Gatsby anticipation is in the house. We’ve got a ticket for this evening’s 7 pm screening and great are the expectations. Meanwhile, the spin-off industry rumbles on and no (precious) stone is left unturned as it seeks to cash in on the film of the book. F. Scott Fitzgerald was a customer of Tiffany, the [...]
The euro war of words
The cover of the current issue of The Economist, which castigates Germany for its reluctance to become more engaged in efforts to refloat the global economy, didn’t go down well in Düsseldorf, where the country’s leading business newspaper, Handelsblatt, is headquartered. It responded with a featured titled Original oder Fälschung? (original or fake?) and an [...]
For our mental, moral, and spiritual uplift
Busy week for Dublin. The city hosts both the Eucharistic Congress, celebrating the Catholic faith, and Bloomsday, celebrating the 90th anniversary of the publication of Ulysses by James Joyce. And the connection between the two? In a letter to his brother Stanislaus, James Joyce wrote: “Don’t you think there is a certain resemblance between the [...]
Big football fans
From Poland to Greece, from Ireland to Germany, from Italy to Russia, football fans across Europe are glued to the screens, public and private, as the Euro2012 tournament unfolds. Sure, much of the continent’s financial sub-structure is falling apart and banks are bankrupt, but now is not the time for distractions from the main event [...]
The persecution of Fazil Say
The internationally acclaimed Turkish classical pianist Fazil Say is to stand trial on charges of insulting Muslim religious values in comments posted on Twitter. If convicted, he could face a minimum of 18 months in prison. Say quoted a verse by the 11th-century Persian poet Omar Khayyam that ridiculed the hypocrisy of people who pretend [...]
Poland vs. Greece vs. Germany vs. Spain vs. Europe
Thank God for football. This evening in Warsaw, Euro2012 kicks off with Poland vs. Greece and we can forget about the weather and the world for a few weeks as we give ourselves over to the joys of the beautiful game. But wait, what’s this? “Spain’s Twitter Users Say ‘Stop Merkel‘”. It’s a story from [...]
It’s time for Michael Lewis to visit Madrid
What’s happening in Spain? Depending on who and what and where one reads, Spanish banks have lost between €300 billion and €1 trillion and the situation is so frightening and overwhelming that no one believes a single word that the government in Madrid is saying anymore. Time to send in Michael Lewis, we say. Perhaps [...]
Psephological prediction: A gale is going to blow across the US
When voting, those champions of democracy, the ancient Greeks, used pebbles as ballots. The Greek word for pebble is psephos and from it the British historian R. B. McCallum coined the term psephology to describe the scientific analysis of past elections. American students of psephology will remember that in May 1994, Ron Lewis won a [...]
The Vietnam ploy in the Pacific Century’s Game of Thrones
At the end of April, as Rainy Day hovered over the Gulf of Thailand, our thoughts turned to regional security. It’s a topic that’s exercising quite a lot of minds at the moment. Take Leon Panetta, the US Secretary of Defense. He delivered his first keynote address to the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore at the [...]
The enduring image
In the year 1968, the world was in “a terrible state o’ chassis” as Captain Boyle says in Sean O’Casey’s drama,Juno and the Paycock. Student unrest was widespread on both sides of the Atlantic, war was raging in Vietnam and the Soviet Empire was making increasingly threatening noises about the Prague Spring of political liberalization. [...]
We verb / We noun
move (verb) to change the place or position of something. “Egypt’s prosecutor general ordered President Hosni Mubarak to be moved to a military prison on the outskirts of Cairo.” Reuters sale (noun) the transfer of ownership of something from one person to another for a price. “Romney discloses sale of stocks in dozens of companies [...]
The Queen of all Argyll
Gillian Fleetwood and Fraya Thomsen hail from the Highlands of Scotland. Together, they are known as The Duplets. Note: In music, a duplet is a group of two notes played in the time of three. “On the evening that I mentioned / I passed with light intention / Through a part of our dear country [...]
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