And so, I was about to finally step into Russia. As a kid, of course, it was all part of the USSR. We lived as children in genuine fear of the Cold War between the Soviets and the Americans escalating into Mutually Assured Destruction, wondering what we would do if the apocryphal 4-minute warning sounded…
Category: Musings
The Election – failures, unfairness, fear and the next five years
And so the shouting and voting is over. The fat lady has sung. The Conservatives have been rewarded for with an overall majority, whilst their Lib-Dem partners for the last five years have been severely punished. The SNP has conquered Scotland. UKIP got 4 million votes but only one seat. Labour lost Scotland and made…
Spending My Precious Vote
We have all been given a vote which we can use today. Everyone has one, single vote – irrespective of age, income, height, wisdom, IQ or dress-sense. Nobody has a casting vote, a special vote, the power of veto. Every vote is absolutely identical. We cannot buy more votes, nor can we give our vote…
A visit to Auschwitz
Originally posted on Unwrapping The World:
My thoughts on the trip Hannah and I made to Auschwitz and Birkenau in 2009. We arrived by bus from Krakow. It was a bright sunny day – one felt it would have been more appropriate to arrive in the cold and snow. We walked into the the museum,…
Football, ethics and my team’s attempt to sign Ched Evans
And so the sordid Ched Evans debacle is finally resolved. Since his despicable rape of a woman in 2011, the whole sorry saga has lurched from one scandal to another. Until we have Steve Bruce questioning the veracity of a rape conviction and Gordon Taylor commenting on miscarriages of justice with insensitive comparisons to the…
A little bit of Art in the Heart?
What is art? And what does it do for you? and to you? As we walked through the arty end of Glasgow, along something of a back street, we passed the window of an art studio. We peered inside. We saw a surprisingly large white room containing large bright coloured red cubes arranged across the…
No more killing fields
Passing through Schipol airport four days after MH17 was blown out of the skies over Ukraine, was always going to be poignant. I am sat on the KLM Cityhopper from Amsterdam to Oslo. I have no thoughts or fears of being attacked. But then, nor did the 298 living and breathing people who left from…
Nine reasons England failed
1. Fear of Failure. We sparkled against Italy with a liberty and fearlessness unknown in England teams. No worries – Gerrard and Lampard’s little speech to the team after that game reminded them how dreadful it would be to go out of the world cup at the group stages. Traditional fear of failure was restored.…
The Plausibility of Pistorius
Originally posted on Unwrapping The World:
I am fascinated by the whole Oscar Pistorius tragedy. Not because he is famous, not because he is an athlete and not because he has prosthetic legs. But because he has shot and killed another human (Reeva Steenkamp), confessed openly to this, whilst at the same time constructing almost…
Cotton Pickin’ Cotton
Originally posted on Unwrapping The World:
Today we drove up from Lafayette past acres of Louisiana cotton fields. We stopped to pick a lil’ of that old cotton-pickin’ cotton. In my head the old song kept spinning and weaving . . When I was a little bitty baby, My mama used to rock me in…
