With the use of cluster bombs, depleted uranium and targeting civilian areas for bombardment in Iraq, Tony Blair has flouted international laws and should stand trial says peace campaigner Nicholas Wood. Lee Gordon spoke to him

WITHIN half-an-hour of meeting Nicholas Wood he was in tears. I mentioned – truthfully – that I had wept over his book on the Iraq war and he suddenly folded, sobbing.
Not that he is an emotional man, indeed this was the first time that he had cried for years. But retired architect Mr Wood was profoundly disturbed by the war – the same reflex that led millions to protest, scores to go to Baghdad as human shields against the invasion and the parents of servicemen to take on Tony Blair. Mr Wood shelled out thousands of pounds from his savings to publish a paperback accusing Blair of war crimes, and his co-author Anabella Pellens spent months researching the international laws that ought to be applied.

Writer Diran Adebayo tells Ruth Gorb he will be questioning the rules of literature at next month’s Hampstead and Highgate Festival

TAKE the title, Writer in Residence. If you think about it at all, you think academic, fusty, ivory tower. And here comes Diran Adebayo, young, black and streetwise, newly appointed writer in residence at the British Museum.
His aim? To shake up the young, especially young men, who think that books aren’t cool.
In the week when he takes up his post, he will be speaking in this year’s Hampstead and Highgate Festival as part of their Literature in the Afternoon series.