Category: Articles

• September 30, 2018

  Worshipping the gods of commerce

    [A version of this article was first published in Kansai Scene magazine and was co-written with Anil Ramsingh.]   In 1994 a UN Human Development report stated that what we are now seeing is: “an arresting picture of unprecedented human progress and unspeakable human misery, of humanity’s advances on several fronts mixed with humanity’s…
• September 7, 2018

  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,…
• August 21, 2018

  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…
• August 7, 2018

  The colours of Asturias

    the flag of the region (if we must have any damn flags at all)   should be green black and red   Asturias is certainly verdant green but it is also black   the black of the miner’s lung and the almost permanent colour of his stained spit it is also that sightless place…
• June 17, 2018

  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…
• May 20, 2018

  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…
• April 9, 2018

  This Boy’s Life

    [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, April 2018.]   It’s a great relief to read something as authentic as this memoir of Tobias Wolff’s childhood. In 2018, when (even for adults) predictable superhero and action movies are dominating the western world’s popular culture as a form of escapism, my bowels were nicely warmed…
• March 5, 2018

  A very personal reason

    [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, March 2018.]     If you are a regular reader of this column you might remember several articles I’ve written in support of the public health system over the last few years. This month I have an interest that is particularly close to home because I am…
• March 4, 2018

  Nothing temporary about work

       [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, February 2018.]   The good times are back and we don’t need Prozac! The conservatives who run Spain and most of Europe would have us believe this is because the economic growth figures and employment statistics are apparently rising at a faster rate than they have…
• March 4, 2018

  God-bloggerer

    [Photo: DNA strand. Religion did not give us this.]               [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, January 2018.]     I call myself an atheist because god has not been proven to any clear degree, but like other people I can enjoy certain things that are called…