Category: Articles
-
The Inner Life of Animals
[Pic: Club Hípic Raúl Pinteño] [This book review was first published under the title "Animal feelings" in Catalonia Today magazine, January 2020.] Can horses feel shame? Do deer grieve for their dead? Why do roosters deceive hens? What about humpback whales that act as if they’re grateful, adulterous magpies or pigs that have learnt their own names?…
-
Generation precarious
[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, December 2019.] [Photo: Gran Via, Barcelona — Oriol Duran] I saw the best minds of my generation being dog-walkers or asking ’Would you like fries with that?’” This may well be the sentiment of plenty of young people under the age of 30 across the…
-
“Natsukashi”
[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, October 2019.] This morning, with the dying of this summer and noticing the shortening of the hours of light in the evening, I remembered that exactly two decades ago, I went with my newly-married wife to live in the city of Kyoto, in Japan. It became possibly…
-
The Good Luck of Right Now
[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, February 2015.] Since the huge commercial and critical success of "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime" by Mark Haddon, there has been a slight trend towards novels that use a main character with a degree of mental distinctiveness. Matthew Quick’s previous and…
-
Que sera, seraren’t
[Photo: Edwin Pijpe] _________________[This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, November 2019.] There are so many surprises that foreigners in Japan will come across. One of the more notable ones relates to the idea of the future that is held by many Japanese people. A Japanese University professor (whose name unfortunately escapes…
-
‘Jokerman’ (On Boris Johnson and Brexit)
[Photo: EFE] [This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, Sept. 2019.] Unlike this summer’s extreme weather, which came to Europe then went, extreme conservative governments have also recently come but unfortunately don’t seem to be going. In the UK, the latest incarnation of this threat to the average person…
-
God is an Englishman (Donald Horne)
(This article was first published in Catalonia Today magazine, July 2019.) This summer while we on the continent of Europe are enjoying doing whatever we can afford to do under the Mediterranean sun, we should all spare a thought for the English and their other Brit cousins. They will be living through the continuing economic and…
Brett Hetherington 