We all love to be loved. How we demonstrate that very real need and what we regard as showing love varies from one person to another and in different ways at different times. Some want physical help to cope with life, others want intimacy, yet again others, affection. Some want help with their thinking, others…
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We talk about the problems of communication. They pervade everything from climate to harvest, from sanctions to war, from pandemic to cyberspace. Misunderstanding, whether genuine or faked, is the biggest single cause of marital breakdown. Waffle is the con artist’s greatest asset. Obfuscation is the politician’s bluntest weapon. Vagueness is the soul of bad promises.…
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Everyone who lived through the reign of Queen Elizabeth II and who had any connection with her at any level will be very sad at her death at 96. Her father, King George VI, and her mother, who lived to an energetic 102, set her standards she fully lived up to. The social and technological…
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Gideon Rachman’s FT article on 30Aug22 talks of how the sources of supply are changing from the cheapest (just in time) to the most prudent (just in case). It is very well worth reading if you have not already done so. No use having a wonderful deal for paper clips if you can’t get them.…
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One third of the planet’s population has lived through a period of increasing world cooperation. That came to an end over the last five years. Why? Partly, but not only, because the politics of democracy failed to keep up with our ability to collate, communicate and disseminate information. Or even to sort out fake news…
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A friend called me yesterday morning to ask if I know Salman Rushdie. My reply was that I don’t but that he and I had a good mutual acquaintance whose name is Free Speech. An attack on any of my friends or acquaintances who know and believe in Free Speech is an attack on me.…
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Love that is not returned or rewardedRequested by a reader The assumption that, more than anything else, we all want to be loved is wrong. We are right, however, to say that those who receive love early in life are usually better able to give it when they grow up. Love is an interesting mixture…
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To regard Working From Home as a largely geographical question is like saying where you work is irrelevant. Environment is the setting that drives our mood, ignites the sparks in our brain and powers our creativity. As actor Peter Ustinov said “Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our…
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With gratitude to Stevie Smith I knew how she felt when she published her immortal poem “Not waving but drowning” in 1957. Although beyond my teens, I was still very emotionally immature, struggling to seek help and confirmation of what was yet to come. I have altered Stevie Smith’s title to express a different level…
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They say it’s because she needs “a legacy”. If so, and if she decides to visit Taiwan, I fear her legacy may be traumatic, and possibly final. Don’t get me wrong. I love Taiwan and the ebullience and enthusiasm of the Taiwanese. After I had built a factory in Changhua County in the 1980s they…
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