So is this the price we have to pay to keep the European Constitution alive: to slow down the pace of enlargement, as suggested by Austrian Prime Minister Wolfgang Schüssel in today’s FAZ, reported by EUObserver? I suppose that such comments from a centre-right leader of a country in which […]
Every country has its bizarre political traditions. The UK has more in the House of Commons than most countries have in total. But Sweden must have one of the sweetest and very old-fashioned political traditions – Goran Persson’s annual speeches at the Folkets Park in Björkvik, in the countryside somewhere […]
My previous experience of football outside the UK has been quite grand. While on my travels I have watched Inter vs. Helsingborg FF at the San Siro in 2000, and FC Barcelona vs. Club Brugge at the Nou Camp in 2003 (both Champions League). In the last fortnight, I have […]
Each and every one of us has to cross the bridge at some point. From the security in the relative innocence of youth, we traverse to arrive in the hard world of adult life and realise all of what we have been ‘building’ for years actually counts for very little. […]
I am on my way out of London for a fortnight. I have been looking forward to this escape so much, and my determination to get away has been hugely amplified by the total mess that is Heathrow Airport, Terminal 3 on a Friday afternoon. It is beyond me how […]
I wrote about my first experiences of the NHS in Lambeth / Clapham in a post a little while ago. Referral to the minor surgery clinic in Grantham Road, Stockwell, took a little more than a week to sort out, and getting the appointment made was very swift.
Following on from my other post about getting on planes… What are we supposed to do about other problems that afflict flying, namely luggage allocations, overweight passengers, and duty free?
It’s quite a horrid place at the best of times, but travel on the London Underground has become really more fraught than ever now. This article from BBC News Online is an excellent summary of how people are feeling, and how odd the situation can become. I have a particular […]
It’s been an excellent campaign – I don’t know if anything has in recent times managed to capture the imagination of the UK population as the Make Poverty History Campaign has. And above all, their website campaign has been cool too – have a look at their banners page and […]
Feeling a bit athletic and having a free weekend in London, I decided it might be a nice idea to go for a skate. Problem is that skating in London is really restricted and I wonder what could be done to improve it.
Jan Peter Balkende has decided that the way to address the fact that he is deeply unpopular in the Netherlands, and even more unpopular in the rest of the EU because he presides over a country that rejected the Constitution, is to write an article in The Guardian. The full […]
Have you ever been at an airport and thought: damn, I really wish all of these other passengers would get themselves moving onto the plane a bit faster? That way we would not be so stressed, delayed, annoyed (delete as appropriate). This post is a starting point to discuss what […]
