Testing the limits of her loyalty

May Hanover was a good girl growing up, well behaved, top of her class, a compulsive rule-follower. Raised by a first-generation Chinese single mother with high expectations, May did not have room to slip up, let alone fall. Her friends did not call her “the Little Sheriff for nothing.” But even good girls have secrets, regrets and when it comes to friendship with Lauren and Kelsey, she’s had her fair share of both. The bond -forged when May was just twelve years old- has withstood a tragic accident, individual scandals, heartbreak and loss. Now the three friends have reunited for … Continue reading Testing the limits of her loyalty

Avalanche on Black Sunday

Magical tale of climate catastrophe – a pure dust storm  is the new novel from the Pulitzer Prize shortlisted author Karen Russell, in The Antidote where the moving dust looks like a mountain range, or an avalanche on Black Sunday, April 1935, in the central plains of the US. Mid-afternoon, the temperature dropped; birds chattered, horizon turned black to flatten wheatfields, burying houses  and vaporising every memory stored inside the Antidote. She wakes up empty- as bankrupt as America. If her customers ever discover the truth, her life will be in danger. “The onrushing cloud, the darkness, and the thick, choking dirt, made this … Continue reading Avalanche on Black Sunday

Jetsam of our truths

Booker Prize-longlisted Dublin-born, Irish author, resident of New York, Colum McCann’s epic novel Twist is about connection, disconnection and destruction. McCann watches seavengers on a coastal dump in Ghana collecting fragments of copper and rubber worth “a week’s worth of food” from discarded lengths of fibre-optic cable. In Twist, inspecting a damaged end of a data-carrying cable, Anthony Fennel, a journalist in pursuit of a story buried at the bottom of the sea: the network of tiny fibre-optic tubes that carry the world’s communication across the ocean floor and what happens when they snap. Separated from his son and sunk … Continue reading Jetsam of our truths

Battle for hearts, minds, literature, and intellects

Charlie English explains how the CIA helped Poland’s underground print banned books, as over ten million books that were smuggled across the Iron Curtain. In 1950s Polish émigré Jerzy Gledroye was running out of cash, after launching a literary review in Paris to save Polish literature from the communist onslaught. In France, funding was scarce, and the Polish people stranded there after the Second World War were improvised and many French intellectuals were enamoured with the USSR. Giedroyc went in search of money in America, as the CIA officers who were keen to undermine Soviet Union censorship, offered him $10,000 … Continue reading Battle for hearts, minds, literature, and intellects

Brasil Brasil The Birth of Modernism at The Royal Academy

There are at least eleven artists featured at this engaging and colourful exhibition. Over 130 works are tastefully displayed for your delectation. Between 1910 and 1970 the modernist approach to art emerged and finally flourished. The Afro Brasilian experience is mentioned about these inspiring artists. Political situations are alluded to in background information on the emergence of the Birth of Modernism.Anita Malfatti is one of the artists who spearheaded the movement and Tarsila do Amaral is also celebrated as a leading female figure of Brasilian Modernism.Many of the works displayed come from private collections as well as Brasilian Public Collections. … Continue reading Brasil Brasil The Birth of Modernism at The Royal Academy

Greed, lies and Veil of Secrecy

Former Wall Street Journal reporter, editor and Bloomberg’s investigative journalist Duncan Mavin’s Melt Down exposes a crisis year for Credit Suisse’s 2023 implosion, with a lucid account of how greed and complacency of bosses and employees destroyed the bank. For centuries Swiss banks have served the globe’s wealthiest individuals, employing a strict culture of anonymity and gaining massive wealth in the process. In March 2023, bank runs and panic among depositors of smaller US lenders spread to customers of Credit Suisse. As the crisis deepened Credit Suisse remained highly solvent across a reassuringly wide range of metrics, but said it … Continue reading Greed, lies and Veil of Secrecy

Oscar Piastri wins Chinese F1 Grand Prix

Oscar Piastri led Lando Norris to make McLaren dominant one-two in the Chinese Grand Prix ahead of George Russell’s Mercedes. The Australian was rarely more than four seconds ahead of Norris, led from pole and lost first place only briefly in the period around the leaders’ only pit stops. Norris was struggling with fading brakes in the closing laps but had enough of an advantage to hold Russell to third position. Max Verstappen finished fourth. Charles Leclerc drove an outstanding race in a Ferrari with a damaged front wing, his pace forcing Ferrari to order team-mate Lewis Hamilton out of … Continue reading Oscar Piastri wins Chinese F1 Grand Prix

Better and clearer practices in “the evidence”

Kucharski, a professor of mathematics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, explores how proof is not just a mathematical concept but a vital tool in decision-making, justice, and survival. From the medieval Islamic world to the recent pandemic, scientific progress has relied on different methods of establishing fact from fiction. Today, in the face of ever-increasing disinformation, how we prove things – to ourselves and others- has never felt more urgent. There is far more to proof than axioms, theories and scientific §       of someone’s guilt, or deciding whether to trust a new type of financial transaction, weighing … Continue reading Better and clearer practices in “the evidence”

Lives entwined but divided by love

Zanzibar-born British novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, he said  “ I wouldn’t have picked me”, although his work does not fit the traditional mould of recent Nobel laureates. His novels were out of print in the US when his Nobel Prize was announced, who praised Gurnah’s “uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee”. Gurnah, a refugee fled Tanzania during the 1960s Zanzibar revolution, and settled and lived in England for over fifty years. His latest novel “Theft”, is a captivating story of the intertwined lives of three young … Continue reading Lives entwined but divided by love

Declaration of Intent

Canon Andrew White originally qualified as an Operating Department Practitioner,specialising in Anaesthetics, before his ordination. Now Vicar of St George’s inBaghdad, his work there prompted him to write this moving story, acclaimed by Lord Carey of Clifton as an “inspirational read”. In the foreword, Lord Carey cites Andrew as “one of the most remarkable men I have ever encountered …. With a capacity to love, and be loved”. Additionally to providing a preliminary account of his life, leading up to Baghdad, and the deep questions he has had to work through for answers on his chosen stage, Andrew has provided … Continue reading Declaration of Intent