Mysteries of male friendship

Andrew Meehan’s Hey Man is the story of Ian and Tommy, whose rich and tender friendship stretches across three fateful decades. The story begins in 1989, when seventeen-year-old Dubliner Ian, a lonely teenager finds himself lodging with his father’s cousin, thirty-year-old actor Tommy Carmody in London. He needs to get away from the family home: his mother is dead and Ian and his father have not only buried her; they’ve buried the memory of her too, distracting themselves with anagram games.  “Eric Clapton, he said. Narcoleptic, I said.”  Tommy will be a change for Ian. He’s “What you ‘d call a character … Continue reading Mysteries of male friendship

Kimi Antonelli wins Miami Grand Prix

Mercedes’ 19-year-old Italian, Kimi Antonelli, overtakes Lando Norris to win the Miami Grand Prix, his third win in a row moving him 20-point commanding championship lead. His team-mate George Russell, finished fourth on Sunday behind McLarens’s Oscar Piastri. Antonelli had a three-car fight including Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc before the race narrowed down to a tussle between the Mercedes and Norris. “This is just the Beginning. The road is still long. We are working super hard and the team is doing an incredible job,” Antonelli said. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen finished fifth after recovering from a first-lap spin, and was given … Continue reading Kimi Antonelli wins Miami Grand Prix

Is future bright or domination over others? Live life on our own terms

Ancient Oracles and medieval astrology that preceded used to be the prophets of the yesteryears which is taken over by the Tech empires. Award-winning University of Oxford Professor Carissa Véliz in Prophecy argues why we must reclaim that power and shows us how.   For thousands of years, oracles, seers and astrologers advised leaders and commoners alike about the future. But predictions are often power plays in disguise obfuscating accountability and stripping individuals of their agency. Today we face the same threat of powerful prophets but under a new façade: tech.   Not only do modern predictions made by tech … Continue reading Is future bright or domination over others? Live life on our own terms

Struggle from freedom of expression

In 1961 Penguin Books became a listed company, as five months earlier, a jury had cleared Penguin of publishing an “obscene” work: the unexpurgated paperback of DH Lawrence’s late novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, one of the best-known and most resonant works of the twentieth century. Originally considered obscene and unpublishable in numerous countries, its scandalous story of class divide and the English countryside is notorious. But since the 1920s we have repeatedly re-created Lady Chatterley, from film and TV to music and tourism. A record print run of 3 million copies earned Penguin pre-tax profits for 1960 almost quadrupled. The … Continue reading Struggle from freedom of expression

The King’s Speech

“Mr Vice President, Mr Speaker, Members of Congress, representative of the American people across all states, territories cities and communities I would like to take this opportunity to express my particular gratitude to all for the great honour  of addressing this joint meeting of Congress and on behalf of the Queen and myself to thank the American people for welcoming us to the United States to mark this semi- Semiquincentennial year of Declaration of Independence. As my Prime Minister said last month Ours is an indispensable partnership.The executive power is   Subject to checks and balances.” It was a Masterclass in soft diplomacy … Continue reading The King’s Speech

Understanding of what it might mean to love

Lucy Caldwell, winner of the EM Foster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, and the BBC National Short Story Award winner, in her latest novel Devotions which focuses on the point of live itself – via various unmoored protagonists, from a young widow facing up to the essential hopelessness of existence in “Hamlet, a Love Story” to a forty-something, divorced dad who is clearing his dead mother’s home in “All Grown UP”.  A young Belfast theatre troupe brings their experimental production of Hamlet to New York. Harmony Hill is about a … Continue reading Understanding of what it might mean to love

A liar exposes the interrelation of language, control, performance, intimacy and love

Attention-Seeking Behavior is a confession from a liar that exposes the interrelation of language, control, performance, intimacy and love. The narrator of Attention-Seeking Behaviour want to tell you about Normal Ben, the man she’s been seeing: their running jokes, the stories she’s told him. She wants to tell you about the incorrect belief that tiny facial expressions betray a person’s real feelings. She wants to tell you about the time she went to a therapist to try to cure her lying habit. She wants to tell you about the body she found on a walk through the park. She wants … Continue reading A liar exposes the interrelation of language, control, performance, intimacy and love

Can a fox be tamed? 

While some of us crave crime and violence or in depth factual books on politicsor finance as well as self help bibles, some of us feel enlightened and soothedby human interest stories which follow relatively ordinary people and their lifeexperiences especially if animals are involved.So if you want to take a side step and read about Wilf and his foxy friendtogether with elaborate characterisations of many people vital in the story trythis novel which is a debut for Richard Tyrrell who has a degree inPharmacology and has worked as a book reviewer for mainstreet papers andwas a finalist in The … Continue reading Can a fox be tamed? 

Investing was a pursuit reserved for the elite

Fidelity, the Boston-based financial group which directly manages $7tn and administers a total of $18tn, serving an estimated 57million people, or one in five American adults through retirement plans, investment funds and brokerage accounts. The private group owned and run by publicly-shy New England dynasty that don’t want to be in the limelight. Abigail Johnson, the CEO and her team have embarked on a massive growth spurt and pushed well past its money management rivals in terms of employees, revenue and profits. Wall Street  and ex-Financial Times Journalist, Justin Baer, in House of Fidelity give us an insight into Fidelity, which … Continue reading Investing was a pursuit reserved for the elite

Spectre of violence: Multi-generational tale of upheaval and betrayal

Adriana Ramirez’s, The Violence is a chronicle of Colombia’s descent into decades of civil war of the 1940s and 1950s, through the lens of an intimate, multigenerational tale of upheaval and betrayal. “Neighbor killed neighbors, after years of potlicks worn shot glasses, and dominoes on shaded terraces” Ramirez writes. President-elect Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, champion of the working class and harbinger of a new era of progressive social change, is assassinated on the eve of Colombia’s 1948 presidential election, the capital is plunged into bloodshed. Gaitán’s assassination unleashed a bloodletting across the city , as Liberals blamed the CIA and the … Continue reading Spectre of violence: Multi-generational tale of upheaval and betrayal