A debate for the decade...
Not since Joan of Arc has a young woman proven so divisive. Greta Thunberg is the darling of the media, and the protest culture, but like gold, is she really all that glitters?The daughter of Swedish...
Sometimes, you just gotta laugh
We all need to laugh! Sometimes at ourselves, sometimes at others. Watching a film, television, or a sports event, most of us, in that moment feel the child we once were, or show the child we once...
Kids can’t be right... all the time
Apparently many kids in our classrooms today feel they need to be perfect, and that making mistakes is just the first crack in a wall of invincibility, and that’s why so many of them demonstrate...
Once upon a time, man ruled...
In the beginning... back in the day... long ago... and far, far, far away... Mammoths, bears, and wolves ruled a frozen Earth, and man, the original hunter gatherer, kept himself warm by killing them...
America: You can’t be serious...
The Wild West cowboy movie had no character more richly endowed with the ‘gift of the gab’ than the ubiquitous snake oil salesman, a purveyor of wisdom, philosophy, and an elixir to remedy all...
Gen Z - A real life comedy of errors
Generation Z, I believe, is the most combative, aggressive, impatient, of all generations, their inflexibility and ability to escalate even the most simple debates, the hallmark of their time. I want...
The changing face of the workplace...
Recent changes in the employment and workplace structures across several of the Sultanate of Oman’s leading private sector employers, have almost certainly ushered in a wholesale revision of...
Flying: Fun and games isn’t it?
Flying... it should be fun, shouldn’t it? But I must say, security considerations apart, it’s often an exercise in frustration. Although considering I travel frequently to faraway New Zealand, I...
2023, the year of Norma and Nina
So, here we are again, and this New Year, I’m going to focus on some of the ‘good stuff,’ instead of my traditional ‘ragging,’ because we need so much more of that. I think we are still in...
The key to quality travel experiences
Birkat Al Mouz, Nizwa, Muscat, As Sifah, Jebel Akdhar, Wadi Mayh, Sur, Ras Al Hadd, Ras Al Jinz, Al Asala... Lena and I are rediscovering Oman, and loving it!As the world ‘gets smaller,’ thanks to...
The dove that pulled freely to the sky
Is the sentiment of ‘peace and goodwill to all,’ an appropriate sentiment just now? Given the time of the year we hear it more often, but really... nothing seems to change does it? Is it really a...
Doing my best work, in sleep mode
We sleep for between a quarter and a third of our lives, that being somewhere between the equivalent of six and nine thousand days, or put another way, fifteen to twenty five years of our lives....
Poetry and literature: Not a waste of time!
I’m often asked, from my educational perspective, whether the poetry and literature taught in schools and higher education has any genuine relevance to the lives of the students. In other words,...
Monarchs rule, democracies disappoint
You just couldn’t make it up, could you? The so-called shenanigans by the so-called super-powers at the moment are so hard to believe, you would think they are the plotlines of a damp squib...
Cats and dogs rule. OK!
One of my work colleagues, who has just got herself her first ever puppy dog, said to me last week, “It’s weird. I never ever thought of myself as a ‘dog person,’ but now I can’t imagine...
Destroying a forest for economic gain...
We so often hear about saving the South American rainforests, and the Amazon, don’t we? Yet, how much do we know or understand about why, and what it offers the world?The realities of tropical...
Rise of bigotry, fall of tolerance
“Tolerance,” said that most articulate of American statesmen, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, “implies no lack of commitment to one’s own beliefs, but rather condemns the oppression, or persecution,...
If we couldn’t laugh, we would cry
There’s nothing quite as much fun as a bit of comedy is there? You don’t need to wash it, dry it, or keep it clean. You don’t have to cook for it, feed it, or worry about whether it’s a...
An ultra-sharp two-edged sword
It’s an incredibly difficult time for so many folk at the moment with societies seeking to manage the still emerging effects of the global pandemic, the recently emerging global energy price shock,...