It’s early afternoon on Friday 16 October 2026. I enter the public transport office in central Strasbourg, next to the Alt Winmärik tram stop. Alt Winmärik means Old Wine Market in the old Germanic Alsace dialect. From the 14th century onwards, this street was the place wine was bought and sold. A genial, middle-aged man asks me how he can help. ‘I’ve just paid one of your machines for a 10-trip book of electronic tickets to be added to my travel card,’ I say. ‘See, here’s my

My interest in politics started at the age of 11. The secondary school I attended in small-town Warwickshire marked the 1974 General Election with a mock election of its own. Pupils stood as representatives of the political parties standing in the national poll. Hustings were held, speeches given, ballot boxes set up. I found myself drawn to the Communist candidate. He was tall and pale, with the hair of a prog rock bassist. He painted utopian word-pictures of the egalitarian

Toddlers love books. Especially board books, with titles such as The Dinosaur Who Didn’t Eat Pizza . So it was that I found myself in a Brighton & Hove library, browsing board books with a two-year-old. One was prominently displayed face-out: A is for Activist . Intrigued, I investigated further. A is for Activist is by Indonesian-born writer and illustrator Innosanto Nagara. A Marxist, Nagara lives in a co-housing community in Oakland, California. The book is written in a f