When did you become you? It’s hard to tell really. Is there even a “you” for you to have become? Your bloodstream is full of oxygen you have just breathed, your muscles are currently using the protein you recently consumed to build or repair muscle. The “stuff” that makes you up today is not exactly […]
The Stories We Don’t Tell Read More »
There is a pleasing synchronicity that Oxford announced its word of the year is “rage-bait”. After a weekend of splenetic fury over the Chancellor’s statements in the run-up to the Budget, which have been revealed to be, if not lies exactly, then certainly economical with the actualité. One might expect her opponents at the Daily
The Chancellor’s New Clothes Read More »
In our over-credentialled times, we have come to expect that an “expert” will have some sort of formal qualification. A medical expert on TV will, we assume, be a doctor. A financial expert will have jumped through the regulatory hoops required by the government of their jurisdiction. What, however, of the lady I saw the
There are, as you know, Pyramids in Egypt. You may have been to them. There are, as you know, Pyramids in Mexico. You may have been to them too. What should we conclude from this? Perhaps instead of putting their feet up after dealing with Giza, the Egyptians popped over to Central America and offered
The Idiot/Mastermind Theory Read More »
We are all, it is said, the heroes of our own lives. The world is merely the stage which allows us to strut our stuff. Other people serve as extras to reflect glory on the main character; events, the fuel with which we cement our heroic status. But heroes are competent. Tom Cruise did not
We Could Be Heroes Read More »
For something which knows so much about me, Facebook seems to know very little about me. It knows where I went to university, but deluges me with posts from the alumni associations of different institutions, some of which I would not have deigned to go to, some of which did not deign to allow me
It is not so much that karma is what we all know her to be, but that she insists on giving such frequent demonstrations of the fact. Over the weekend I found myself pondering the scene in The Queen in which Prince Charles, concerned about regal inertia in the face of rising popular discontent over
The Diary of a Wimpy Prince Read More »
It had been many years since I was last on a commuter train. This is not, I confess, a particular source of sadness. From an early age, it was noted that my concept of personal space was not dissimilar to the Roman Empire’s view of physical space – what’s mine is mine and what’s yours
Life is, without getting over philosophical, nothing more than a stream of experiences. We are constantly bombarded by sensation and information, even if, most of the time, we are unaware of it. You were, for example, probably not aware of the feeling of your sock on your foot until you read these words. In a
The Perils of a Perfect Enemy Read More »
In 1260, John de Balliol, Northern warlord and father of a future King of Scotland, had a problem. His tiff with the Bishop of Durham had turned toxic and the King had taken the cleric’s side. Something had to be done. Doubtless against his will, he submitted to the bishop’s authority and performed a penance,
Beyond Redemption? Read More »
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