Alastair writes historical fiction set in 13th century Christendom. His first novel, ‘Festival of the Oppressed’, has been published by Ocean Reeve Publishing.He is currently working on the fifth novel in a series about the adventures of two itinerant musicians—jongleurs—Jehanne la Flèche and Guillem d’Avignon. Their travels have so far taken them to Champagne—where they met—Flanders, Genoa and Constantinople.He is also working on a re-imagining of the Russian Revolution, tel

A change of pace with a poem that is not political. It started life in a tutorial. We were given the first line then asked to write a sonnet. This is the result. I know it is not a sonnet as it only has 12 lines, not 14. The rhyming scheme is wrong too and it doesn't have a 'volta'; a turn in meaning between lines eight and nine. I incorporated the word 'forsooth' as a nod to Shakespearean sonnets. Time’s gentle hand shall turn the tide of youth T’ward other things at first u

This poem came out of the course in ‘Gender and Global Politics’ that I undertook at the University of Queensland in 2024. One of the themes that ran through the course is that Western feminism is unable to address the issues facing women in developing countries because the problems those women face there are very different to those that women face in the West. I can not write I sit at the table to write. How can I write about women when I am male? I can not. How can I write

With peace being imposed on Palestinians yet again, I thought I'd publish this piece of slam poetry that I wrote last year. They say the war started on October the Seventh It didn’t. It started in the 1930s They say that Israel is a democracy. It isn’t. Israel is an apartheid state. It is a colonial settler state. Palestinians have no rights. Israel has seized and is still seizing Palestinian land. Palestinians are driven from their homes. They are forced into refugee camps.

It was the final day of the season, championship day. A boy sat on the tiered, wooden spectator benches waiting for his turn to bat. He...

The Catholic Church has rightly been described as one of the largest corporations in the world. Under the guise of religion and...

In late November 1095 CE, Pope Urban II summoned the people of Western (Catholic) Christendom* to come to the defence of the Holy Land....

When people think of the Middle Ages, all sorts of images might be conjured up. It might be Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone duelling in...

Marie de France is widely considered to be the first woman to write in French. If any woman preceded her, the works have been lost....

Love at first sight? Sometimes it happens. The problem isn’t that first sight, it’s the days and months afterwards as you work out who...

Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn bin ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Ḥasan bin ʿAlī bin Sīnā al-Balkhi al-Bukhari was a Persian polymath during the Islamic Golden...

Abu Zayd Ahmed ibn Sahl Balkhi was a 9th-century Persian polymath. He was born in Shamistiyan, in the Khorasan province of Balkh. It is...

Music—both religious and secular—flourished during the Middle Ages. The troubadours prospered in Southern France leading to the trouvéres...