By curious happenstance, we find ourselves working amongst those engaged in the bleeding edge of scientific and medical research. Why then do we allow ourselves to be bamboozled by pseudo-science, knowing full well that it has no grounding in reality whatsoever? We’re there on the ground, supporting clinicians at the forefront of their field. We …
Truth isn’t what you want to believe. It’s just what it is. Maybe it’s not what you want at all. Still, the truth is the truth. There’s no way around it, if that’s what you really care about.
I know I have no reason to, believing as I do in more than a material-only universe, but even so, I am still blown away by all that has recently been made apparent. Every time it returns to mind, it stops me in my tracks. I can’t help but utter, “Subhanallah!” It knocks me back. …
I suspect whatever your specialism, you will forever be on call to family and friends for “emergencies”. Plumbers, sparkies, gardeners, the man-with-van: attend social gatherings at your peril, lest you be pounced on to fix whatever is broken today. It’s no different for those who make a living from that generic category known as “computers”. …
It’s time to reclaim the term honour from the dishonourable, who deploy it merely to deprive others of their rights, or to diminish them, or make them disappear. The honourable are not those found threatening to smash others to pieces: a stranger, a spouse, a sibling, a cousin, an in-law. They are those who treat …
The day a former director learned I am Muslim, he quipped, “I hope you’re not going to blow yourself up!” Had the power dynamic been different, and I more articulate, I might have made a similar gibe about his Northern Irish accent, recalling that the day before my marriage in 2001, the Real IRA blew …
Many new Muslims — be they converts or those rediscovering their inherited faith anew — mangle their own identities in the early years along the road. In their pursuit of authenticity, they feel that they have to throw out all that they are, and assume the identity of whoever they now find themselves amongst.
The spectre of an enemy beating at the door has been invoked for a thousand years to prevent us from taking ourselves to account. The present is no different. Now is not the time to speak of our own crimes, we insist. Which begs the question: when will the time be right? When will we …
As time progresses, perhaps we forget the tests we had, and then we become complacent. Certainly, in the day-to-day of raising kids, the years passing us by thick and fast, we forget the immense quantity of tears we once shed when we thought having a family of our own was impossible. Back then, I could …
There’s always that senior exec who insists on throwing out the old and bringing in the new, splashing cash on some new technology, sold to them with a swish marketing presentation.
A new generation of activists objects to people like me saying things. In their worldview, we’re supposed to toe the line and stay on message, never to deploy the introspective gaze which begs for change. But often it is necessary to challenge the status quo, to demand all those rights parochialism has withdrawn.
Times are extraordinarily hard for so many. But it’s not a government bought by hedge fund managers that will take the blame. The role of scapegoat will be taken up by the usual suspects: the poor, the outsider, the unpopular. If governance has been taken over by the super rich, we would not know it. …
Why do I write so much? Honestly, because in conversation, I can’t get a word in edgeways. It seems I still have that deficit in spoken language, which has always been a source of immense frustration. I know I speak slowly, my expression quite monotonous. I am slow to formulate what I want to say …
I imagine that my blog is hardly read — and certainly not by anyone I know. So you can probably imagine my bewilderment when I post an ode to a gentleman I once knew, and hours later one of his children comments on it. I wrote that piece the other morning, waking with thoughts of …
I hate that a universal message — its perpetual refrain is, “O mankind!” — is made particular. That a way which speaks of a fellowship of humanity as a whole is made tribal, serving the few. “O mankind! Lo! We have created you male and female, and have made you nations and tribes that you …
