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Imagine when John met Yoko

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One to One John and Yoko – in cinemas now! Directed by Kevin Macdonald.  With Executive producer Brad Pitt. A Plan B film. Not only famous for being in The Beatles and being a groundbreaking performer, composer and songwriter, John Lennon met Yoko Ono in London at her art show and swept her off her feet. The Beatles broke up and John and Yoko took a two room apartment in Greenwich Village New York in the USA for 18 months  and enjoyed their romance and new life though continually campaigning at the same time against the American  Right Wing in particular the issue … Continue reading Imagine when John met Yoko

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Feast of Memory and Trauma

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German Novelist Judith Hermann weaves together themes of psychology and friendship, unconventional childhoods, summers of the North German Sea shore in a series of three interconnected stories. Children are born and grown up, careers established and abandoned, love affairs, marriages and friendships made and dismantled.  Contemporaries sicken and die, parents get old. “Every story has its first line. Not the line with which the story begins in the book; the line with which it begins in my mind”. This is a literary narrative reflection on when life becomes fiction, now dependable memory can be, and how close one’s dreams can come … Continue reading Feast of Memory and Trauma

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Pope Francis (88) dies on Easter Monday morning

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Latin American traditional Pope who changed Catholic Church, dies aged 88, triggering a centuries-old process of electing a new Pope.  The Pope who has unhindered power over the entire Catholic Church, followed by 1.3 billion Catholics, is the head of the Roman Catholic Church, representing a direct line back to Jesus Christ, a living successor to St Peter, who was chief among Christ’s initial disciples, the Apostles,  Francis was the first Pope from the Southern Hemisphere. He was also the first Jesuit to be elected to the throne of St. Peter. He presented himself as a compromise candidate appealing to … Continue reading Pope Francis (88) dies on Easter Monday morning

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Roman Woman who broke all rules “a living breathing flesh-and-blood”

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Charismatic Fulvia amassed a degree of military and political power that was unprecedented for a woman in Ancient Rome. Married three times to men who moved in powerful circles, including Marc Anthony, Fulvia was not content to play the usual background role that was expected of wife – instead she challenged the Roman patriarchy and sought to increase her influence in the face of determined opposition. Fulvia is a relative of Julius Caesar, Augustus’s mother-in-law, and a love rival to Cleopatra, She was according to Pultarch, “a woman who took no thought for spinning or housekeeping”, and instead became a … Continue reading Roman Woman who broke all rules “a living breathing flesh-and-blood”

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World’s richest who makes the world go round

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Meet Top Ten Billionaires according to Forbes. Elon Musk (53), (United States), $342 Billion, who co-founded seven companies including electric car maker Tesla, rocket producer SpaceX and Artificial Intelligence startup xAI. Mark Zuckerberg (40), (United States), $215 Billion, started facebook in 2004 for students to match names with photos of classmates Jeff Bezos (61), (United States), $215 Billion, who founded e-commerce giant Amazon in 1994 out of his Seattle garage. Larry Ellison (80) $192 Billion, Chairman, CTO and co-founder of software giant Oracle of which he own 40 per cent.   Bernard Arnault (76), (France), & family $178 Billion, oversees the … Continue reading World’s richest who makes the world go round

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Correlating rigid thinking to political extremes

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  Political Neuroscientist attached to Cambridge University, Dr Leor Zmigrod discovers the biological factor that drive ideologies to extremes and her research into the physical and psychological origins of extremism. Her definition of ideology is a rigid and dogmatic way of thinking that discourages thought in favour of a pre-determined and hermetically sealed belief system. Her findings “Prejudiced children’s rigidities were not constrained to one domain: they were everywhere. Rightly spilled into every response, every reasoned thought and miscalculation.” Zmigrod reveals the hidden mechanisms driving our beliefs and behaviours. She using powerful tools of neuroscience to show that our political … Continue reading Correlating rigid thinking to political extremes

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Brief Liaison encounter

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All lives are nothing more than the chronicle of countless stinging might-have-beens that continue to haunt us. In the scorching heat, a hundred people wait to be selected as jurors. Paul, a lawyer reading Wall Street Journal. Catherine, a psychiatrist reading Wuthering Heights. So, begins a whirlwind flirtation over cappuccinos in Manhattan and gallery trips to Chelsea. Paul and Catherine, strike up a conversation and leap to judgements. Catherine thinks she could read him like a book, Wall Street, Park Avenue, Ivy League – arrogant self-satisfied, clearly prejudiced and knows it too. With lawyerly precision, Paul sums her up as … Continue reading Brief Liaison encounter

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Voice to Voiceless and Hope to the Hopeless

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Introduction to DARK HOLY GROUND by Linda Granville DARK HOLY GROUND: A Journey into Activism to Give Voice to the Voiceless and Hope to the Hopeless is a deeply personal and politically potent memoir from British activist and writer Linda Granville. Set in Middlesbrough, a once-thriving industrial town devastated by deindustrialization and economic abandonment, this book is both a testimony of survival and a call to moral action. Granville’s story begins in the heart of hardship: an unemployed single mother navigating life on society’s margins in a town where iron and steel, shipbuilding and the chemical industry once provided prosperity but now lie … Continue reading Voice to Voiceless and Hope to the Hopeless

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Four sub-postmasters awarded OBEs

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Four sub-postmasters who campaigned for justice for victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal have been awarded OBEs in the New Years Honours. Seema Misra, Lee Castleton, Chris head and Jo Hamilton were given the honours after fellow campaigner Sir Alan Bates was knighted earlier this year. Mrs Misra was pregnant with her second child when she was convicted of theft and sent to jail in 2010 and had her baby while serving in prison sentence. Misra who ran a Post Office in West Byfleet, suspended in 2008, wrongly accused of sealing £74000, was one of the hundreds of sub-postmasters … Continue reading Four sub-postmasters awarded OBEs

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Idiotic luxury indulged by people who do nothing, but moved by the spectacle of suffering

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French philosopher Vincent Delecroix’s novel, translated by Helen Stevenson, Small Boat, weaves a short, sharp, shocking tragic story shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025. In November 2021, an inflatable dingy carrying more than 30 migrants from France to the United Kingdom capsized in the Channel killing 27 people on board. Despite receiving numerous calls for help, at 1:45 am the French authorities wrongly told the migrants they were in British waters and had to call the British authorities for help. Since the boat was about a kilometre from British waters, the same passengers kept calling Cross, shockingly, the female … Continue reading Idiotic luxury indulged by people who do nothing, but moved by the spectacle of suffering