About the Newsletter
This is Terra Nullius. I hope it will be a monthly newsletter with thoughts and writing that are too long for something like Twitter and too short for anything more substantial.
It will probably result from an interesting thing I’ve read or a place I’ve been that has triggered thoughts. It will likely be short and hopefully not bore you to death.
I have called the newsletter Terra Nullius, this is a Latin term that means “nobody’s land”. The name stems from my obsession with things like exclaves, enclaves and other territorial oddities that I may even occasionally cover in the newsletter.
About Me
My name is Ned Donovan. I currently work as a freelance consultant, focusing on projects in heritage and history — I have completed projects for governments in the Middle East, the Caribbean and Asia. On a personal level, I also actively look for and invest at early stages in innovative British startups.
In my free time, I volunteer as a Special Constable in the Metropolitan Police Service. Special Constables are unpaid volunteer police officers with the full powers on and off duty as their paid colleagues. I am attached to a team in Frontline Policing in a busy part of central London.
Until 2019, I was a journalist and a freelance foreign correspondent covering news in the UK and abroad for seven years. For much of it I was a staff reporter at the Mail on Sunday and The Times. My final role in journalism was as the Mail on Sunday’s South Asia Correspondent based in Delhi. While working at the Mail we won News Team of the Year and Newspaper of the Year in the British Press Awards on several occasions, and I was nominated for Young Journalist of the Year.
My writing has also been featured in various publications such as: GQ, The Spectator, The Daily Telegraph, The New Statesman, Tatler, and The Rake.
In 2020, I completed an intensive Modern Standard Arabic course which taught me two things: that my Arabic is not very good, and that I will keep trying to improve it.
In terms of previous writing, you can find much of my work by searching my name and I would happily supply some examples for anyone curious.
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