Books

On the surface of it, society looks a fairly straightforward set of exchanges. You have ideals, you act them with nobleness of intent and efficacy of action, you witness injustice, you stand up against and hopefully right the wrong, you get to know someone, become their friend and possibly even Continue Reading

Words are beautiful things. More than just a collection of letters – although some words like “plethora” and “myriad” are cadence-rich in and of themselves – words give us access to stories, to thoughts and ideas and play a critically-important role in shaping the way we see our world and Continue Reading

Depending on how whose etymology you believe, many a person has observed and subsequently remarked that the first casualty of war is truth. Truth is twisted or downright ignored during conflict for a variety of reasons – keeping the enemy in the dark, elevating the good spirits of a beleaguered Continue Reading

If we’re really paying attention to the various stages of our life, and they’re hard to miss if you’re looking for them, it will become glaringly obvious that we change a great deal between the very beginning of things and the (hopefully many years distant) and their end. For some Continue Reading

Faith is a curiously complicated thing. On one very obvious level, it’s relatively straightforward – you believe something, act on it and it becomes a central focal point of your life, driving what you do and why. However, dig a little deeper and the issue of faith is a fiendishly Continue Reading

As highly as we might like to think of ourselves, almost all live cloaked in an eclectic assortment of lies, omissions, half-truths, fabricated portrayals and aspirational representation. It’s not a deliberate intent to deceive that drives us necessarily; rather we are often driven by a need to minimise vulnerability, to Continue Reading

For all the mess we have made of things so far, humanity retains a fascinating capacity for believing we will be better in the future. It is perhaps the ultimate coping mechanism or the grandest of mass delusions; whatever it, for all the broken down societies and blue screens of Continue Reading

There is a glorious sense of feel good wonder that comes with the very best romantic comedies. It’s that innate sense that, all indications to the contrary, and let’s face it, at the moment COVID-19 is the reigning bestial monarch of those contrary indications, life is marked with transcendent romantic Continue Reading

If you were pick anyone to sit snug as a bug in a bed in their pajamas and read a picture book to you, the odds are good surely that you would pick someone as wonderful as Dolly Parton. She’s bright, smart, effervescently lovely and has the perfect sing-song cadence Continue Reading

In 1993, ABBA released a song by way of More ABBA Gold that they first recorded in 1982 – “I Am the City” gave a persona to the urban conurbations most people now live in and replete with a pounding, upbeat insistent beat and penetrating lyrics, it felt like the Continue Reading