I’m a New Zealand writer with over thirty years hands-on professional experience as a published author and in publishing. My main interests are in the sciences – physics, particularly, though I’m deeply curious about a lot of stuff, especially the human condition. I have qualifications in writing, music and anthropology among other fields, and hold multiple post-graduate degrees in history. I’m also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society at University College, London. I write a lot. My published writing, sold on merit, includes over 550 articles, academic papers, reviews, novellas and short stories, and over 50 books on topics ranging from travel guides to biography, engineering, military and social history. I’ve been published principally by Penguin Random House.
I figured out a way of making electric cars go further. All they need is a generator on board and – presto – no problems with battery charging. Better still, you can get rid of those heavy batteries altogether and run the electric motors from the juice provided by the generator. That’s even greener – … More How to make electric cars go further
This week’s obscure English word is meldrom. It means a drop of mucus hanging off the nose. Your challenge: write a sentence or two in the comments using this word. Copyright © Matthew Wright 2021
Something that annoys me about household cleaning products is that they’re often not labelled ‘cleaners’. It’s usually ‘cleanser’. A one-letter difference that carries a world of advantage for sales. Though to my mind it shouldn’t. My problem is that ‘cleansing’ is also used as a euphemism for genocide. You know – ‘ethnic cleansing’. One of … More Household cleaning products and their annoyances
This week I won a national writing award for my book for schools, The New Zealand Wars. The Storylines Notable Book lists included this title in its YA non-fiction category. I’m quite pleased about that. I wrote the book intentionally for the YA market, but it’s there for all ages and is intended as a … More I won a national writing award
This week’s obscure English word is futhorc. It’s the noun form of the old runic alphabet used in old Frisia, futhark. Names of these runes include ‘man’, ‘horse’ and ‘elk-sedge’. Your challenge: write a sentence or two in the comments using this word. Copyright © Matthew Wright 2021
I worked for many years in corporate communications. The organisation ran on buzzwords. They were amazing ways to get ahead. All you had to do was invoke them and you were in. When I joined, the buzzword was ‘budgeting’. Everything had to be budgeted, meaning properly planned and costed ahead of time. However, most of … More How to get ahead with buzzwords
One of my favourite songs is Richard Berry’s ‘Louie Louie’. It’s such a dumbass number – a three chord riff, three-note ostinato bass, and lyrics that were reputedly subject to CIA investigation on the basis of subversive content. But that was because Berry’s vocals were so muffled nobody could understand them. The lyrics, audible in … More Ten instruments on which I’ve played ‘Louie Louie’
This week’s obscure English word is nudiustertian. It’s an obsolete term meaning ‘two days ago’. I’m not sure why it’s become obsolete – it seems pretty useful to me. You know. Q: ‘When did you make this sandwich?’, A: ‘Nudiustertian’, or Q: ‘How long have we been waiting for the bus?’, A: ‘Since nudiustertian.’ Your … More The obscure word of the week is nudiustertian
I miss old Mars. The Mars of imagination, the world with deep blue skies and red deserts filled with whatever magical societies and cities our whims desired. Real Mars is interesting too, and it’s there, and it’s what we’re going to have to deal with if we ever leave this planet. That Mars too can … More The wonder of old Mars and its sands
This week’s obscure English word is –notus. It’s actually only a part word – a combined noun derived from the Greek notos, which has to be added to another word to have meaning. It’s often used in paleontology to describe a specific kind of back bone. One example is Tribolonotus Novae-Guineae, which is a small … More The obscure word of the week is -notus
Matthew Wright 
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