Everyone supposes that he is the world authority on his own life, especially on his own thoughts and experiences. But is this really so? I began to doubt it when, the other day, I leafed through the copious notebooks that I have kept over the years. I carry a notebook with me at most times ...
Sentimentality and hardness of heart are two sides of the same coin. When sentimentality is confined to weepy films or romantic novels it does little harm and perhaps even some good, but when it is institutionalised by being made the basis of policy its denial of reality and its elevation of ersatz ...
A few days ago I received an e-mail from my British bank about my US$ account in Jersey. I have this account in Jersey because my mainland branch did not allow me to have such an account with it. The e-mail was from someone called the business standards officer:Your account with us has been brought ...
For a long time I have intended always to carry a small notebook with me when I go to second-hand bookshops to take down a list of the most boring titles ever published. Frequenters of such shops will know what I mean: A History of Banking in Costa Rica 1880 " 1915, Cattle Breeding in ...
Needless to say, I feel no particular sympathy for banks: for example, my bank charges me 6.37 per cent on electronic transfers from Australia to Britain, even to an account denominated in Australian dollars. I should like an explanation of this exorbitant charge, but of course I can"t find ...
While in Dublin recently I read an article in the newspaper about the Greek crisis. It was in the Irish Times and was very serious. The author, the well-known economic journalist Martin Wolf, asked a series of questions about the crisis and then answered them. For example he asked whether the ...
Nothing human is alien to me, I understand nothing that is human: I cannot quite make up my mind which describes my situation the better. But certainly one of the things that I do not understand is the cult of celebrity; it mystifies me completely. It is not that I am uninterested in gossip, ...
"Only connect" " such were the famous (almost) concluding words of E. M. Forster's novel, Howard's Way. I think if Forster were alive today and still writing, he would end the book differently: "Only disconnect." It is very difficult to disconnect these days, psychologically if ...
The least one can say of the psychiatric treatment given to Andreas Lubitz, the pilot who killed 149 people as well as himself in crashing the Germanwings aircraft into the Alps, is that it was not very successful. Indeed, its outcome was about as disastrous as any in the history of medicine, but ...
We shouldn"t be irritated when politicians utter absurdities " they are only doing their job, after all " but nevertheless we are irritated. Unfortunately, different politicians irritate different people. Pascal said that most of our problems arise from our inability to sit quietly in a ...
