The Bee Sting is thought-provoking, sharp witted, tour de force about family, fortune and the struggle to be a good person when the world is falling apart. The Bee Sting by Irish writer Paul Murray, is the tale of a man who destroys himself in order to please others, but ends up destroying them too. The Barnes family is in trouble . Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under –  but rather than face the music, he’s spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife Imelda is selling off her jewelry on … Continue reading Stinging, sharp witted teen confusion

Ukrainian government having watched Israel’s Iron Dome missile streak over Tel Aviv hunting down Hamas rockets, they contacted its Israeli counterpart last October in the hope of buying the air defence system to fend off the Iranian drone swarming their skies. According Loewenstein, the tiny country’s weapons exports,  which hit over $11 billion in 2021, are a means to an end. But Israel was not going to upset Moscow, especially when they are so deeply entrenched next door in Syria, so the answer was no, despite the key US foreign policy objective of arming Ukraine. Israel’s military industrial complex uses … Continue reading Feeding despots

James Lockhart in Wild Air, write about a series of birds as though he has his granny’s role of listening to birds’ songs and calls and relaying what he heard to his aged and then quite deaf father- the famous naturalist Seton Gordon.  From the nightjars’ strange churring song on a heath in the south of England, to a lapwing displaying over the machair in the Outer Hebrides, he writes about eight different birds who he has spent most time with, returned to most often and relays what he hears. Watching birds is not merely entertaining m but also these … Continue reading Migration without borders