We were watching Glow last night – excellent show – and came on the episode with the training montage, overlaid by the most familiar song – so familiar that my eyes glazed over and I was eight years old again, watching a video cassette of my favourite cartoon, the Transformers movie. The song was Dare […]
Post-industrial paradise
I had lunch with a person who recently wrote a white paper on deindustrialisation in Malaysia. Fascinating how this has suddenly become such a hot topic – not just deindustrialisation, at least in developed countries, but the next step, the de-servicing of the economy with AI and automation taking over. I listened to a radio […]
Catkins in Karachi
I’ll admit it, I loved reading the Famous Five books and didn’t really have strong issues with them. I enjoyed the adventures, wished I could see a painted wooden caravan or run away to a private island, or find myself trapped in tidal caves. I had no idea how miserable the English weather really is. […]
What aid is for
There was something in the Economist of a couple of weeks ago that got me thinking: Unless a government is wholly corrupt (and Liberia’s is not) it has two big advantages over a donor. First, it is mostly interested in outcomes. Aid agencies and charities often focus on inputs—the number of clinics built, the number […]
Today
Article 50 will be triggered today. I have felt sad all day, not like the disbelieving anger on the day after the referendum, just sad and despairing. Another hope for cooperation and peace gone. The EU is certainly not perfect, but if only the Brexit movement could have been used for reform, not to gouge […]
At some point
At some point in the last couple of years I became an old school feminist. Never noticed it happen, but it did. Strange to have spent all of one’s life marching along, to one day realise the vanguard has marched right past you.