Impulsive decision

Spiky Cece who is in love, has arrived early at her in-laws’ beautiful lake house in Salish, Montana, to finish planner her wedding to Charlie, a cardiac anaesthesiologist with a brilliant future. Charismatic and generous doctor Charlie Margolis, a Swede Levov descendant asks Garrett, a depressed baggage handler at the local airport and his best friend from college, to officiate the wedding. Great-hearted Charlie hopes to reinvigorate melancholic, near misanthropic Garrett, and he wants him and Cece to hit it off, so encourages to spend time together before he arrives for the wedding. Quirky Cece immediately don’t like Garrett, but … Continue reading Impulsive decision

DEI – diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives

In a World of White people, The Science of Racism uses clear scientific research to expose what we know about racism, exactly how we know it, and what we can do about it. Since 2000s, recruiters have suffered from unusual occupational hazard. Having received numerous applications for jobs they have advertised, they have consistently been hiring people who do not exist. Ghost applications with identical CVs, the only difference between the two is that one applicant is Black while the other is white. They fall victims of their own prejudices, as well as to what is by now, a well … Continue reading DEI – diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives

Addictive focus on the wrong things for too long

Journalist Chris Hayes explains why attention and experience which are essential components of being human are under threat. The speed, scale and scope of technological innovation in that past two or three decades mean that the quality of our daily life is being altered – and not for the better, as we are all caught up in it. The utopian early days of internet has given way to fear and loathing, and yet we cannot tear ourselves away from our screens. Even people who work in Silicon Valley insist that their children real actual books and play board games with … Continue reading Addictive focus on the wrong things for too long

Is Big Apple, a place to find and remake yourselves 

A young woman from India feels the pull from Lady Liberty’s lifted torch in New York Harbour and crosses the globe to make a new life, although she knows the path won’t be straightforward but also that the Big Apple is the place to support and nurture her dreams. Kay Sohini, raised in the suburbs of Kolkata and given an English education, reading Jack Kerouac, Joan Didion and Alison Bechdel and dreamt always of New York. When she finally moved to the city, leaving behind an abusive relationship. Sohini refuses to look away from the city’s flaws, from the damage … Continue reading Is Big Apple, a place to find and remake yourselves 

Diagnosis of Xi Jinping, Putin and Trump – warns of a second Weimar-like era 

In Waste Land, geopolitics veteran commentator, Robert Kaplan’s wide-angled vision of our chaotic, globalised world, where present crises resonate with past tyrannies, and assess the outlook for the 21st century, and reveals the society is  a hair’s breath away from the abyss. Donald Trump is taking office amid mini Trumps elsewhere, as steely autocrats steer Russia and China. We are entering a new era of global cataclysm, a deadly mix of war, climate change, great power rivalry, rapid technological advancement, and the end of empire. Kaplan explains incisively how we got here and where we are going. His trademark sweep of history, … Continue reading Diagnosis of Xi Jinping, Putin and Trump – warns of a second Weimar-like era 

Drug addict in Harlem rubble, surviving miraculously

Richard Price, American author and screenwriter write crime fiction with a social conscience giving us razor-sharp anatomy of an ever-changing Harlem. In Lazarus Man, Richard Price, creates intertwining portraits of a group of compelling and singular characters whose lives are permanently impacted by the disaster. East Harlem, in 2008, a five-storey tenement collapses into a fuming hill of rubble, pancaking the cars parked in front and coating the street with a thick layer of ash, resulting in several deaths. Anthony Carter, a recovering drug addict is retrieved from the rubble buried for days beneath tons of brick and stone, some … Continue reading Drug addict in Harlem rubble, surviving miraculously

Insight into lost world

Travel writer Norman Lewis spent a whole life of writing inscrutably on the road, revealing th world in all its unspoiled beauty, also reflecting a world now totally lost to us, from Yemen of the Imams to bandit chieftains, Neapolitan men of honour and tribal chieftains in Central America, as well as darker scenes: the doomed cultures of French rule in Indo-China, Cossaks being sent home to their death and the quiet holocaust of the indigenous peoples in the jungles of South America. Lewis (1908-2003) was the author of 15 novels and 20 works of non-fiction. The author descirbes “The … Continue reading Insight into lost world

Our fathers never taught us to be fathers…

Chilean poet Alejandro Zambra, in Childish Literature, writes a collection of poems, essays and tales exploring the ups and downs of fatherhood especially orbiting around the theme of fathers and sons. Written in a state of attachment or under the influence of fatherhood, Childish Literature is an eclectic guide to rookie parents, revealing how the birth and growth of a child changes not only the present and the future, but also reshapes our perceptions of the past.   He ponders his unpreparedness: “Our fathers tried, in their own ways, to teach us to be men, but they never taught us to … Continue reading Our fathers never taught us to be fathers…

Complex emotional poems

Professor Carol Ann Duffy DBE, captures the truth of each experience whether writing of longing or seduction, of passion, adultery, or simple everyday acts of love.  Carol Ann Duffy wrote one of the most popular love poet, which is imaginative, heartfelt and direct about love and relationships exploring the notion of romantic love in the context of relationship, with complex emotion. The speaker of the poem offers her lover an onion as a Valentine’s gift not a conventional gift like stain hearts or roses. Her poems diaplays all the eloquence and skill that have made her one of the foremost … Continue reading Complex emotional poems

Sheldon Edwards, London-based designer barber

Qatar Airways flies in Sheldon Edwards of HD Cutz, a favourite among celebrities to cut their hair in the paddocks of Doha Formula One. His visitors at F1 paddock stall in Doha ahead of the race included Nowak Djokovic, Rio Ferdinand and several others who sat in the brown leather chair and got their hair styled for viral looks. Sheldon Edwards started from humble beginnings in Clarendon, Jamaica, and expanded to renting barber chair spots all over UK, with the flagship shop at Battersea, 103a Lavender Hill, London SW11 5QL. Sheldon is a third-generation British-Jamaican barber who first hated cutting … Continue reading Sheldon Edwards, London-based designer barber