The Pope can’t win
He has done it again. (His Holiness) the Pope is in Africa and has made another pronouncement which has upset many of his fans and all of his critics. It is the old question of condoms. He says that not…
Remembering Robert Jasper Grootveld
A friend told me about a funeral the other day which had happened in Amsterdam last week. Robert Jasper Grootveld, one of the founders of the anarchist Provo group that livened up Dutch counter-culture and brought real changes to Dutch…
Clever people, those Chinese
I guess it must be about two years since I started to learn Mandarin Chinese but recently, my brain haemorrhage has interrupted my study since my neurologist said, don’t laugh, that I should avoid too much complex thought. Complex is…
It’s The Flintstones
I am a Sussex lad – brought up on the land that lies between the rolling chalky downlands, imaginatively called, The South Downs, and the English Channel, known in these parts as The Sea. When I was a wee lad…
Some Zen thoughts in my garden
I need to get out more. Just looking through the windows onto the garden makes me realize that I should be out there sorting things, not only, for the rapidly developing Spring but also Summer which is already shouting out…
New technology and those green shoots
Even if everyone is wrong, this really does seem to be time for those “green shoots.” I am not an economist, in fact I am barely numerate, but I do know that shares have risen this week all over the…
What’s going on in the garden?
The primroses that I bored you with the other day are still there in their urns, resplendent as one of England’s most beautiful natural plants in their unexpectedly formal setting. They have been joined by those golden croci planted in…
A little less sympathy for the family doctor, please.
It is doctors and nurses time for me now. Yesterday I went to the neurological hospital, it used to be called the funny farm in less sensitive times, to see my consultant. Today I go to the bone man, the…
Sometimes getting something wrong is getting it right
Just a piece of self-indulgence today – so forgive me. In the coldest and frostiest part of the winter when I was feeling pretty ill, I was frustrated that I hadn’t been well enough to plant a new batch of…
Killing people just isn’t a joke
I understand the power of dark humour. Well I used to think so until this weekend. The so-called Real IRA claimed responsibility for murdering two British soldiers and wounding two others as well as two pizza deliverymen at the Massereene…