We are spoilt this August for sport; there’s the men’s England Test Cricket, the women’s Rugby World Cup in Ireland and arguably the most spectacular the 2017 British Athletics Championship in London. As TV viewers we get to see up close the winning and the failing (Usain Bolt, 100m final) of these world class athletes. Seeing […]Read Post ›
450 years ago (on July 24th 1567) Mary, Queen of Scots abdicated the Scottish throne and so set in motion the union of England and Scotland under her son James VI/I (in 1603). Events to mark this anniversary sprinkle the Scottish calendar this year and it’s highly likely that if you are visiting North of […]Read Post ›
Another week, another stream of Trump headlines. From attacking his loyalist Attorney General (John Sessions) for being ‘weak’ and ‘beleaguered’ to addressing 40,000 Boy Scouts with a political rant and also banning transgender soldiers from the US army, he’s certainly likes to prove time and again that he’s no shrinking wallflower. There’s of course a well-known […]Read Post ›
There’s been a royal Brexit campaign in full force this year, in case you didn’t know, members of the royal family have graced France, Germany, Romania, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands and Luxembourg in recent months, and the Queen just hosted a Spanish state visit here. This week it was the turn of the Duke and […]Read Post ›
They are suddenly everywhere, seemingly taller than ever before, the statuesque, the impressive, the flourishing. Tennis players aside, I mean Hollyhocks. With their saucer-like petals and mighty stalks, towering and toppling over garden gates, Hollyhocks can’t fail to grab our attention. Rather like the willowy 5′ 11″ female tennis player, Johanna Konta, also did this […]Read Post ›
Zōri (草履): thonged Japanese sandals with a distinctive y shaped strap (hanao) attached centrally to the shoe, traditionally worn with specially designed socks (tabi) . In a society once hidebound by custom and tradition, what the Japanese wore as dress, and on their feet, was determined by the purpose, and tone […]Read Post ›
The battle of Charlie Gard, an 11 month old baby with mitochondrial disease has become a worldwide debate. The desperate pleas from his parents to prolong his life – wherever and at whatever cost – have been a feature of the news headlines since April. Along the way raising a number of ethical issues but […]Read Post ›
Yashmak, yashmac or yasmak (from Turkish yaşmak, “a veil”) is a veil, covering the head and the lower face. Traditionally worn by Turkish Muslim women in public, as a modesty covering. The veil – there’s probably not an item of clothing as contentious. A stirrer of political, religious and cultural customs, a blender of motives and principles, […]Read Post ›
Prince Harry’s recent confession that he is not really interested in a life of royal duties (and nearly renounced his title) has generated gobsmacked headlines a-plenty. Harry obviously has some things he wants to get off his chest, which we can empathize with, but his steady stream of angst (from mental health issues to long-standing […]Read Post ›
X ray – A photographic or digital image of the internal composition of something, especially a part of the body, produced when electromagnetic radiation rays are passed through it and absorbed to different degrees by different materials. Even shoes; As Einstein said: Religion, art, and science are all branches of the same tree. “Art is […]Read Post ›
