Stories & creative
Fireworks please
On the evening of Friday 28th October my dear friend Basil sends me a text: "Congratulations on the publication of your book. Well done." I respond quickly: "Thanks for remembering the date but has it actually been published? There have been no fireworks." Don't...
Radio Gaga
After 13 interviews in a row with the BBC’s regional radio stations yesterday about my book Is Your Child Safe Online?, friends and family have been ringing to ask if they can listen again. Having played back the five that were live, and feeling very much like my own...
Is Your Child Safe Online?
My book Is Your Child Safe Online? published by White Ladder will be available in bookshops next week. It is currently available for pre-order from Waterstones and on Amazon.
Is Your Child Safe Online?
After six months of fascinating research my book Is Your Child Safe Online: a Parent's Guide to the internet, Facebook, Mobile Phones and other New Media is finally in production. In the course of research I have interviewed a wide cross section of people from child...
Feeding Africa
Rising food prices and the link to political instability have been a core theme across global media in recent weeks, following the release of United Nations updated food price index in January. That was bad news; for seven consecutive months the index rose, in both...
The blame game
For parents over, give-or-take, the age of the 35 the ease and familiarity with which children use technology today is at best perplexing and at worst terrifying. Now, according to the editorial in the latest issue of Psychologies magazine, there is some evidence to...
Vietnam: Back to bikes?
Recently I started blogging for Better Cities Now, a relatively new site that describes itself as providing "news and insights for the people that run cities". It is an interesting concept and thought it would offer a forum to write a about a recent trip to Vietnam....
A country on the move?
The energy in Vietnam is palpable. In a place where not more that 20 years ago towns and cities teemed with bicycles, the roads of Vietnam now pulse with scooters carrying everybody from heavily pregnant women to babies sandwiched between their parents, middle-aged...
Vietnam here we come
This Friday (November 5, 2010) I'm off to Vietnam on a fact-finding field trip. My journey begins in Ho Chi Minh city where we set off to Can Tho, the main city of the Mekong Delta. From here we will visit the Soc Trang Province where I'll be meeting growers and...
Africa Ready for Business
Africa is organised and ready for business in agriculture. But Africa must call the shots in any deal done with European partners. This was the underlying message from Dr Lindiwe Sibanda , one of three African members who sat on the 10-strong Montpellier Panel, an...