....in the beginning. I came to England directly from China where I'd been Lecturing for 7 years. A chap who contacted me while I was there & said he was doing so because he was a friend of a friend of mine at the British Council,, suggested we work together: he had the premises for a school in Eton and I would bring over a couple of teachers & contacts from China to help teach at the school. It was all lined up & I saw this as a kind of Wonder-Job: I couldn't wait to get started. (And the plate glass windowed flat high up at tree level was all blonde wood & brushed-steel kitchen appliances.) The fourth day of being in England my putative "partner" declared bankruptcy. And I also discovered t...
Mrs. Simpson's Regency Journal. September 20, 1831. The Vile Slum in Brighton After I had writ in my journal the last time, it did strike me, of a sudden, that whosoever doth read these pages after me, might not be abiding in Brighton and may not know of our Dark Heart. For such it be: a-pulsing away right in the middle of our town and not even suspicioned by most gentlefolk. Or not considered to be a suitable subject of conversation by those who do know of it. ‘Tis the area known as Pimlico. Though it was already a blot and a shame upon this town by the time we moved here from Tunbridge Wells, folk say it came quickly about, once people had to le...