An essay about the Italian hill-town of Tivoli near Rome, famous for its 16th-century garden and fountains at the Villa d'Este. But Tivoli is also the place of the Parco Villa Gregoriana, a natural park graced by a round temple on a cliff that has inspired artists for centuries. Nearby too is Hadrian's villa, the grandest of its kind in the Roman world. These three places have exerted an enormous influence on European garden design, most notably in England. The town is a storehouse of history and culture, and tens of thousands of people go there each year. What visitors have lacked until now...

CRICKET'S PURE PLEASURE is the account, in words and images, of a remarkable four-day game of cricket played at Lord's in September 2015 between Yorkshire and Middlesex. It opened with high drama when Yorkshire's Ryan Sidebottom bowled a triple-wicket maiden at the start of the game, and closed spectacularly on the fourth day when Yorkshire suffered a batting collapse. In between was a magnificent 149 from Nick Compton that led the way in wresting the initiative from Yorkshire. To these ingredients were added the absorbing attritional cricket that makes the long form of the game so...

On 23rd September 2016, the last day of the County Championship, three teams were in contention to win it. Somerset, having thrashed Nottinghamshire, would win if Middlesex and Yorkshire could wrestle themselves to a draw at Lord's. They almost did, until 28 balls from the very end of the fourth day of the final game of a cricket season that had begun six months earlier, Middlesex grasped the winning prize. 'The tale of two terriers and the Somerset cat' starts in Taunton in early August 2016, and follows the championship for the next two months right up to that dramatic 23rd September. This...

BELABOURED. BATS BROKEN. BRITAIN SHAKEN is an essay about the UK's travails during the General Election of 2017, punctuated as it was by a series of murderous public events. The result was a hung parliament that illustrates the profound uncertainty that Britons feel about their role in the world. It is a personal account of the author's involvement as an infantryman in Norwich South - and it is dedicated to the 'poor, bloody infantry' who do the foot-slogging at election time. More than this it is an account of emotions recollected in tranquillity, the emotion caused by the dismal result of...