The Spanish flu epidemic is the one most often mentioned as a comparison for Covid-19. Though the present death rate of just over one million is a blip against the 50 million plus who died of the flu in four waves between 1918 to 1920. The second wave was the deadliest though again that doesn’t … Read more
Support for Scottish independence has risen to 58% in a recent poll, much of this due to disapproval of the Boris botch-up over the pandemic and Brexit in comparison to Nicola Sturgeon’s steadier approach. Though, truth to tell, the Covid situation in both countries isn’t dissimilar and much of what Sturgeon blames Westminster for, is … Read more
Margaret Ferrier, the MP condemned for travelling by train from London to Scotland despite testing positive to Covid, is still sitting though ousted from the SNP. She describes her actions as a “blip” and “out of character”. After being tested but before results came in she attended church, then travelled for five and a half … Read more
Nigeria’s youth are out on the streets protesting against police brutality, in particular the federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a notorious unit long accused gross human rights abuses, including extortion, harassment, torture, and extrajudicial killings and demanding justice for victims. President Muhammadu Buhari has now promised to disband Sars and enact police reforms. Nigeria … Read more
The USA stands on the brink, facing a historic fork in the road, with the most polarised climate since 1860. It won’t matter much whether Biden wins outright and then faces a hostile Supreme Court and perhaps Senate as Obama did, road-blocking his agenda; or Trump finagles in via the skewed and undemocratic Electoral College … Read more
The Affair meets Downton Abbey in a bizarre luvvie-land headline-grabber with Dominic West canoodling more than openly with actress Lily James in Rome over the weekend. This resulted in friends saying his wife and mother of his four children, Catherine Fitzgerald, was devastated since she thought they were still happily together. Next photo-op is West … Read more
Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State and before that US Ambassador to the UN, under Bill Clinton, has an excoriating piece in the FT about Trump whom she describes as “a president born with both a silver spoon and a forked tongue in his mouth” who has debased American democracy. His message that no one … Read more
Louise Gluck, the American poet, has won the Nobel Prize for Literature to add to her Pulitzer, various other awards and her former Poet Laureate status. Regarded as one of the pre-eminent poets of the age, her poems rooted in myth and nature, are “dreamlike, chilly, enigmatic”, “relying on mood, suggestion and atmosphere and scene … Read more
Following on from the Germany post below – seismic changes ahead. Tapping into ‘archaic energy’, rooted in the far distant past always involves a perilous journey into the depths of the 8th house, going way beyond the boundaries of the conscious mind. What the Germany country chart and Hitler’s shared was Pluto in the 8th. … Read more
Kenzo Takada, the Japanese-French fashion designer who founded a global brand of perfumes, skincare products, and clothes, has died of a covid-related illness aged 81. His use of flamboyant, bright, often clashing colours and flower prints, were flaunted with theatrical delivery in his shows. He was born 27 February 1939 in Japan but came … Read more