Archive For The “It makes you think” Category
Those who read Greyhares will know that, when out in public, I am an inveterate chatterer. The content of my chat varies, covering anything from idle chit-chat, to serious debate, to the infamous imparting of unsolicited advice. To these more traditional categories, I have just added a fourth – the ‘avuncular chat’. Here, the purpose…
It’s confession time. Earlier this year I wrote that I was a compulsive chatterbox whenever travelling on busses or trains and that I had resolved to give the habit up [Pipped at the post, Greyhares, 5 May, 2016]. I failed. My silence only lasted a few weeks and I was soon chatting again at full…
It is said that the language we use influences the way we think and feel, and possibly even how our minds develop and decline. For those who are bilingual or more, it introduces all sorts of interesting dimensions. So when conversing, for example, there are choices to be made consciously or otherwise as to the language…
Our final topic was perhaps an odd one to tackle over mid-morning coffee and anyway, in the end, nothing was actually resolved. Frank and I had met for one of our occasional coffees, initially convened to review the progress of a project we were both involved in. That business done, it was on to more…
Until recently our feelings about views have usually differed. While my wife loves ‘untouched’ expanses of nature, the Cairngorms for example with not a house in sight, or miles of Atlantic rollers, my breath is taken away by man-made structures. The Roman aqueduct at Nimes blew my mind when I was a teenager, and for…
In a grand room in central London on the 24 May the cameras witnessed a moment of pure theatre. For a few minutes the most powerful people in Britain, plus possibly the most powerful person in the world, were rendered impotent. They were paralysed by pomp and protocol, and the fear of losing face. At…
For years three questions have haunted me but now I am down to two. I still do not know why the chicken crossed the road; I have not resolved whether it was the chicken or the egg that came first (based on Aristotelian principles I am told it is the chicken) but I do agree…
