelligence services are getting wise to their tactics. When Stanislav Kuznetsov, the FSB’s Director of Overseas Strategic Affairs, entrusts a group of young idealists with the task of devising the next phase in the disruption of Russia’s enemies, little does he suspect that six weeks later, they’ll come up with a plan to suborn the British Broadcasting Corporation. His first reaction is mingled incredulity and exasperation. Have they taken leave of their senses?

MI7 is expecting an eccentric new recruit in the person of Chasha Jones, self-described (only partly tongue-in-cheek) as "the most intelligent woman in London". She's hard-working, insightful, and fun to work alongside. But the day she's due to begin, there's no sign of her. It turns out she's joined forces with an eccentric Brit called Hector Raynebow. Raynebow used to be an environmentalist, but he's rejected all that on the grounds that humanity, in its present form, is incapable of saving the world. He has the perfect solution: Humankind 2.0.

If you are a manager or leader in an organization - company, public service, or NGO - or you are simply interested in how to make your organization work better, then this book is for you. If you have the feeling that you are skating over the surface of what is really going on in your organization, if you know that there is something more vital that you are missing out on, if you’re frustrated by applying the same management fads over and over, just with different labels on, then perhaps you are open to looking deeper into what makes organizations function, fail, and flourish.

Have you ever had a reoccurring nightmare? What if the nightmare was more than a dream? In this story our protagonist discovers that his night terror is more is a glimpse into his past. An unforgivable crime haunts him in his present life. This short story is part of a series of short supernatural and horror stories. A quick, spooky listen that will leave you haunted.

An interview with leading British sculptor Sir Anthony Caro (1924-2016) recorded by Nicholas James at his Barford Street sculpture studio Camden Town in 1994, used as a basis for a feature in Art Monthly 1994. Also includes the essay "Caro to Wilding: Shifts in Modern British Sculpture", comparing the work of Caro with Alison Wilding.

The Titian Show at the National Gallery here in London has just opened to the public again. It was available for just three days before the big lockdown. Now, it is with us once more, though on rather different terms from what was the case previously. You have to book a time. You have to be wearing a mask. You have to maintain distance between yourself and other visitors booked in for the same slot. Is it worth the hassle? Yes, of course it is. Titian is one of the greatest figures in the history of Western art.

These poems range across a number of topics related to marriage: parenthood, family, friendship, sex, divorce and bereavement and refer from time to time to marriages in literature, opera and the Old Testament. The verse is accomplished, the analysis of marriage both instructive and entertaining, the compassion and wisdom remarkable.