One of my school teachers used to tell a cautionary tale about a pedestrian who was killed when caught on a road at the bottom of a hill. He’d stepped between the lights of two oncoming bicycles. We were twelve or thirteen years old and not everyone in the class understood the silly joke.
[Read more…] about Cautionary ApproachesPaint: One Thought Leads To Another
It’s been time to paint the inside of the house. Linear measures, height by breadth give the area and from that you need to estimate the volume of paint. The realities of inexperience regarding surface absorption rates kicks in. One litre covered four square metres of a garden shed last year. One litre of varnish did two coats of a bench. One litre of undercoat will cover fifteen square metres inside the house.
[Read more…] about Paint: One Thought Leads To AnotherSleeping Beauty
A sleeping beauty is an article or paper whose recognition is delayed for several years after publication. In science, a sleeping beauty is generally defined as an article whose ‘citation history exhibits a long hibernation period followed by a sudden spike of popularity.’
[Read more…] about Sleeping BeautyCollective Responsibility
A fire killed 27 in a nightclub, injuring many more. Yet the death toll was 64. Then a sports newspaper investigated the circumstances of the fire and found government corruption on a mind-numbing scale. How come it was a sports newspaper? How did they have the resources to do it? How did their management approve it?
[Read more…] about Collective ResponsibilityTravel Excuses
Back when we were free to travel, the simplest of reasons might have been sufficient for us to set out. Leinster Rugby off to play in Castres? Let’s visit Albi, the Toulouse Lautrec Museum and see the game in Castres. We’ll make a proper weekend of it. Such was the opportunity we took this date four years ago.
[Read more…] about Travel ExcusesInya and Offa
‘Write and tell us when we are going wrong’ said Aung Sang Suu Kyi at the end of her interview with Fergal Keane in 1995.
I wouldn’t know this but for walking along Offa’s Dyke for a few days in 2019. My walking buddy and I found ourselves in a bookshop in Hay-on-the-Wye where I picked up a used copy of Fergal Keane’s Letter to Daniel, published in 1996 for his new-born son. While I’ve enjoyed dipping into these stories over the last fifteen months, I realise that Daniel must be around 24 now and I wonder what he thinks of his Dad’s letters. And I wonder if Keane ever wrote to tell Daw Suu how they were going wrong.
[Read more…] about Inya and Offa