A few weeks into the coronavirus outbreak, and I’m affected. No, I haven’t caught the damn thing – luckily – but I’ll have to face the prospect, sooner or later, of running out of facemasks for my dental practice. Thanks to panic buying – even colleagues have been stocking up, it seems – my dental […]
Society
City Will Have To Be United For Once
Let us leave the murky politics and dubious finances out of this, and concentrate on what really matters – you, the Manchester City supporter. It is you who pays on a weekly basis, to watch and support players who earn more in a week that you will earn in a lifetime. We can take it […]
Brexit: We’ll Meet Again, Don’t Know When, Don’t Know How
It’s time to say goodbye. Brexit is upon us. We fought hard to try to persuade you to stay, but your decision is final. You are leaving the house that was your home, and closing the door behind you. Until we meet again, then. I don’t know whether to be sad, annoyed, or just relieved […]
Who Needs A Family When You’ve Got Friends? Oh, Sorry – I Ain’t Got Those Either!
It’s a real curse, isn’t it. Family, I mean. Harry and Meghan have my deepest sympathy because I know exactly how they feel. Here’s a royal saga that I can easily relate to. Only for me, it was the other way around. Instead of leaving my family, it’s my family who left me! You just […]
Claude Lévi-Strauss – Father Christmas Burned as a Heretic
On December 24th 1951, a group of Catholic clergymen hanged and set on fire a Father Christmas effigy in front of at least 250 children in Dijon, France. Following the incident, the late French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss wrote an article entitled “Le Père Noël supplicié” (“The tortured Father Christmas”) in the literary journal “Les Temps […]
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Peleton Loses $1.5bn Because Feminists Hate Exercise Bikes
Here I go again, trying to find trouble where trouble is to be found. In the same way I will continue to defend Sint Nikolaas and Zwarte Piet as if my life depended on it, I’m going to defend the right of beautiful women to exercise in their own living room. Come on, have you […]
FRANCE: Violences Conjugales – Un Mal Gaulois?
Certains records nationaux sont enviables, d’autres honteux. Les chiffres officiels concernant les violences conjugales en France font froid dans le dos: une femme est tuée par son partenaire ou son ex-partenaire tous les trois jours. Ce qui est encore plus inquiétant, c’est que les chiffres officiels ne reflètent peut-être que la partie visible de l’iceberg […]
Prince Andrew – Forgetting The Bar, Remembering The Pizza!
Do you remember what you were doing on 10 March 2001? I certainly don’t, but then again, I’m an expert at forgetting things when it suits me. And if Prince Andrew’s BBC interview is anything to go by, so is he. It’s one thing not remembering if there was a bar at Tramp’s, but not […]
ITALIE: Le Décès De Venise
Beaucoup d’entre vous, comme moi, sont coupables. Nous sommes coupables d’avoir visité une ville malade mais belle. Nous avons été au chevet d’une patiente mourante et n’avons rien fait pour la guérir de sa maladie. Elle s’éloigne lentement, sans bruit, acceptant que son destin soit scellé. Elle répond au nom de Venise et reste, malgré […]
Dutch “Zwarte Piet” – An Insult To Global Warming
Having reaped the success of my last two posts on this more than delicate subject, this could be the final instalment of a rather tedious trilogy. Why tedious, I hear you scream. The answer is quite simple – to coin a famous phrase, it’s much ado about nothing. But the news is that this time […]