Category: Articles

• January 1, 2015

  An Englishman in Madrid

    [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, January 2015.] "Look, I’ll tell you how things really are," says one of the author’s characters (speaking in 1936,) "whatever they say, this is not a poor country. This is a country of poor people." And it is the elements of social class, poverty and…
• December 8, 2014

  To Rise Again at a Decent Hour

  [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, December 2014.]   Paul O’Rourke is certainly the first dentist as a contemporary anti-hero in literature that I know of. He’s that species of character that from the opening pages of his narrating, in turn I thought was the kind of brilliant, insightful observer of life…
• December 6, 2014

  The best of times?

  [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, December 2014.]   Has there ever been a better time to be alive in the history of our tortured, super-intelligent species?   At the press of a few buttons we have virtually all the accumulated knowledge of the last several hundred (or is it thousand?) years…
• November 2, 2014

  When government is sport

    [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, November 2014.]   I don’t often think about Australia. I was born there, grew up there and, until 15 years ago, I lived there. It’s almost become a (very) foreign country to me but recently it has crept into my thoughts again. This remaining ember…
• November 1, 2014

  The Son

    [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, November 2014.]   Some books don’t really start until half way through. For me, this was one of those. Once it finally did get going (after about two hundred and fifty pages) it asked some intelligent questions of the reader and started to put flesh…
• October 17, 2014

  The Blazing World

    [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, October 2014.] By it’s nature every book is unique but The Blazing World is not at all like any other work of fiction I have read before. The author has published as many non-fiction titles as she has fiction and her journalist-like ability as a…
• October 4, 2014

  Poor doors

  [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, October 2014.]   When I was a kid and just starting to try and understand the adult world I used to hear my parents and other grown-ups make what seemed to be jokes about the "tradesman’s entrance." I eventually learned that these words were a kind…
• September 4, 2014

  Legislating liberties

  Photo: Javier at [sic]   [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, Sept. 2014.]     While we were (hopefully) enjoying sun and slumber over the summer it was easy to miss some disturbing international developments (or should I instead call these events disturbing steps back towards some of the worst aspects of…
• July 4, 2014

  I don’t think,…therefore I am

    [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, July 2014.]   "Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars."   This is "probably a true statement" according to one in four people across the entire planet, a recent global survey has found.   It would be easy to dismiss these kinds of…
• June 5, 2014

  The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

    [This review was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, June 2014.]   In a former life as a secondary school teacher I taught several students with (the then poorly-understood) Asperger’s syndrome. One girl in a class of mine almost never did the work I asked her to do and sometimes I would get very…