Just a quick post to wish you all a very happy Christmas. For those of you who don’t celebrate Christmas, I wish you happy holidays. For those of you who don’t celebrate any holidays, be well It’s been a busy few weeks of packing in Barbados, unpacking in London, dashing around seeing family and friends, [...]
Archive | 2012
What is privilege?
When people hear about my background, they immediately think I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I went to Oxford, you see, and before that to a pretty exclusive private school (pictured), and even before that to a private primary school. Add in some high-flying jobs and a master’s from an Ivy [...]
The Kindle Report: does it beat paper?
I’ve owned a Kindle for almost a year now and so thought it was time for a comparison of ereading vs reading. I’ll look at several different categories, from the common issue of readability to more unexpected things like how it’s affected my book-buying habits. The reading experience As I’ve said on here before, I’m [...]
Ten years ago: Tom Cornell profile
December 1, 2002 It’s hard to know what gives Tom Cornell more pride – the time the Pope invited him to read the gospel in front of 40,000 people at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, or the time he was arrested in Washington D.C. for trying to occupy the Capitol on behalf of the unrepresented [...]
There’s no such place as paradise
When I tell people I’m living in Barbados, the reactions are interesting. Words that come up a lot are “exotic”, “paradise”, “idyllic” and “jealous”. It’s understandable, of course, from people struggling through a grimy London winter, and I’m not criticising the people who say those things. I just wanted to point out that they have [...]
What we did before Google
Whatever did we do before the internet? How did we manage before Google? I’m hearing these questions more often these days, usually after someone’s discovered some snippet of astonishing information in just a few seconds. The questions are rhetorical of course, but it occurs to me that one day people might really want to know. I’m conscious [...]
Capitalism & Slavery
This book does an excellent job of showing exactly how the development of British capitalism was dependent on slavery. The author is Eric Williams, an obscure PhD student at the time of writing, but later in life to become Prime Minister of Trinidad & Tobago. Williams goes through his evidence in systematic detail, examining British economic [...]
Beauty? No, thanks
As a side note to my post last week on the cafes I have killed, I wanted to add one more thing about writing locations. It struck me that in a country with so much beauty, I have latched onto the ugliest locations in which to do my writing. It seems that beauty doesn’t really [...]
Liebster Award reloaded
It was great to be nominated for the Liebster Award by Caroline of Beauty is a Sleeping Cat. Thanks, Caroline! In the spirit of her original post, I have taken the liberty of adapting the rules of the award a little. So I’m answering only seven of her original questions… 2. If you could stay [...]
The cafe killer
I have a confession to make. I’m a natural born killer. Don’t worry – I don’t kill people, or even butterflies. I kill cafes. All I have to do is pick a place to do my writing, go there fairly regularly, and it’ll be closed before the year is out. I’ve even killed a café in [...]
