Being born must be the most surprising thing that ever happens to you. Not only can a foetus have no idea it can be born, but as soon as it is, it is subject to a range of experiences it has never had and has no reason to think it ever could. It gets colder. […]
I haven’t seen all that many dawns, and many of those I have seen can be blamed on my father. One of those people who believe suggested check-in times leave far too much to chance, most childhood holidays started when the sky was the same colour as my sleep-deprived humour. One year he even contrived
The Signals we Don’t Send Read More »
Exhibit A: The government declines to send a Minister to appear on a politics show. “They’re frightened of us because we hold them to account,” the host informs the audience. Exhibit B: A female observes a certain froideur from a man in her social circle. Can’t handle strong women, she concludes. Two different events, one macro, one micro, but
How We Use Our Enemies Read More »
Hollywood sexism is more nuanced than we sometimes allow. It is not that there are no roles for older women – the movies need just as many grandmas as grizzled veterans – but that there is a gap beneath that age. Once the children leave home, and before they return with children of their own,
The Value of Negative Success Read More »
“What a week, huh?” “ Captain, it’s only Wednesday.” If you’re as terminally online as I am, you’ll recognise the Tintin and Captain Haddock meme, deployed whenever the world seems particularly unsettled. Which means it gets deployed a lot these days. In the Anglophone world, we tend to think of comic strips as childish literature, those
How We Miscount Time Read More »
Sometimes Fate/Karma/Destiny – call it what you will – seems to juxtapose things just to make a point. Or perhaps the human mind, always desperate for coherence, imposes its own structure on the messy reality of random chance. Thus, a couple of days after Artemis II returned to Earth, the BBC decided to screen a
The Paradox of Pride Read More »
I bought a book the other week. Nothing unusual there. One of my regular treats early in my working life was to leave the office, head to a bookshop, buy a stack and then pop to the sushi place round the corner for an early supper and a quiet read. I have been a sufficiently
The Littlest Thing Read More »
Death has been on my mind recently. Not my own – that will be the last thing I do. No, it is the demise of a lady in my extended circle which I have been pondering. It was not a surprise, particularly – age and a range of conditions made it likely that it would
One way of understanding the Prime Minister, I think, is to assume he is a child playing at being Prime Minister. Like a little person solemnly sitting down at a desk and shuffling papers, much of the time, he seems to do things not because he needs to or wants to, but because he has seen others do them
A Question of Interests Read More »
“And relax. Put your feet up. Well, that was a day, wasn’t it? Anyway, you made it through and that’s not nothing. In fact, you deserve a reward. Glass of wine? Good idea. Just a cheeky one, mind. You’ve earned it.” With minor variations, this dialogue gets performed in countless heads across countless lands every
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