Bon mot
“The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country – and we haven’t seen them since”. Gore Vidal, quoted in The Guardian
Archive of posts filed under the The way we live now category.
Lifestyle topics
Music and the Olympics
The finale of the Olympics was billed as a “festival of British music”. Excuse me! It was all pop music, endless pop music. I personally found the words of most of the songs yawningly banale, and the accompaniments derivative (note: the word” derivative” is used by professional composers to put down other professional composers). If …
Bringing up the children
My grandchildren have a chicken run at the bottom of their garden. My (nearly 4 year old) grandson’s job every morning is to go and collect the eggs every morning in rain and snow before he goes to school. The family try to produce as much food in their allotment as is possible, and …
Crime in Sweden
A quote from Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell’s book “The Fifth Woman”: Society had grown cruel. People who felt they were unwanted or unwelcome in their own country reacted with aggression. There was no such thing as meaningless violence. Every act had meaning for the person who committed it. Only when you dared to …
British democracy in decline
Like the United States, Britain is experiencing a “long-term terminal decline in democracy” as the power of the big corporations grows and politicians become less representative of the ordinary citizens. Democratic Audit says that although Parliamentary select committees are holding civil servants and politicians to better account, control over political decision-making is less and less …