What does it take to stand up in the face of wrongdoing or injustice? A lot more courage than you might imagine. I spoke up on matters I thought important a few years ago. Most just politely ignored me, but one dear old friend took me to task for it. He felt my speaking up …
That didn’t take long, did it? Coming to the realisation that the membership thing was self-indulgent nonsense. Does anyone really care that much? Nope. Nobody but spammers and hackers, anyway. So I backtrack, disabling that functionality. Now we have two content states: published or unpublished, accessible or not. Does that mean I’ve withdrawn all of …
That’s the word that most often comes to mind in my encounters with the commercial web industry. Also known as companies pulling the wool over the eyes of their customers. A recent one I came across: a web host deliberately crippling core functionality of a platform for the sole purpose of differentiating its own products. …
LinkedIn prods me: “Your account has been in hibernation for 6 months.” I think to myself, “So what?” and hit delete. But by morning, I’m peering in, wondering what’s new. I find my former manager being congratulated by a multitude of well-wishers on their new role. I decide not to join them, as it feels …
I was pleased with myself on Saturday, congratulating myself for doing a proper weekly shop. But it’s only Tuesday, and already supplies have been depleted, the fridge all but bare. What would have been a week’s supply of fruit now lasts barely days. Any treat, polished off within hours. Either we’re a household of very …
I work with some highly intelligent people — researchers, professors, doctors, psychologists — but sometimes they’re completely illogical. Indeed, sometimes I’m really surprised by their stupidity. I guess we all have our own unique skills and expertise, as well as complete ignorance. To each their own.
Many of us converts are nowadays bemused by the typical view Muslim communities have of us, as degenerates only redeemed by our adoption of faith. It seems to escape them that many of us had highly ethical upbringings, raised with good morals and manners. Alas, many Muslims are triumphant without reason. You have nothing unless …
“Careful or he’ll be after you.” Erm, well, not really. I wasn’t after anybody. True, there was somebody I liked, though they’d never know it because I kept that to myself. Yes, these are my gardening ruminations. The delayed reaction to events long gone, forced to the forefront of my mind by the monotony of …
It’s amusing to think what a quiet life I could have had when I was my daughter’s age, if only I had understood what my best mate was on. True, I would still have had to contend with reactions to my nerdy face and form, forever a source of derision. That was inescapable. But had …
A fine day to resume my role as tree surgeon. Today’s job taking on the hazel and cherry trees blocking our view. Argh, nobody told me I’m going bald. Ignore that. Look: I’ve got myself a new gizmo. It’s at this stage that I wonder what I’ve done. How on earth am I going to …
I am a man who likes routine. Who performs his best when he knows what’s next. I’m not great with surprises or sudden changes of plans. Indeed, in Turkey, I built my own house in a hard-to-get-to village almost solely to escape the social habits of friends and family, turning up uninvited at the least …
What a turn of events, that I should be having a frank discussion with a young man about honourable behaviour. That it should be me explaining that crude misogynistic language should have no place in his vocabulary. That whatever their differences — whatever argument or dispute should come between them — there’s never an excuse …
Time definitely compresses as we age. My youth looms as an epoch in my mind, still occupying me all these years on. Recent decades, by contrast, just feel like minutes and days. Between us, we share recollections of those early days of marriage in west London, returning often as if it was the neighbourhood which …
Is it the collapse of time or memory? The weekend is here again, and I can barely comprehend where the week went. It seems like mere minutes. But then, life as a whole feels like that, fifteen years zipping past in an instant. Were it not for our collections of family photos, I might forget …
