My super-smart former colleague and pal Mick and the lovely Mags – they spend their days wandering Britain’s waterways on a narrow boat, Rose of Arden – took three months out on the Costa Brava. I joined them for a … Read More »
Photo essay – making noodles on the Mekong, January 2013. Emails from Vietnam, March 2014. Emails from Vietnam, March 2015. Photo-essay around Kon Tum, March 2015. Photo essay around Buon Ma Thuot, March 2015. Photo essay around Da Lat, March … Read More »
I smile when I’m angryI cheat and I lieI do what I have to doTo get byBut I know what is wrongAnd I know what is rightAnd I’d die for the truthIn my secret life Leonard Cohen Here’s Janet Street … Read More »
Is nothing sacred? It seems not even 007 is immune to the new trend of releasing movies on a Monday. So too with Suffragette, but any day of the week the latter was bound to disappoint. Yes, it conveys the … Read More »
Cleaner Katy Rojas from Ecuador worked until very recently for Interserve, which has the Foreign & Commonwealth Office cleaning contract. She began in 2010 on £6 per hour but this year had her first rise, to £7.05. Now she’s laid … Read More »
See also, Bob Dylan: one killer of a poet Oh God said to Abraham, “Kill me a son” Abe says, “Man, you must be puttin’ me on” God say, “No.” Abe say, “What?” God say, “You can do what you … Read More »
A fairly decent response from Obama here on the dreadful news from Oregon. In thinking about weapons of death, let’s for a moment set aside the USA’s trillions of dollars spent on “keeping Americans safe” – a project whose side … Read More »
Today at the Labour Conference: (a) Corbyn would never press the button, (b) Burnham, Eagles et al fear Russian aggression (though not NATO’s recklessly menacing eastward expansion) and (c) the press is having a field day. Why, oh why muddy the waters of … Read More »
We have dual natures, you and I. On the one hand we are supremely social animals. Unlike pike or tigers or black widow spiders, who associate only to mate or commit internecine violence, we need one another. Ill equipped for … Read More »
I had a mildly sticky phone convo yesterday, apropos my last post, Corbyn: the first five days, with someone I’ve known a very long time. An intelligent man, highly so in fact, he had two beefs. One (tacitly informed by … Read More »