Laying on a spread
You may have noticed that I can't resist descriptions of feasts, be it fine breakfasts, picnics, or other spreads. Here...
When is a virtue not a virtue?
This struck me - virtues that are but by-products of fear and poverty, may not be virtues at all. If...
Pleasant things
Jane the young woman is now entering a milieu where her deprived childhood is in stark contrast with her employer's...
Letters unopened
We use the term ‘back of the envelope’ to capture the notion of jotting down an idea or plan on...
Benign in his bowels
Don't worry, this is just a metaphor for people who are cloyingly, invasively kind and try to absorb you into...
On growing up
An interesting definition of growing up - losing your illusions. But then humanly allowing the possibility that you will acquire...
An Antarctic tsunami
I loved the slowly growing momentum of this vast wave, though one has to hope it would never make landfall,...
Lost in Russia
The American writer John Steinbeck and the photographer Robert Capa spent months preparing for their trip to the Soviet Union...
Heart and soul
As we begin to grapple with the implications of artificial intelligence and robots, this allusion more than 150 years ago...
Map-fuelled idiocy
Beware the map-mad-man. Grappling with the shifting boundaries and complexity of German, let alone European history, needs maps. I am...
How to win a train ticket to Tashkent
This vast novel, full of war and suffering, also has moments of levity. Here we have someone refusing to curtail...
Poetry as a ship at sea
The sea flows through Beowulf's culture as much as any Greek epic, and its warriors are likewise mariners. Heaney uses...
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