40 years ago: Phil Collins and Eric Clapton record their little-known duet in Montserrat

It's a familiar story: A global pop/rock icon who was prominent in the 1970s is now struggling to find a place among the new sounds and technologies of the 1980s and is experiencing a dip in sales. Who are you going to call? The answer is Phil Collins.  Eric Clapton, having departed RSO Records after ten years…

RIP: The Iconic AIR Studios Diving Board

One of the most iconic images from the 1980s music scene has disappeared. It's a sad moment. Call me sentimental, but I have felt for years that someone should have removed the diving board at AIR Studios and put it away somewhere safe. It's been rotting away for decades, but to Europeans of my generation…

Montserrat: The Musical

I've had an idea. People who know Montserrat will know it is full of theatrical, musical, literary, and entrepreneurial talent. Apart from climate and natural beauty, this is what attracts visitors to the island, but could this also be a cultural export? Now that I'm back in London, I'm back into my routine of going…

Why is the UK negotiating BIOT Sovereignty with Mauritius?

One surprising outcome of Liz Truss's brief and ill-fated period as UK Prime Minister was her decision to begin negotiations with Mauritius over the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands. Despite international pressure and various legal judgements, the UK has consistently refused to do this, and her decision surprised many people. These included James Cleverly, who…

40 Years Ago: Yacht Rock Comes to Montserrat

After the big names in pop music had packed up and gone home, when synth-pop was just about to pass its peak, and before the guitar gods and metal bands found their way to Montserrat, we had Air Supply for a short time working on their self-titled eighth album. Despite originating in Australia, I'd probably…

How Lyle Taylor made Messi the FIFA Player of the Year

There is an old saying that the world is run by those who show up, and the voting for FIFA's annual football awards demonstrates this. Every country gets three votes: one media, one coach, and one player, although a footballing nation needs to have a woman's national team to get the coaching and player votes…

My Presentation on Employment Law and Disability in Montserrat

I'm reposting this as I discovered I had included the wrong link last time. So here we go again. It’s finally appeared online: The video of my presentation to the Harkin Summit in Belfast in 2024. I’m happy with it overall. My hands indicate that I was more nervous than I thought, and the static…

My Presentation on Employment Law and Disability in Montserrat

It's finally appeared online: The video of my presentation to the Harkin Summit in Belfast in 2024. I'm happy with it overall. My hands indicate that I was more nervous than I thought, and the static microphone was not ideal. The video is here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI13--M3Q3c&t=570s and the slides and my summary were posted at the…

Is Montserrat Supporting Integration with the UK?

I don’t write a great deal about public affairs in Montserrat these days. I no longer work and pay tax there, and my regular visitors (pre-COVID anyway) spend their money elsewhere. But I carry out a lot of research around the overseas territories for various reasons and have come across what I think is a…

Mark Knopfler’s Montserrat guitars sell for £800,000

I decided to join the Christies’ auction of Mark Knopfler’s guitar collection today (paddle number 3439).  The 122 lots sold for a total of £8,843,940, with 25% of the proceeds going to the Red Cross and two other charities.  But the two guitars I was most interested in were the two used to record in…

June 2024: Montserrat to play Panama at home in the World Cup Qualifiers

Montserrat's World Cup qualifying fixtures have been announced. The games against Guyana and Nicaragua will be away from home. Panama and Belize will be at home. Panama, at 41, is the highest FIFA-ranked team in this round and the biggest team to have ever played at the Blakes Football Complex. Who's excited? Wednesday, June 5,…

Will the Access Problem Scupper Montserrat’s World Cup Hopes?

Last week the draw for the 2026 World Cup took place and it was another tough draw for Montserrat. Panama made it to the 2018 World Cup held in Russia, and last year Nicaragua beat Montserrat twice in the Nations League, by 3 goals to nil each time. Guyana beat Montserrat last year too. No…

I’ve Gone Back to School

This picture popped up in my social media feed so why not share? It's my class at the University of Nottingham School of Law, taken last week. I decided a couple of years ago to retrain (for the fourth time) and here I am. In my 20s I was mainly involved in politics, in my…

40 Years Ago: Elton’s 3rd and Final visit to Montserrat.

Forty years ago, in December 1983 and January 1984, Elton John made his third and final trip to record at AIR studios in Montserrat. This was for the Breaking Hearts album, the follow-up to Two Low for Zero, recorded just over a year earlier. Elton liked the style of recording and writing that AIR facilitated,…

Knopfler’s ‘Money for Nothing’ and ‘Walk of Life’ Guitars are for sale.

A unique opportunity has arisen to own some of Mark Knopfler’s guitars and amplifiers, most notably the guitars played on the Dire Straits hits Brothers in Arms, Money for Nothing, and Walk of Life. 112 Guitars and 10 amps are being auctioned off on 31st January by Christie's in London. The most valuable is an…

The UK and the OTs. Inquiry evidence reveals problems with the one size fits all approach.

There are currently two UK parliamentary inquiries relating to the British overseas territories. One is being carried out under the auspices of the Procedure Committee, and the other is being carried out by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC). This latest one examines the Constitutional Relationship between the UK and the BOTs. They…

40 years ago this month: OMD recorded the quintessential AIR Montserrat Album

At the end of 1983, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, or OMD for short, came to Montserrat to record their Junk Culture album. I've always thought of this as being the quintessential Montserrat album because of the way it fits into several of the narratives that surround artists who recorded there. It's a band that had enormous…

The UK is Changing the way it relates to its Overseas Territories (slightly).

Who holds the FCDO to account when it comes to the British Overseas Territories? This was a theme of the Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry five years ago, but it never really came to anything. The FCDO announced that it would look at coordinating things better and subsequently announced that the Territories would be allowed to…

The Badges and Lanyards I brought back from Montserrat.

Believe it or not, I'm in temporary accommodation at the moment. I was evacuated from my flat after a recent storm, and it needs some major work to rectify the damage and prevent it from happening again. I never thought it would be possible to flood a penthouse, but the exterior cladding is being replaced…

Montserrat 4 Barbados 2: A Team Reborn

It is difficult to understate the importance of this result or the scale of the transformation of the Montserrat squad. Montserrat had won just two of its last ten games going into this international weekend and had failed to score in five of the six games played this year. Montserrat went into this weekend looking…