Tag Archives: James Miles

Guest post by Jim Miles: Call My Agent!

Posted on March 27, 2023 by Patrick Miles

One of my jobs is teaching English at a language school in Cambridge. I have students varying in age from teenagers right up to retired adults, and from countries all over the world. This makes the work very interesting but … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged acting agencies, bobo, Call My Agent, Camille Cottin, comments, Dix pour cent, Dominique Besnehard, France, guest posts, hipster, IELTS, James Miles, Juliette Binoche, language teaching, Netflix, Paris, scooters, Sigourney Weaver, subtitles, translation | 4 Comments

From the diary of a writer-publisher: 22

Posted on March 20, 2023 by Patrick Miles

24 February 2023 A recent study made by a reliable Moscow source indicates that 22% of the Russians polled were fervently in favour of the war on Ukraine, 20% were deeply opposed to it, and the rest (58%) ‘had no … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian character, Personal commentary | Tagged acting agencies, Alexander Pushkin, Alexandra Cann, autocracy, ballet, Ballets Russes, biographies, books, Boris Godunov, Call My Agent, Callimachus, comments, democracy, Dix pour cent, France, freedom, Friedrich Nietzsche, George Balanchine, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Granta Publishing, independent publishing, James Miles, Jennifer Homans, Lincoln Kirstein, literary agents, Michel Fokine, Moscow, Nadezhda Mandel'shtam, New York City Ballet, opinion polls, responsibility, Russia, Sam&Sam, School of American Ballet, theatre agents, theosophy, Ukraine, Vladimir Soloviev, Volodymyr Zelensky, William Rothenstein | Leave a comment

From the diary of a writer-publisher: 21

Posted on February 6, 2023 by Patrick Miles

7 January Almost themed, one could say, in Calderonia, Cambridge academic Ruth Scurr has written a meaty review in today’s Spectator of Claire Harman’s experiment in biography All Sorts of Lives: Katherine Mansfield and the Art of Risking Everything. Anyone who writes … Continue reading →

Posted in Edwardian literature, Personal commentary | Tagged Alexander Vampilov, Anton Chekhov, armaments, baseline studies, biodiversity, biographies, biography, birds, Bottengoms Fram, butterflies, Calderonia, Cambridge, Cambridge City Council, Cambridge Theatre Company, Church of England, Church Times, Claire Harman, claustrophobia, Clays of Bungay, comments, conservation, cyber warfare, death, ecosystems, entrapment, Erich Ludendorff, Francis Kilvert, funerals, General Douglas Haig, General Foch, ghosts, hackers, Henry Vaughan, Ice Cold in Alex, James Miles, John Constable, Katherine Mansfield, last, Last Summer in Chulimsk, Next to Nature, paranoia, Peter Hall, Ronald Blythe, Russia, Ruth Scurr, Sam&Sam, security certificates, servers, short stories, Siberia, Spring Offensive 1918, Suffolk, Sylvia Syms, T.S. Eliot, The Great War, The Spectator, The Times, The Web, Tree Belt, Ukraine, Victim, wildlife, wildlife corridors, wildlife havens, World War I | Leave a comment

From the diary of a writer-publisher: 20

Posted on January 9, 2023 by Patrick Miles

16 December 2022 The Times has a long piece today entitled ‘Putin’s absence fuels rumours of Noah’s Ark plot’. It reports Putin cancelling his annual ice hockey match on Red Square, his annual press conference, and his annual ‘conversation with … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged 20 July 1944 Plot, Adolf Hitler, Alexander II, Argentina, Christmas, Crimea, Crimean War, Donetsk, Erwin Rommel, Field Marshal Rommel, iconography, James Miles, Japan, Jim Miles, John Polkinghorne, Joseph Brodsky, Luhansk, Nativity, Nicholas I, Noah's Ark Plot, Odessa, Paul Dirac, professors, Russian Army, Russian language, Russian poetry, Sam1, Sam2, Seamus Heaney, The Quantum World, The Times, translation, translations, Ukraine, Venezuela, verse translation, Vladimir Putin, What Can We Hope For? | Leave a comment

Guest post by Jim Miles: ‘DONG!’

Posted on December 15, 2021 by Jim D G Miles

The most striking aspect of Japan, right from the moment I arrived, was how different from the UK it wasn’t. People talk about culture shock and in particular how Japan ‘just does things differently’ (often with an almost-patronising ‘isn’t this … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged bells, Buddhist monks, Buddhist temples, Cambridge, Casillero del Diablo, Christmas, culture shock, England, etiquette, food, friendliness, Goto family, islands, James Miles, Japan, KFC, kindergarten, language teaching, New Year, population densities, Shōgatsu, Snickers, Toyohashi, traffic lights | 4 Comments

‘Another culture’ (A series of seven posts)

Posted on September 15, 2021 by Patrick Miles

Sam2, aka our son James Miles, worked in Japan as a teacher from 2011 to 2014 (his first job when he got back to England was to set up Calderonia!). My wife Alison visited Jim in Japan in 2013. Jim … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Alison Miles, Blithe Spirit, Calderonia, chrysanthemums, comments, culture, foreign cultures, guest posts, haiku, honesty pods, HQ Poetry Magazine, James Miles, Japan, Japanese literature, koi carp, Masaoka Shiki, Pleiades, saké, Sam2, senryu, sushi, tea, wasabi | 1 Comment

Guest Post: Alison Miles on ‘What Can We Hope For?’ from the edge of the epicentre

Posted on December 10, 2019 by Patrick Miles

John Polkinghorne lives near us and we have known him for many years. In 2015 the Church Times published an interview in which he answered questions about science and religion put to him by my husband, Patrick. It celebrated John’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged Alison Miles, Amazon, Amazon UK, Clays of Bungay, cosmology, cover designs, Dialogues about the Future, editing, eschatology, James Miles, Johannes Gutenberg, John Polkinghorne, Kettle's Yard, mathematical physics, Naum Gabo, Patrick Miles, philosophy, Poland, print on demand, proofs, religion, Sam&Sam, science, The Church Times, theology, transcription, voice recording, What Can We Hope For? | 2 Comments

Guest Post: Sam2 on… ‘How to Typeset A Second Book’

Posted on October 7, 2019 by Jim D G Miles

The final act of Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev concerns a boy and a bell. In this hour-long conclusion to the film, the son of a deceased bellmaker persuades his village that the father bequeathed to him a secret bellmaking recipe. He … Continue reading →

Posted in Modern parallels, Personal commentary, Uncategorized | Tagged Amazon, Amazon KDP, Andrei Rublev, Andrei Tarkovsky, biographies, Chris Johnson, Church Times, comments, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, James Miles, John Polkinghorne, Kindle Direct Publishing, LibreOffice, OpenOffice, Patrick Miles, PDF, publishers, Sam&Sam, Sam1, Sam2, TeX, TeXWorks, typesetting, What Can We Hope For? | 6 Comments

Publication!

Posted on September 23, 2019 by Patrick Miles

All of a sudden things went right with Amazon, and we have received our first customer copy of What Can We Hope For? Dialogues about the Future. The book is ONLY available from Amazon, i.e. by print on demand. This … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged Amazon, book formats, Clays Ltd, cosmology, James Miles, John Polkinghorne, Patrick Miles, printing, publishers, Sam&Sam, Sam1, theology, typesetting, What Can We Hope For? | Leave a comment

A tale of two front covers

Posted on September 9, 2019 by Patrick Miles

By the time you read this, Sam&Sam’s new book should be available through Amazon. I say ‘should’ because publishing a book through Amazon has been yet another fresh learning curve for us and sometimes we just had to wait to … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged Amazon, book covers, Clays Ltd, Dante, design, eschatology, Gabo Trust, James Miles, John Polkinghorne, Kettle's Yard, Kindle Direct Publishing, Naum Gabo, publishing, Sam&Sam, Sam1, Sam2, Tate Gallery, typesetting, typography, What Can We Hope For? | 2 Comments

Guest post: Sam2 on… ‘How to Typeset a Book’ (Part 1)

Posted on July 16, 2018 by Jim D G Miles

She shuffled forward. “I would…” “Speak up!” “I would like you to…” “Yeeeeeesssss?” “I would like you to typeset this.” A messy wad of pages; some in different colours, some upside down, some not in any recognisable language. “You would … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal commentary | Tagged biographies, bleeds, Character style, Chihiro, Clays Ltd, comments, fonts, formatting, Frame style, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Ghibli, guest post, headers, indie publiishing, James Miles, Kamaji, layout, LibreOffice Writer, List style, margins, page numbers, Page style, paper formats, Paragraph style, PDF files, printers, publishers, running heads, Sam&Sam, Sam1, Sam2, self-publishing, Sen, Spirited Away, Studio Ghibli, trims, typefaces, typesetting, typesetting a book, typesetting styles | 5 Comments

It makes you think

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Patrick Miles

An anniversary has just passed: three years ago on 30 July I posted my first entry on Calderonia. I have just asked my blogmaster to analyse the rather confusing statistics generated daily by WordPress, in order to compile a list … Continue reading →

Posted in Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary | Tagged 'real time', Andrew Tatham, biographies, biography, blogs, Calderonia, Clare Hopkins, commemoration, comments, Dardanelles, Gallipoli, George Calderon, haikus, James Miles, journalism, Kittie Calderon, Krithia, marketing, reviews, Tahiti, The Great War, Third Battle of Krithia, Trinity College Oxford, Unicorn Publishing Group, Wikipedia, World War I, Ypres | Leave a comment

Guest post: James Miles, ‘Schulz and Peanuts’

Posted on March 6, 2017 by Jim D G Miles

Schulz and Peanuts, by David Michaelis, is a scrupulously researched biography of Charles M. Schulz, the prolific cartoonist responsible for the hugely popular Peanuts comic. Indeed ‘responsible’ is particularly accurate here, as we learn in the book of Schulz’s determination … Continue reading →

Posted in Heroism and Adventure, Modern parallels, Personal commentary | Tagged biographies, biography, blogs, cartoons, Charles M. Schulz, Charlie Brown, comments, David Michaelis, Franklin, George Calderon, Harriet Glickman, James Miles, Mark Kermode, Martin Luther King Jr, Patty, Peanuts, Ronald E. Franklin, Shermy, Sparky | 2 Comments

Guest posts and…George a Labour man?

Posted on March 1, 2017 by Patrick Miles

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that biography is going through a particularly fertile and innovative time. I’m always interested, then, in biographies about new subjects and biographies that tell their stories in new ways. Next week, blogmaster … Continue reading →