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Between the purity of the angels and the savagery of beasts … is politics
May 4, 2008 11:19 PM
WELL, I did my democratic duty. I went along and voted in the local government elections last Thursday.
Most people, of course, didn’t bother, which is a shame … and quite dangerous, given how adrift and disconnected English society is right now.
Politics might not be fun, it might not be very attractive (it has been dubbed "showbiz for ugly people" after all), but it is dead important. Why?
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My philosophical solution to our rotten state schools and rubbish teachers
April 25, 2008 6:16 PM
HARDLY a day passes without some damning report pointing to the desperate failure of state educashun in the UK.
And now the teachers have started going on strike for more pay (even though teachers’ pay is already the envy of most folk, as are their massively generous holidays and their gold-plated pensions).
I have no sympathy at all for the striking teachers, but my heart goes out to youngsters attending state schools these days – because as a society we have failed them so very badly indeed.
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The radiant finger of identity
April 18, 2008 7:32 PM
A poignant memory from childhood got me reflecting, in a way that seems radically counter-cultural, on just how beautiful cigarettes can be.
It happened during a visit to my mother when I told her how vividly I recall her and my dad taking turns to come to my bedroom at night when I was a small boy and writing my name large in the darkened air with the lit tip of a cigarette.
That was, for me, a brilliant experience, and one that occurred almost nightly.
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Sudden shafts of love for humanity
April 12, 2008 5:16 PM
EVERY so often – and I think this is true for almost everyone – we humans experience or see something us that sparks deep within us brilliant shafts of compassion and love.
I’m talking about those rare moments when, for instance, we talk of seeing something that’s ‘touched’ our hearts.
The best of these moments, I find, arise out of very ordinary circumstances. I experienced one recently while queuing at the check-out in a New Brighton supermarket.
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Suffer the little children (up to a point...)
March 31, 2008 6:34 PM
RECENTLY I went to Sunday Mass at a church other than my usual one – a so-called family service, starting at 10.30am, rather than my customary 6.30pm one.
Children are encouraged to attend these mid-morning Masses.
I didn’t think I’d mind that – but actually I ended up minding very much...
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