This Needs Its Own Word

When a man loves a woman, he doesn't know (nor does he want to know) about her previous boyfriends and dalliances. When you go to a restaurant and sit at a table - perhaps "your table" - you deny yourself the thought of others using this table - and YOUR waiter. This is the same …

The Money Making Dog

Sometimes you hear a pub story that changes your life or way of thinking. This is one of those. I was told it by Wee Frank in the early 1980s, and there are life lessons to be learned. Wee Frank's pal, Lawrence was in semi-retirement when he decided he needed a new interest to occupy …

Same Old? – The Challenge

The Beatles? Still? In 2022? Really? You have to be kidding me. I'm done, so this is a New Year Resolution and a challenge too. Let me explain. Apparently kids are listening to music from as far back as the 1950s. And apparently the big new thing in movie acting is learning from Buster Keaton! …

Proper Relationships [opinion]

I suspect it was something by Malcolm Gladwell that introduced to me the idea of immediate feedback being a very important thing. It seems that "The Two Settings of Kind and Wicked Learning Environments" by Robin M. Hogarth, Tomás Lejarraga & Emre Soyer amplifies this idea about feedback. For example, an olympic gymnast will do …

Strange Times [opinion]

Yes, we all know that we're living in a pandemic. A pandemic is a global epidemic. This is a global thing. So when we see TV adverts and News bulletins about holidays to foreign lands, why is it not a complete story? Sure, they will tell you about the restriction levels, the dates on Boris's …

Productive Meditation

I have found it easier than most during this pandemic lockdown because I have always been a bit funny about hygiene. I wash my hands like a surgeon. Over my years as an insomniac, I have taken to cleaning as one of the ways to productively think while not demanding anything creative or attention-centring. It's …

May You Never

Lockdown continues. The weather's been fantastic here in Glasgow. Seems like June has slipped into May. I recall reading Granovetter's The Strength of Weak Ties years ago, and realising that I was a weak tie who made connections between groups of people, and so was an influencer and conduit. And I was alright with that; …

[Opinion] Guilty Until Proven Innocent

I was always told that people were innocent until proved otherwise. It's about something called "The Benefit of the Doubt". It's a default position. It puts the onus on the accuser so that we can all get on with life without having to defend ourselves constantly. It's a good idea; the bad guys get caught …

Trusting Forward [Opinion]

Times they are a changin' - so sang Bob Dylan back in 1964, and he's just won the Nobel Prize for Literature this year (2016), so he's still valid, and what he sang is still valid too. The times are indeed still changing. It's a big change in itself that Bob can win a literature …

How to Get an Instant Divorce

I was once witness to the terrible consequences of loose talk, and have been very careful ever since. This happened years ago. John and I were in the pub trying to chat up two girls who had already told us they were married. I had seen this all before - girls who were married didn't go …