I was recently sitting talking to an artist about her work in a café, supposedly we were having lunch though I don’t think I finished the lentil soup or the glass of water for that matter, when it became obvious the place shut at 5.00pm and we had to leave. On a very wet day…
Abuse
I was surprised, though I really should not have been, when I started chatting to people around the world on the Internet, at how many women have faced deep physical and emotional abuse from men. Not only that but the very men closest to them, the very men one assumes (and that shows how dangerous…
Lampooning
To really take the Michael out of someone you need a few things. First and foremost you need a witty sense of the ridiculous so you can highlight those elements in every kind of profession and life that can be made funny. Along with a sense for the ridiculous you need am apposite target. There…
The God Particle
I am interested as much by the money spent on the Hadron Collider as the physics behind the exploration of trying to find something so small that it passes through matter. It actually sounds vaguely ridiculous because that makes it to all intents and purposes invisible. Like particles that have no mass and the idea…
I’m Not As Good As Grandfather
One of the stranger aspects of art, apart from the ‘flowerings’ that happen unexpectedly every few hundred years when a plethora of artists all come along at the same time, is the way in which generations follow that imitate but never achieve equality of excellence. And not just in Art there comes a time (usually…
The Great Dilemma
As thinking beings we have always discussed amongst ourselves how we should interact with each other and the world around us. There is an old saying that my freedom ends where another person’s begins and most of our discussion surrounding ethics are all to do with how we should comport ourselves. It is an ideal…
Growing Greatness
There are thousands of books written about men and women who have been considered to be great – and reams more about why people consider them great. There are those who historians say were in the right place for the times in which they lived and leadership came to them almost by chance but they…
Focus
I know that in the past it is easy to see human life as a scrabble for food, water and shelter because it is hard for us to have any idea how past generations actually lived although ancient cave paintings should give us an idea that not everything was continuous struggle. As groups of people…
September 11th
Today all over the Western world and in the rest of the world sympathetic to some western values, people have remembered one of the most shocking, thought provoking and history-making mass murders in the history of terrorism. The attack on New York’s twin towers was no just unbelievable for its audacity but also because it…
Traditions
Today on my lane they were hedge cutting. Before the second world war and before the advent of tarmac country lanes everywhere, they used to apportion one mile of roadway to a man and it was his job to keep it trimmed back. Usually local farmers or farm workers did this as part of their…