Category: Europe

• June 5, 2015

  Germanwings, depression and blame

    [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, May 2015.]   The recent Germanwings airline tragedy has naturally been the focus for countless media stories. Many of us in Catalonia know people who were acquainted with victims and their families but there is another personal aspect to the crash that seems to provoke…
• January 11, 2015

  Blue Black Friday

    [A version of this article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, January 2015.]   Just last month we witnessed the latest craze from the USA arrive here. Without doubt, the Black Friday sales will now be an annual event and will certainly grow in intensity each year. If anything accurately represents pure, raw…
• May 10, 2014

  Sahara sands and other’s lands

  [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, May 2014.]      Fine, red-brown dust covered every flat surface across Europe and the south of the UK just four weeks ago. If it was ever needed, it gave the strongest physical evidence that nature does not respect borders as well as telling our eyes,…
• April 20, 2014

  Land, bread and peace of mind

  Photo: Javier. [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, April 2014.]   If any political slogan ever summed up the basic needs of the human animal, it was Lenin’s call to revolution in Russia almost a century ago: "Peace, Bread and Land!" Today in Europe, would these essential elements be much different? The…
• February 6, 2014

  The colours of corruption

  [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, Feb. 2014]     Europe is nauseous from the cancer of corruption. Yes, it still has the glories of its art, its food, its history and its abundant cultural riches – but it is also shot-through with corrupt men and women. And I don’t just mean…
• January 6, 2014

  Why Europe?

  [A version of this article was first published in Catalonia Today, January 2014.]  (Photo from Desmontando Mentiras, Global Voices online.) Europe exists. It is certainly under great pressure as an economic group (and therefore also as a political construction) but the past has shown that, as an idea and an ideal, Europe exists. When I…