13th November 2024
Age and Rage
The great triumph is to be alive. Age? Well, that’s another thing. As Joni Mitchell…
9th November 2024
Foraging For First Ladies
There is a quality to the sky’s colour in this historical stretch of American coast.…
5th November 2024
DC Diaries #2: Suspense
I finally find the button to reduce the glare on the TV. Smart televisions are…
2nd November 2024
DC Diaries #1: America Goes West
America nearly didn’t happen. At least, not in the way we know it. For the…
1st November 2024
Spanish Flood Flashback
The ongoing emergency in the province of Valencia, where upturned cars clog the streets and…
17th October 2024
Payne
I had just read some other news from Argentina. A dozy commuter, walking while scrolling,…
8th September 2024
Magnificat
The museum did not open until 3pm, and so I people-watched for a while. A…
15th August 2024
Advice, For Lovers
One should fall in love with a Café Owner, at least once in a lifetime. …
10th August 2024
Edna’s Banquet
It is her funeral today, and she is returned to Clare. Some years ago, in…
15th July 2024
The Crux
The news reports were frustrating. Their headlines, usually drunk on drama, lacked precision and meaning. …
19th June 2024
Of Life And Lazarus
In 2012, Detective Stephanie Lazarus of the LAPD was convicted of a homidice, committed in…
25th March 2024
Salomé
I have dreamt of you, veiled Salomé. Your breath is on my skin - sweet…
10th March 2024
Film Of Interest
This extraordinary film is simultaneously powerful and boring. It is conceived not as an unfolding…
5th March 2024
Berlin’s David Hasselhoff Museum
I am a neighbourhood man. I once visited Tokyo for 48 hours and did nothing…
12th February 2024
Saltburnt
That the writer-director of Saltburn understands the machinations of the British aristocracy is clear from…
18th January 2024
Flamenco In Valencia
He was a young man, in his mid-twenties, with curling black hair about his shoulders,…
4th January 2024
More Than It Says On The Tin
The first Spanish painter I knew was my own age, and from Valencia. I knew…
29th October 2023
Stand-Up For Gen-Z
We know when we witness something fresh. Human beings are built to notice the novel.…
14th October 2023
Honey, Darling?
Londen. Londyn. Londres. Londinium. There are many Londons. I guess an invitation of travel is…
31st August 2023
Bocuse
He would be 98 years old if he were alive today. And if passion alone…
26th August 2023
Tick Tok
The church tower in Lake Issarlès, high in the Ardèche mountains of southern France, rings…
24th August 2023
Come To The Quiet
Everything interesting is difficult. Let me translate this thought to Latin, to lend it more…
22nd August 2023
Fire
So that a donkey may drink, I spent the afternoon in the pursuit of phantom…
19th August 2023
La France Profonde
I am sitting on the banks of the Allier river, which marks the border between…
15th August 2023
The Clank Of Pétanque
In travel, any pace is the perfect pace. Each choice of transport brings its own…
13th August 2023
One Year Later, But Will She Care?
I am in south central France, close to the rising of the Loire. Across the…
28th July 2023
Scarlet Sinéad
The most striking image I recall of Sinéad O’Connor, the moment she became indelible, was…
18th July 2023
Jane, Je T’Aime
The pop-culture scene in France, when I lived there in the early 90s, was more…
4th June 2023
Her Towering Bells
He buried Titus here, not knowing that, in a year’s time, father would join son. …
26th May 2023
The Tune That Spike Liked
“I’m a jobbing clown”. Spike Milligan’s self-described persona jumps to life in his conversation, riffing…
17th May 2023
Seasons
April, come she will. When streams are ripe and swelled with rain. I am…
6th May 2023
The Strains Of Zadok
This is the story of a piece of music, and its place in the anointing…
6th April 2023
Between Galway & Gethsemane
There is a seafarers’ memorial situated at the Middle Pier in Howth. Its central design…
28th February 2023
Unchained
The mind wobbles in mysterious ways. Just last week, I read the sad and moving…
20th January 2023
A Tour Guide Considers His Lot
As he advanced towards me, three geese followed up the rear, in steady meter behind…
2nd October 2022
Ecce Homo, Ecce Mater
I value original thinking mostly because it’s so damned hard to achieve. The frequency of…
16th September 2022
The Elizabeth Line
DIARY ENTRY #1 London’s newest underground railway line has been in the planning since the…
8th September 2022
One Day
She reigns no longer. Britain’s longest-serving monarch, 96 years of age and 70 years Regina,…
6th September 2022
23 Years Later, A Mystery Solved
The sketch caught my eye as we walked under a bridge of the Seine, during…
14th August 2022
McGregor’s Army
I have met two barbers in the space of twenty four hours, which is surprising,…
12th August 2022
Grief Is A Faltering Donkey
At the bottom of one of her leather saddle packs, as I prepared to hand…
10th August 2022
Walkabout
Like most people I really like, I thought he was a pain in the arse…
6th August 2022
Her Perfect Place
I will send her Bushmills. I woke up to the idea bouncing in my head,…
3rd August 2022
Alone
He was a tall man, in the autumn of his seventies, with a jowly face…
1st August 2022
Brian Is In The Kitchen
Travelling with a donkey, as Joseph and Mary learnt the hard way, makes for slow…
1st August 2022
What Happened In Pradelles
Pradelles, in the Haute-Loire, had its moment in the sun 500 years ago when a…
30th July 2022
Postcards From The Sedge
I walked into a restaurant here in Langogne at 3.30pm, when lunch was clearly over,…
29th July 2022
Exclusive: Kaïcha Sacking Fiasco
Kaïcha has a meltdown at Landos, 7kms from her point of departure, 24 hours after…
27th July 2022
No Room At The Inn
It’s official. We’re a couple. I’m tempted to change my Facebook status, but I’m not…
26th July 2022
First Date With Kaïcha
The night before meeting Kaïcha, Christophe started loading on the bad news. She simply can’t…
25th July 2022
Following Robert Louis Stevenson’s Ass
A donkey awaits me in the south of France. The trail we will take together…
30th March 2022
Slap And Tickle
It was not, in the pantheon of American humour, the greatest of jokes. But, as…
11th September 2021
The Grey Snow of 9/11
Early on a June morning in 1986 I entered the lobby of the World Trade…
6th August 2021
Laying Low In Cavan
“It’s lashin”, she said, when I arrived down to breakfast. And as her patrons filtered…
4th August 2021
Grass And The Grotto
The lack of athleticism in my cycling is shocking to behold. I am in no…
3rd August 2021
Circumnavigating Ireland’s Torso
I almost showed up in Naples, not Navan, yesterday. Three days ago, I sat having…
24th October 2020
After The War
I watched a brief interview with Doris Lessing, the British author who learnt she had…
3rd October 2020
By The Dawn’s Early Light
And the virus’ red glare, Its bombs bursting in air Gave proof through the night…
15th August 2020
A Man And His Grass
I worked with a talented, experienced landscape gardener named Lisa, some years ago. We were…
11th August 2020
Qualitative Research And Zoom
Qualitative research is the act of focused curiosity, between people. Not so focused that the…
6th August 2020
Conspiracy Of Truth
When I first met Dixie Longate, somewhere between Marseille and Rome, I was bent on…
3rd June 2020
Teacher
My teacher died this week. He taught me throughout my secondary school years - English…
29th May 2020
Worth A Thousand Words
If the invention of moving pictures allowed us to capture and recreate how we live,…
26th May 2020
Notes From A Bedside
My friend will never leave this bed she is lying in. There is a guttural,…
25th May 2020
Casting Connell
Look at the actor Paul Mescal from a distance, and he’s like any fella walking…
19th May 2020
On The Instinct To Conserve
I have found the 2016 election of Donald Trump challenging. But not in the manner…
4th May 2020
Oh, Framing!
China speaks of absolutes Sweden speaks of calm Germany speaks of common sense Holland speaks…
11th April 2020
Before The Fall
It was a halcyon time. That time when woman, wrought from the rib of man,…
6th April 2020
Crown And Corona
She did not mention it once. Looking straight to camera, back upright with the gait…
1st April 2020
Why I Don’t Give A Fuck About Your Tips
There's been a worrying Corona-rise in people dispensing advice. In the form of tips.…
20th March 2020
Ovid’s Nineteen on Covid-19
The great poet’s name rhymes with the viral pall that hangs above us. What can…
18th March 2020
Corona: Collapse Between Fact and Fiction
Eski knows there’s something up. Why the hell is my Master here all the time?…
12th March 2020
The Corona Chronicles
Each of us is a citizen, bound in a unique moment of jeopardy. The earthquake…
8th March 2020
Clara In Valencia
As we walked down the sunny side of the street she described her student life,…
5th March 2020
Bridge Over Troubled Innovation
It is fifty years since Paul Simon released his songwriting masterpiece, 'Bridge Over Troubled Water',…
24th February 2020
Why I’m Sacking TripAdvisor
In brand-building, it can be fun and instructive to have enemies. We understand better what…
9th February 2020
Shoah: under the watchtowers of Auschwitz
The German words encountered in the world’s most notorious concentration camp are predominantly those of command…
6th February 2020
On The Road To Auschwitz
Because it cost them everything, it will cost me nothing. 1.1 million people were murdered…
28th January 2020
Dear Kobe
He had lived in Italy for some years from the age of six, describing it…
17th January 2020
Look Sharp. See 1917.
Urgency. There is no time to spare. If an order is not delivered there will…
15th January 2020
Megxit, Pursued By A Bear
We are living a singular regal moment. The British sovereign, aged 93, has successfully put…
5th January 2020
My Dream Of Marian
It was my mother who got the news to me. Ear eternally to the radio,…
11th December 2019
Volcano
At its most fundamental, a volcano is a crack in the ground. Depending on the…
1st December 2019
Dissecting Mister Fawlty
Works of genius do not happen by accident. Genius must work hard in the creation…
14th October 2019
Marathon Man
The story of the first marathon is one of myth, weaving historical fact and human…
1st October 2019
Jessye In Paris
I am sitting at an Illy Café in the centre of Paris, some metres off…
27th August 2019
Beyond Cancer, To Dancing
My DNA malfunction has been addressed. Through the intervention of medical experts, six robotic incisions,…
12th July 2019
Today I Am Reborn
I am a child of summer, born on the 12th of July. My mother tells…
22nd June 2019
London, In The Heart Of June
I am sitting in a cafe that sits in a Garden Square. It is run…
2nd May 2019
Meaning Of Mystery: The Lost Girls Of Panama
Chapter 1: Changing Habits I have drifted in my leisure-time media consumption, both in form…
30th April 2019
Malta’s Fault-lines Of Love
It is 10am, and I am sitting on the balcony of Crust in St Julian’s…
26th April 2019
Decoding The Candidates’ Logos
The logo. That simple, eloquent and essential visual statement of who you are. What you…
2nd April 2019
Scotland’s Dissent
Have you ever sat in the back seat of a car, certain of the route…
30th March 2019
Her’s & Ours
I am possessive about grammar, like a dog with a bone. And like most dogs…
24th January 2019
The Role Of Camp In Culture
When I was otherwise engaged gestating, Susan Sontag published an essay entitled ‘Notes On Camp’. …
13th January 2019
Life Is Simply Magnificent
We are each of us in search of transcendent experiences. This desire is at the…
6th January 2019
India’s Secret
Stalin has brought me coffee. My kind of coffee. Because Stalin is my kind of…
17th November 2018
Three Dimensions Of Elon
It seems I am surrounded with lessons about dimensions. And it seems I am a slow learner.…
11th November 2018
My Own Private Armistice
Lying in bed on the beautiful morning of the 11th of November 2018, I began…
29th October 2018
Flaws, Jaws And Genius
During the course of 124 minutes, with the help of iTunes, I have returned to…
15th October 2018
Innovation Is Murmuration
I am interested in how groups of people can, in the right context and with…
10th October 2018
RMS Leinster: down in dazzle
A client of mine is not working today. He is departing on a boat from…
6th October 2018
My Memories Of Montserrat
Her name was as big and meaty as her voice and presence. I happened to…
2nd October 2018
Walking Above Clouds
I have walked above clouds. The first time you do it, it leaves its mark. …
30th September 2018
Jane Austen: dead or alive
I sat for an hour beside the grave of Jane Austen. The problem with people…
29th September 2018
Jane Austen Has Invited Me To Tea
If you want a sense of how large the Muslim world is, and how committed…
20th September 2018
Why I Write
The established counsel for prospective authors, dispensed at the drop of a microphone, is twofold:…
24th August 2018
The Prodigal Fanboy
It is so easy to be drawn into it - the tumult of adoration during…
13th August 2018
The Legend of Poor Rich
A few days ago, a transit worker at Seattle Airport entered the cockpit of an…
10th July 2018
How Psychology Can Help Change Behaviour
Almost ten years ago I began a post-grad in psychology - spending two years learning full…
4th July 2018
Ryanair and the culture of ‘non-priority’
If you ever doubted the ability of one person’s influence to permeate a culture and…
18th June 2018
ASMR: one tingle and you’re tangled
My truncated opera career lasted four seasons. Being a late bloomer, I got cast in…
13th June 2018
Where Are The Experts? Why Aren’t They Here?
Almost ten years ago, I returned to full-time education for two years, completing a post-grad…
12th June 2018
Finding Illyria
I met a taxi driver yesterday by the name of Qemal. I asked him if…
9th June 2018
All We Are Saying Is Give Asexuals A Chance
Almost ten years ago I began a post-grad in psychology - spending two years learning full…
6th June 2018
The Way You Think Can Save Your Life
Almost ten years ago, I returned to full-time education for two years, completing a post-grad…
10th February 2018
West Cork To The World
It is a long, meandering tale of tragedy. Across 6.5 hours and 13 episodes, the…
6th February 2018
Frasier’s Dad is Dead
John Mahoney’s true love was the stage. After his role in ‘A Long Day’s Journey…
23rd January 2018
Dolores
I had been travelling a long time before I recognised that no matter how good…
14th January 2018
Reinventing The Banana
My mother was a toddler when Germany invaded Poland in 1939, and still under ten…
9th January 2018
Going Bollywood
On explaining my dance plans to a friend a few months back, he encouraged me…
5th January 2018
What It Means To Be Indian
I take it all back. Indians drive like maniacs. They overtake on a whim with…
2nd January 2018
Twelve Hours In India
The first twelve hours in a country are hardly the basis for any decision beyond…
10th December 2017
Bitcoin: the little cryptocurrency that could
The irony of innovation is that it is often discussed and rarely encountered. Most of…
20th November 2017
Putting On My Selina Scotts
Life is lived in a tumble of moments upon moments, each vying to gain our…
30th October 2017
Palermo Mio
It is my destiny never to get to the bottom of it. I no longer…
28th October 2017
Why Trump Is Here To Stay
- When a guy makes stupid moves on the draughts board, causing chaos and holding…
26th October 2017
Go Placidly And Create A Brand World
When Max Ehrmann wrote his beloved prose poem in 1927, little suggested that Desiderata would…
16th October 2017
Ophelia Bears Down On Harvey
Her death, one of the most celebrated in literature, happens off-stage. Ophelia, driven mad by…
17th September 2017
My Encounter With George Hook
In the Spring of 2014, I sat in a Dublin café with George Hook talking…
8th September 2017
Poo
I have long been critical of brands that slyly betray their owners. The splendid 'poo…
4th August 2017
It Would Make You Think
In the glare of an August afternoon, I walked among headstones in Mount Jerome. There…
19th July 2017
War of the World
As teenagers just out of school, I and four friends cycled across France and a…
18th June 2017
London’s Burning
As the flames danced behind the cheap cladding of Grenfell Tower, there was a brief…
3rd June 2017
When The Big Boy Bails
It is a scenario familiar to most small businesses. You develop a disproportionate relationship with…
1st June 2017
Darling Michael
The remembered life of a young boy in outback Australia Chapter 1: Man…
22nd April 2017
Samsung Dreams Of Flight
Locate the dream, then bring it to life. This was the essence of my Friday…
19th April 2017
Toffoli, And The Meaning Of Local
Toffoli is a restaurant on my street. It is perhaps 15 metres from my door.…
15th April 2017
ABBA’s Seven Insights
Even as the music critics thrashed them, the most feted rock stars of the 70s…
4th April 2017
Sweet ShitTown, Alabama
How a podcast investigating a murder has breathed life into the nature of love, and…
27th March 2017
On Average, People Are Average
'Well, that's the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the…
23rd March 2017
The Next President of France
It is easy to be distracted by the personal story of Emmanuel Macron. And yet,…
7th March 2017
Disasterously Good, Dangerously True
It is surprising how difficult it is to find truth. I do not mean this…
3rd March 2017
Dammit, I just want a coffee
I have still not got the hang of coffee parlance. Between flat whites and skinny…
3rd March 2017
And the Oscar goes to…
We live in Trumpian times. When his wife plagiarised swathes of Michelle Obama's speech for…
21st January 2017
Slayer of Dreams
As he stood, hand on a bible, and began to recite that brief oath, my…
17th January 2017
Airlines Can Break Your Heart
Love / Hate at 30,000 feet I am reminded of how emotionally I engage with…
14th January 2017
The Flight Of The Cassowary
Australia's expansive, and famously pesky, biodiversity is, to my amateur eye, evidence that competition delivers…
13th January 2017
Lollipop Ladies of Bangkok
The king is dead. The nation mourns, each in her own way. The hospitality manager…