Category: (More) Society and Social Issues
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Weightless
[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, July 2020.] What is wrong with this scene? Excited children playing together in a Barcelona street, their parents standing nearby watching, chatting, smiling. Of course, only a few months ago, there was everything natural, normal and perfectly ‘right’ about this everyday picture. Now (at least at the time…
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The moment Britain changed
[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, June 2019.] Who do you think said these words three days after the 2016 UK Brexit Referendum, in an attempt to explain the result? “Waves of migration and globalised culture washed among us, eroding our sense of self. Whole communities changed colour and…
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Women I admire
[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, May 2019.] Neus Català It took the love of an extraordinary woman for me to start becoming aware. Aware of the huge continuous struggle and achievements of women in a world that makes it all so much harder than it usually is for men. The #MeToo movement…
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Blurred lives
[Photo: Quim Puig] [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, April 2019.] Without barely noticing it, we are routinely doing two things (or even more) at the same time. I don’t mean having the TV on in our houses, as Juan Goytisolo called it, “Spanishing on” in the background like in a…
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Bread
[This piece was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, February 2019.] I have never met a baker that I didn’t like. Some have even become friends. That’s not surprising considering what they do: getting up early every morning in the sackcloth black of heavy dark and plunging their hands again and again into pliable dough. Have you…
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The giving game
[Mick Jagger. Photo: EFE] [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, November 2018.] One day near the start of autumn I was watching that uniquely ex-British empire sport of cricket on TV. England were playing India somewhere in the UK and the equally unique face of Rolling Stones front-man Mick…
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The great human paella
[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, September 2018.] Walk around any medium sized town in this part of the world and you will see something different. Compared to say, Britain or the USA, here on the average wall in public places,…
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Work, money, machines
[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, July 2018.] My twin brother is a poet. Usually when I tell my adult English students this they ask me how he is able to survive economically. They are always surprised when I say that Australia has an unemployment benefit paid monthly by the government…
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Churnalism
[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, June 2017.] I learnt a new word this week after reading an email from a journalist friend. Churnalism is defined in the Collins online dictionary as: "a type of journalism that relies on reusing existing material such as press releases and wire service reports instead…
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Why not Australia?
[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, May 2018.] I spent the first thirty years of my life in Australia and the last twenty trying to stay out of it. Plenty of local people in this part of the world regularly ask me why we are living so…
Brett Hetherington 