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Mat Coward
HISTORY MADE: A plaque at the Old Bailey dedicated to the case of William Penn and William Mead — and the jury who acted on their conscience
Features / 2 September 2025
2 September 2025

The heroism of the jury who defied prison and starvation conditions secured the absolute right of juries to deliver verdicts based on conscience — a convention which is now under attack, writes MAT COWARD

CAUSE AND EFFECT: Maturing apples and and apple pie / pics: (L to R) George Chernilevsky and Roozitaa both CC
Gardening / 16 August 2025
16 August 2025

As apple trees blossom to excess it remains to be seen if an abundance of fruit will follow. MAT COWARD has a few tips to see you through a nervy time
 

‘SEDITION AND BLASPHEMY’: (L to R) Blackfriars Rotunda, 1820 - view from the top of the Albion Mills; a political rowdiness / Pic (L to R): Frederick Birnie; Old and New London both Public domain
Politics / 15 August 2025
15 August 2025

While an as-yet-unnamed new left party struggles to be born, MAT COWARD looks at some of the wild and wonderful names of workers’ organisations past that have been lost to time

crime
Crime Fiction / 12 August 2025
12 August 2025

Timeloop murder, trad family MomBomb, Sicilian crime pages and Craven praise

(L to R) Wong Boks and a Chinese cabbage and tofu soup  Pics (L to R): Bayartai/CC and NeoBatfreak/CC
Features / 19 July 2025
19 July 2025

MAT COWARD presents a peculiar cabbage that will only do its bodybuilding once the summer dies down

CRIME
Crime fiction / 8 July 2025
8 July 2025

A heatwave, a crimewave, and weird bollocks in Aberdeen, Indiana horror, and the end of the American Dream

crime
Book Reviews / 10 June 2025
10 June 2025

A corrupted chemist, a Hampstead homosexual and finely observed class-conflict at The Bohemia

Organic beetroot / Pic: Evan-Amos/CC
Gardening / 7 June 2025
7 June 2025

Beet likes warmth, who doesn’t, so attention to detail is required if you’re to succeed, writes MAT COWARD

AIR WAR: A spitfire squadron flies to battle the Nazis, 1945
Features / 23 May 2025
23 May 2025

MAT COWARD tells the extraordinary story of the second world war Spitfire pilot who became Britain’s most famous Stalag escaper, was awarded an MBE, mentored a generation of radio writers and co-founded a hardline Marxist-Leninist party

SCIFI
Books / 22 May 2025
22 May 2025

Generous helpings of Hawaiian pidgin, rather good jokes, and dodging the impostors

Reverend Edward George Maxted
History / 16 May 2025
16 May 2025

MAT COWARD tells the story of Edward Maxted, whose preaching of socialism led to a ‘peasants’ revolt’ in the weeks running up to the first world war

crime
Books / 13 May 2025
13 May 2025

Reasonable radicalism, death in Abu Dhabi, locked-room romance, and sleuthing in the Blitz

The Porteous Mob, by James Drummond
Rebel Britannia / 26 April 2025
26 April 2025

Edinburgh can take great pride in an episode of its history where a murderous captain of the city guard was brought to justice by a righteous crowd — and nobody snitched to Westminster in the aftermath, writes MAT COWARD

 

Tree spinach
Features / 12 April 2025
12 April 2025
Well, MAT COWARD did, and here’s his introduction to it
INNOVATOR: Postgate, pictured in 1970
Features / 6 April 2025
6 April 2025
MAT COWARD introduces the creator of the Good Food Guide, communist and crime fiction writer – Raymond Postgate
Crime fiction / 1 April 2025
1 April 2025
High quality pulp, rollicking online murders, Abnorman Britain, and high skates drama: reviews of The Get Off, Everyone In The Group Chat Dies, Pagans and First To Fall
Crime fiction / 11 March 2025
11 March 2025
A no-nonsense ex-Garda female cop, Scandi-noir’s newest flawed hero, the lure of Aussie gold, and unexpected decency in Silicon valley
A crowd of people at Heathrow Airport, who had waited to see
Features / 10 March 2025
10 March 2025
MAT COWARD recalls the occasion when the first man in space paid a visit to our shores in 1961
Gardening / 8 March 2025
8 March 2025
It’s a dead easy crop to grow and can be made into one of Britain’s best sauces. MAT COWARD explains how
The ice-based building material ‘pykrete’ narrowly misse
Features / 25 February 2025
25 February 2025
MAT COWARD looks at the personal ideology of a man as concerned with the psychology of inventing as with inventing itself, whose ideas about education – and contributions to the war effort against the Nazis – live on
Gardening / 8 February 2025
8 February 2025
MAT COWARD battles wayward pigeons in pursuit of a crop of purple sprouting broccoli
TALK OF THE TOWN: (L to R) John Wilkes caricatured by Willia
Features / 25 January 2025
25 January 2025
Despite his wealthy background and membership of a secretive aristocratic occult club, the radical politician forged an alliance with the working class to fight for democracy and free speech against the Georgian elite, writes MAT COWARD
Labour MP Philip Noel-Baker had a Nobel Prize and an Olympic
Features / 30 December 2024
30 December 2024
MAT COWARD offers a roll call of refuseniks – some for political reasons, others for quirky reasons of their own
Actors rehearsing for a performance of Another Christmas Car
Features / 28 December 2024
28 December 2024
Charles Dickens was facing a return to the destitution that had blighted his childhood, and it was this which drove him to write the remarkable best-seller which changed the politics of Christmas forever, writes MAT COWARD