Opinion
It all feels very familiar, doesn’t it? An American divorcee; the compromised happiness of a senior royal; a tell-all interview; tight-lipped silence from Buckingham Palace; a family that seems so out of touch.We’ve been here before, haven’t we? Except that in place of Mrs Simpson ...
Popcorn psychologists and those engaged in the pseudo social science of mindfulness will circle the third Monday in January as being the bleakest day of the year.They refer to it as ‘Blue Monday’ — a day when the financial pressure of the Christmas just passed hangs over many, the ...
Two weeks into Lockdown 3.0 in the United Kingdom and the rules on who should or should not be doing whatever are as clear as mud — as ever.Last week, two friends decided to go for a walk at Foremark Reservoir in the Midlands of England some eight kilometres from their home. But the local Derb...
After 46 years fully bound to the political, economic and social norms as a member of the European Union or in transition from its membership, the United Kingdom began a new chapter in setting its own course from New Year’s Day 2021.Barely two weeks, negotiators from London and Brussels hammer...
Do you remember? There was a time before this. It was happy, carefree. We hugged and kissed, laughed and cried, gathered and celebrated, came together and mourned.That was then.Then there is now, the present tense. We remember to keep apart. We shun others. We disinfect hands — not shake them....
You would be forgiven for thinking that the only thing that matters right now for the European Union is Brexit and how the United Kingdom will trade and relate to the world’s third-largest trading market in the coming years. Sure, it’s important, more for the Brits than for the Europeans...
This is the time of year when new calendars go on sale or are distributed by stores and businesses, little gifts for loyal customers. They are pinned up in kitchens and propped up on desks, with key dates, birthdays and reminders all marked up, holidays planned — do you remember when we could ...
The track-and-trace system in the United Kingdom is underwhelming, considering it comes with a price tag worth £10 billion (Dh48.7 billion). For that type of investment, you’d hope that it would be able to quickly identify those exposed to coronavirus with great efficiency — but mo...
Coronavirus has been a great leveller. It matters not who or where you are, where you are or how you go about your business, you are just as likely to contract it as the next person. It has put our world on hold, turned our lives upside down and made us live in ways and on means no one could have th...
Last Saturday was a miserable day across much of the British Isles. Storm Aiden brought buckets of rain, lashing winds and a dark coldness that reminded too many of the long winter months to come. On a night like that, where ducks sought refuge and you’d face cruelty charges for putting a milk...
If Charles Dickens were alive today, he’d have no shortage of material for a sequel to his great work Oliver Twist. You must know the scene — it’s been dramatised in several film versions — The young, hungry boy in a workhouse, being fed gruel and daring to ask: “Please...
Between March and September, the government of the United Kingdom spent £210 billion — close to one trillion dirhams — supporting its economy though the coronavirus pandemic, according to the National Audit Office in London.That figure covers off the expense of some 190 measures in...
The first great work of English literature and fiction is Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, penned as the 1300s rolled into 1400 and recounting the stories told by a group of pilgrims as they made their way from London to the Kent cathedral city and shrine to Saint Thomas Becket.But this isn’t...
It’s been 682 days since I backed up my laptop. I am at risk of catching a virus. Aren’t we all?I finally managed to find where I put my external hard drive — it was somewhere in a plastic storage box that was either in Spain, in Ireland, in an attic in the north of England, or in ...
Next Friday and Saturday, the 27 leaders of the European Union will gather in Brussels for a special meeting of the European Council and, according to the agenda published by the EU Consilium — the secretariat that looks after the administrative and bureaucratic needs of the Eurocrats — ...
On Tuesday at Westminster — the mother of all parliaments — Brandon Lewis, the minister responsible for Northern Ireland in Boris Johnson’s cabinet, stood up and told the House of Commons that the government would be breaking international law.It’s official. A matter of polic...
These are indeed the strangest of times. We live in an era now of heightened sensibilities, social distancing, thinking twice about our movements and actions, covering up, and bumping elbows. The normal conventions of life before Covid have all gone by the wayside. And for elected public representat...
A little more than three years ago, when Emmanuel Macron burst onto the national and international stage as the fresh enthusiastic president of the French Republic, he was likened to Europe’s answer to Canada’s Justin Trudeau — youthful modern, fresh, charismatic and engaging. Now,...
Right now, almost half of the people on the planet are actively using Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or Messenger; there are 2.6 billion using Facebook alone; and on any given day during March, 1.73 billion of us were active on Facebook — up from 1.66 billion users last December.But from Wednes...
Suspend for a moment, please, your common sense. Park it safely beside reality. Believe instead in the complete cockamamie codswallop served up by Dominic Cummings to the British public last week.The top aide to Prime Minister Boris Johnson only drove to a north of England beauty spot to test his ey...
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