This is the best way I can describe how my head feels much of the time. It has affected me my entire life, which probably explains my inability to advance my career. It feels like a weight right at the front of my forehead, which grasps my train of thought mid-sentence and throws it to …
By now, it should be clear that I constantly oscillate between poles. Mercy, forgiveness, regret, remorse on one side. Bitterness, anger, contempt, self-pity on the other. It’s a battle to remain merciful, as we’re called to. It’s a struggle to remain contrite, holding oneself to account. Sometimes that bitterness wins, holding sway, causing me to …
Colleagues still mock mandatory equality and diversity training, indicating that they never listened to what they were being taught in the first place, and why it is so important. Instead of pondering the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on both health professionals and patients of ethnic minority backgrounds, they retain that piercing smug cynicism, deriding …
Is it a given that Britain will remain home? Away from the anti-immigrant rhetoric beloved of talk-radio and the gutter press, the aspiring know full well that migration has been a characteristic of the human species for as long as we have walked the earth. If people perceive better opportunities elsewhere, they will naturally move. …
Watching Grand Designs and seeing the very expensive cockups, over and over, all I can say is alhamdulilah! I never understand why people embark on these mammoth projects with money they don’t actually have, landing themselves with gargantuan mortgages and hundreds of thousands if not millions to repay. Not my kind of dream. We too …
Why do we remember? It’s not for any personal gain. If anything, memories like these are a burden. But still, we remember. Perhaps only those that remember can say those prayers. Perhaps only these can petition sincerely on their behalf, oblivious to all that has occurred in the intervening years. Perhaps that is why those …
We have friends and relatives in Turkey asking for advice on moving to the UK. We say, don’t bother; move to Canada instead. The UK has a “hostile environment” policy. Canada is opening its arms, actively pursuing migrant labour. The UK’s approach will backfire, damaging economic growth and effective public services. Until this insular mindset …
My detractors used to warn others, “Be careful or he’ll be after you,” as if I was a hunter in pursuit of prey. Perhaps it was my fault, for not understanding what my friend was on, or what he would say on my behalf. I thought he was from a very religious home like me, …
Rarely in my life have I ever challenged the slanders and lies that seemed to follow me around. By the time it occurred to me that I should, it was always too late, the moment passed, those responsible long out of reach. Sometimes I could blame my tongue, always reluctant to submit to me, locking …
Emerging from the Bakehouse today, site of our clandestine coffee following the weekly three-mile saunter beneath the trees, it seems we had accidentally stumbled upon a car meet. Out front, young twenty-something women were found drooling over a dark blue Golf GTI, SLR cameras at the ready to capture it from every angle. Behind it, …
You can see where my heart is this week.
Can computing be taught in an interesting and engaging way? Our lad is cross with me for making him take such a boring subject. I feel sorry for him, because I felt exactly the same way. In my day, we had to share one computer between three of us. In the early days, they were …
