author - oman observer

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....

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....

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,...

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...

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...

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...

“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,...

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...

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,...

I have often felt that, having reached an age of some maturity, one of my life passions is to be able to pass on my professional and life skills to the younger generation. It would be such a waste, if...

Whether from college or university, we can rarely be certain that graduates will enter the workforce and workplace fully prepared. They will be enthusiastic, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, full of...

I reflect often upon how the Sultanate of Oman has been, for so long now, not only a beautiful jewel in the Arabian Gulf, but a warm, hospitable, oasis of tranquillity within a wider region so often...

How can we help our learners learn more, and be better? Maybe one of the problems with global education is that we don’t ask the learners. We keep going to the so-called experts, the educators,...

Aren’t innovation and invention marvellous words? The implication is not just of something new or better, but something to change the world... like electric cars are becoming, almost life-changing....

I see myself as a typical traveller, not a Goldfinger, and not made of money, but ‘doing alright,’ who would like to go home and see the family and friends every couple of years, and on the...

Global societies must look at the Sultanate of Oman's leadership and governance model, with its blend of hierarchical leadership and the social-democratic model of the Majlis Ash’shura, with so much...

We possibly still refer to them as third world, the countries that still face the same enigmas they did more than half a century ago, a maelstrom of poverty, disease, conflict, and hopelessness that...

Despite our good natures, our concern for nature and the environment, and our humanitarian dispositions, we are still by nature, covetous. Not in the greedy, avaricious manner that the word accurately...

The English language is a simple one to learn, or maybe Omanis are just very good learners, and it is now if not the most spoken language of our world, it has surely displaced French as the...

Although penned by Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb, the Bee Gees, in 1968, somehow those words came into my head as I read of the passing of Omani poet Hilalah Al Hamadani, earlier this week....