Blog posts
Posted on 4th August, 2025
My Gresham Lectures on Investigative Journalism and on China Through its Media
Recently I have been asked several times to direct people to my Gresham lectures. As they are still very relevant, I now provide the URLs here. Investigative Journalism: A New …
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Posted on 1st August, 2025
Immigrants versus refugees
All my life I have been close to refugee families and known their stories. My mother had worked on the MI9 Atrocities Files in the Second World War, so we …
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Posted on 31st July, 2025
Francis Hutcheson: the greatest Scot?
Although I have written a novel revolving around the issue of moral sense and the origins of altruism (To the River), I did not realize, until reading Arthur Herman’s book …
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Posted on 31st July, 2025
Kelvingrove Museum is enslaved to prejudice
It is a very beautiful museum full of stimulating artefacts, and the day we went there was an organ recital too. Alas. my visit was blighted by seeing a large …
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Posted on 25th July, 2025
Teresa Teng 邓丽君
A former student of mine is a media entrepreneur working with the Teresa Teng Foundation of Taipei to relaunch the singer known as the ‘Eternal Queen of Asian Pop’. Teresa …
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Posted on 25th July, 2025
Returning home to Scotland
Last week, bumping into a MacGregor on the way to Japan, I found myself talking Scots. Or at least with what non Scots think is a Scots accent. It’s been …
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