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Harry Eyres established the FT’s Slow Lane column, which celebrates the creative use of down-time, in January 2004. Before that in a varied journalistic career he was a theatre critic and arts writer for The Times (1987-1993), wine editor of Harpers & Queen (1989-1996), wine columnist for The Spectator (1984-1989) and the first and so far the only Poetry Editor of The Daily Express (1996-2001). He has written on wine and food, travel, theatre, literature and music for most of the UK’s leading newspapers.
In addition to his journalistic work Harry Eyres is a published poet, editor of LSE Environment, the newsletter of LSE’s Centre for Environmental Policy and Governance, and teaches London theatre for a consortium of American universities. He wrote the Beginner’s Guide to Plato’s The Republic for Hodder & Stoughton’s Beginner’s Guides to Great Works series. He was born in London in 1958, read English at Cambridge University and holds the Diploma de Estudios Hispanicos from Barcelona University and an MSc in Environmental Assessment and Evaluation from LSE. - -
In prime position
Defeat in a tennis match teaches Harry Eyres a lesson in groundwork and preparation, but he warns that being too good at manoeuvring has its downside
‘The planet’s still working’
Only 36,000 pairs of swifts now visit the UK, and the reason is within our control, says Harry Eyres. Recent trends in building both offices and houses have eliminated the nooks and crannies necessary for swift nests
Meanwhile, back in the city
As proven by Meanwhile Gardens in west London, there are crannies in cities all over the world which, with a bit of imagination and will, can be greened, writes Harry Eyres
An antidote to fear and fury
A production of ‘Peter Grimes’, the opera about xenophobia which has conquered the world, sends Harry Eyres wondering if the stranger we are afraid of is really ourself
Seeds of discontent
Three authors – a biologist, a cultural historian, and a gardener – celebrate the natural variety of plants and their seeds, writes Harry Eyres
An Orchard Invisible
The Garden of Invention
Forgotten Fruits
Is there a corner for poetry?
The recent media hullabaloo about poetry in the UK has made Harry Eyres question why we ruthlessly marginalise and exile it to a cold place of almost total neglect
Bookshop backwaters
From the dingy and Dickensian to the profoundly civilised, they are not simply shops – and they are curiously important in the literary culture, writes Harry Eyres
The sour smell of excess
High-claiming MPs are wrong in assuming that frugality is an ancient virtue, no longer applicable in the world of globalised capitalism, writes Harry Eyres
Our cultural revolution
Harry Eyres is beginning to think that Britain has undergone a cultural revolution of its own, less dramatic than the one in China, but no less far-reaching in its effects
In mourning for the newly dead
Harry Eyres attends the funeral of a friend who died too young, and is left with a series of untied ends, a jigsaw with missing pieces and unanswered questions
