Autumn usually sneaks in via the back door. Its shadows lengthen on the staircase, and they take ever longer to be dispersed by the dawn. Summer’s glories fade away: the blooms on the clematis fade and die, the trees begin to change colour, shifting subtly from green to green accentuated with a touch of yellow. […]

We all give off false impressions. The man who seems crass may be trying to protect a sensitive side. A person who appears to be overly ambitious may actually be very fearful. The strong are often weak, the commanding are sometimes morbidly uncertain, the happy are frequently morose. Human society is based on an amalgam […]

I wish I had something profound, brilliant and original to say about the London Olympics. However, a quick examination of the morning papers suggests that all the best superlatives and metaphors have been used, nearly every last sporting cliché has been deployed, and even fake sideburns, à la Bradley Wiggins, have become an essential fashion […]

A trip to Dublin offers me an opportunity to visualise another self. I have had two distinct chances to move to Ireland: the first was when I was a callow intern in the Information Technology industry back in the mid 1990s. Thanks to Ireland’s burgeoning high tech economy, it seemed like a prudent place to […]

Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy has dramatically altered how we view “superhero” films. Prior to “Batman Begins”, there was an expectation that such movies would be as lurid as their printed counterparts; the audience’s suspension of disbelief was taken for granted, their willingness to accept a villain, say, who had fallen into a vat of […]

There is a path that runs in parallel to the playing fields of St. Clare’s Catholic School in Fagley, Bradford. Along its sides grow thistles and nettles and every type of suburban wild flower. Walk down from the path’s entrance on Moorside Road, avoid the prickles and stinging leaves, and ignore the bark of loud, […]

Every Olympics contains elements of both triumph and disaster. The 1972 Olympics in Munich were notable for both a terrible terrorist incident involving the Israeli weightlifting team and Mark Spitz’s accumulation of seven gold medals, a feat not surpassed for over 30 years. The 1976 Olympics in Montreal are remembered both for Bruce Jenner’s world […]

The Great Depression and the rise of Fascism aside, the 1930’s was a golden era in many respects. For example, the literary output was first rate: Orwell’s talent was in full bloom, Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath” flew off the bookstore shelves. Indeed, according to the New York Times, “The Grapes of Wrath” was the best […]

The blue LED display on the boiler flashed the letter “F” and then “L” and then “F” again; the sequence then repeated. I sighed. It was late at night, there was no hot water in the house, and this message wasn’t promising at all. I looked it up on the internet: the electrical element which […]

Yesterday, I said something on Twitter which should have been relatively uncontroversial. I stated that capitalism had evolved to the point where profits had been privatised and risk had been socialised. This isn’t an original insight; it has been stated with more eloquence and at greater length elsewhere. However I was challenged by a radical […]