-
Continue reading →: Clean Thursday
Easter is upon us and there are various customs and traditions associated with this religious festival. There is the welcome end to Lent’s fasting with gastronomic delights such as Simnel cake and hot cross buns. Clean Thursday is a Russian tradition to prepare the house for the Easter festivities with a…
-
Continue reading →: All right thinking people
European response to migration has been fragmented. Germany’s Angela Merkel opened the borders to offer the hand of friendship to thousands of refugees fleeing war in the Middle East. The UK voted (37% of the electorate) to leave the EU in a referendum prompted by scare stories of unlimited emigration from…
-
Continue reading →: Turkish referendum
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, failed to persuade two thirds of the Turkish parliament to grant him more powers. So he has instigated a referendum on 16 April on 18 amendments to the constitution. This would, in effect, transform Turkey from a parliamentary democracy to a presidential state. It would also…
-
Continue reading →: Changing flights
United Airlines are in the news for dragging a passenger, Dr David Dao, off a flight to allow their own staff to take his seat. There is an assumption by airlines that some passengers won’t turn up for their flights, so they often overbook. In this case the flight was…
-
Continue reading →: Memory – a new theory
It had been thought that our short-term memories were formed in the hippocampus and then ‘banked’ in the cortex. Recent research by the team at the Riken-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics has shown that the brain makes two memories simultaneously, one for the present and one for a lifetime. The researchers were…
-
Continue reading →: National disaster
OK, I exaggerate. Picking three horses in the Grand National that did not finish in the first 6 past the post is hardly a disaster, but it has wiped out the stake money for my online gambling hobby. On the plus side, I was prompted to organise the sweepstake at work and…
-
Continue reading →: Trans
The LGBT community have made great strides in the quest for equality. Homophobia is not as rife in western democracies as it once was, and many countries in Europe have made same sex marriages legal. I have been on a Trans information briefing at work that made clear a number of…
-
Continue reading →: Chinese province bans beards
April 1st is the time for fake news stories and tomfoolery. My own contribution was to credit Donald Trump with a ban on beards. As if he would propose such a ridiculous measure? This time the unbelievable truth is that a Chinese province, Xinjiang, has in fact brought in legislation to…
-
Continue reading →: Trump bans beards
POTUS has used another Executive order to ban beards among serving US military personnel. This measure was taken to reduce the risk of Muslims infiltrating the ranks of the armed services and has caused great offence among the US Muslim community. A legal challenge has already been launched in the…
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
odespinner 