A personal blog of ideas, discoveries and perspectives.
Voter Fraud isn’t a thing. Voter disenfranchisement is. And Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party wants to bring it to the UK. Of the 595 cases of alleged fraud reported to authorities following the UK 2019 General Election less than ten resulted in legal proceedings. This is clearly a negligible level of voter fraud yet Boris Johnson’s …
In the opening pages of his autobiography, the former Catholic Primate of All–Ireland, Cardinal Cahal Daly, describes his earliest memory. He tells how his family home in County Antrim was burned to the ground when the IRA targeted the RIC barracks next-door. The Attack on Loughguile Barracks was one of the few operations in north …
Today marks the 100th birthday of the Irish artist Patrick Scott. Patrick Scott, who would have been 100 years old on 24 January 2021, pictured in front of his iconic artwork. Pat Scott was a shy and quiet man who expressed proudly and passionately in his art. I first met him when he was already …
In these strange times, it's hard to feel motivated. Plans get scuppered, so we can be forgiven for thinking that there's no point in trying. I have battled that demon most days over the past months and, when I woke today wanting to do something creative, I wondered if I could defeat it. How will …
In her essay I Can’t Get That Monster Out Of My Mind (included in Slouching Towards Bethlehem, 1968), Joan Didion diagnoses a sickly 1960s Hollywood system that had “a few interesting minds at work; and a great many less interesting ones” and was producing “fewer pictures but not necessarily better pictures”. Despite Hollywood’s self-image as …
My Side of the Matter 