I know my ingratitude has been on full display in my writing the past year or so. It is inexcusable really, but such is the nature of the melancholy which descends on me so regularly. It makes me completely irrational, despite blessings all around me. This morning, I have been looking back on the photos …
I have been reading a lot about the psychosocial impact of the non-inherited genetic condition I find myself bestowed with and its influence on quality of life. Though the phenotype caused by that extra chromosome is highly variable, numerous studies have demonstrated that the condition is often associated with lower socioeconomic status, in terms of …
Some readers say to me, “Please don’t stop blogging: you have such a talent for writing.” I shrug at this point. “I don’t know about that,” I laugh, “I’m just an opinionated fool.” They want to convince me that I have some unique gift, but I know the truth: I’ve just had a lot of …
Memo to Musk and Bezos: abandon your vanity ego-trips to Mars. There’s a teraforming mission for you right here, that will actually benefit mankind.
Perhaps it was for a good reason that I had a mega wobble in 2021, its effects reverberating through 2022. Sure, my ingratitude was on full display, as I trounced myself for being an utter failure, oblivious to blessings all around me. But perhaps it was necessary to go through that, to take stock, reset, …
I can’t sleep these days. I blame coffee, or my high cholesterol. Sunday night, I didn’t sleep at all, until after fajr prayer at dawn. Monday night, I slept better, after shunning caffeine all day, making up for the previous night. Last night I couldn’t sleep until well after three, giving me just a few …
My father, having moved down to the south-west to live near my sister, regularly takes his youngest grandson to clamber over historic military aircraft at the Fleet Air Arm Museum an hour south of his new home. There is no squeamishness in his generation, despite his profession of Christian faith, about warfare. Indeed my own …
My paternal grandparents, as strict Methodists, didn’t drink alcohol. Much to the irritation of my father, they would refer to it as a mug’s game. There was some family history here, linked to the head of the household drinking and gambling away the family’s wealth a few generations earlier. I don’t know if my maternal …
The fitna my generation had to contend with was the scourge of terrorism, each act of wanton barbarity tarnishing the reputation of the faithful everywhere. The fitna of this generation is the circus of bearded influencers, who believe they are calling people to faith but are in fact scaring good people away. With their risible …
Whenever I read of sustainable development in product development, I just can’t help thinking the originators of agile principles simply heard that very trendy terminology around the turn of the millennium and mistakenly assumed it was related to software development. At that time, I myself was studying international development, with a focus on environmental degradation …
