One of my many flaws is that I can't seem to leave an argument alone. My younger brother uses it to great effect whenever he wants to wind me up, adopting a ludicrous position, arguing dismissively and then smiling broadly when I take him seriously and get on my high horse. His pleasure is drawn …
In Haruki Murakami's short story Sleep the female protagonist suffers a bout of insomnia that lasts for weeks. Rather than crippling her with fatigue she finds strength in her nocturnal existence, realising that she has become a crushing stereotype of the Japanese housewife; dutifully making love to her dull, dentist husband, refusing alcohol because he didn't …
I remember driving home one night from town along the Srinakarin road - a major thoroughfare running south away from Bangkok towards Samut Prakan. It was a few days before my first child was born and we'd been out with friends, enjoying zesty Thai curries and sipping soft drinks whilst our companions got stuck into …
A recent article on the BBC pondered on whether or not people would choose to have amputations so their birth limbs could be replaced with bionic ones. Apart from sounding like a brilliant idea in itself (who doesn't occasionally wonder what it would be like to have super strength) it opens up a huge …
When I proposed to my now wife I did so, as is traditional, with a diamond ring. It wasn't a very large diamond, but it was as big as I could afford. It did, however, have a couple of things going for it. Firstly, it had a GIA certificate which proved that it …
One of the hardest parts of being so far away from home is that family are on the other side of the world. I grant you, this isn't always a downside but there are times when having the support of your family is just needed. Like when you need to fix the cistern and your knowledge …
Top fact: January is named after Janus, the Roman god of transitions and beginnings (and also the name Sean Bean's character takes in Goldeneye). He is often depicted as having two faces (the god, not Sean Bean) and is supposed to represent the dualistic nature of this time of year - the simultaneous looking back …
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