I recently wrote a Tweet — one of those little phrases on Twitter — which I thought was rather clever: “Don’t read a book. Read an author”. Unfortunately I didn’t get a flood of emails congratulating me on my wisdom or asking what I meant. As with most tweets, I got no reaction, which begs the question “What’s Twitter for?”, a question I tried to answer in this article some time ago. (more…)
Category: Comment
Prince Charles of Romania
Most people — Romanians and Brits — that I have discussed this issue with seem rather suspicious of the fact that Prince (now King) Charles owns property in Romania. Many Brits don’t like Charles as he makes challenging comments about architecture, agriculture and the environment, and is generally considered eccentric. He also owns a lot of land in England and is very rich. (more…)
Why Not Give Up Alcohol For The New Year?
Why not give up alcohol for the new year? It makes you fat, smells bad to non drinkers (such as children) and ends up costing a fortune. But could survive socially without beer, wine or something stronger? Does it give you confidence? Can a modern adult have fun without booze? (more…)
Alcoholics Anonymous: The Greatest Event of the Twentieth Century
Although I have never been a member of an Alcoholics Anonymous group, I have participated in a few “open meetings” (where non-members can attend) and each one has been inspiring in its own way. The best one was held in a park in Cluj — the meeting room was closed — where six of us sat on old tin cans and bits of wood and shared our stories from that week. There was a great feeling of camaraderie (or community) among them. (more…)
Abolish The Ministry of Tourism
This article also appeared in Romanian on the Contributors section of Hotnews.
When I published my first article in the Huffington Post I was greeted by over 100 negative comments, all from people who passionately believe that cannabis should be legalised (my crime was to suggest that cannabis can cause psychosis). Most comments on most articles in most news-sites seem to be negative and there is a phenomenon in UK (I’m not sure if it has reached Romania yet) called “trolling” whereby a group of like minded people, or “trolls”, bombard individual articles with negative comment, creating the impression that the people are against the point made by the journalist. It is a form of PR. (more…)
The Difficulty of Writing
Everyone can write and yet but there are very few writers around. Many people can write funny letters, fluent emails and good reports but when it comes to writing articles most people can’t deliver. This is not to say that many people can’t write well – it’s just that the process of writing with confidence is much harder to achieve than you think, and few people have learned the basic rules of writing an article (something that I would like to explain here soon). (more…)
The Wrong Way to Run a Blog
Inspired by the BBC’s new Sherlock Holmes serial, I have decided to turn our company blog into a personal blog. Instead of monthly updates about various issues I will write more frequent posts about what’s going on around me. (more…)
An Actress to Watch Out For
This article was also published in Romanian on Hotnews.
Whenever a great Romanian actor dies someone tells me that this is the latest chapter in the decline of Romanian drama. Romanians can be very negative about their future and this negativity is projected onto the arts where they tend to see a glorious past and a miserable future. But I am not Romanian and I don’t share these views.
I am from Edinburgh, a city which hosts the world’s biggest theatre festival but is actually a deeply un-cultural place where alcohol and football are far more important than arts. (If you want to understand Scotland, read Irvine Welsh.) Like most of my compatriots I know little about acting and have no comment about the ancient Romanian actors whom people here hold so dearly. But whenever I go to a Romanian play or film, which is rarely as I am unable to resist the escapist attractions of Hollywood, I see great young actors. I recently saw Periphery and was mesmerized by the charisma of Ana Ularu. (more…)
Ordo Quod Chaos
This article was also published in Romanian, on the Dilema Veche website.
My view of Romania over the last 10 years is that it has been developing in a steady, predictable and incremental manner. The key policies of capitalism which were put into place almost immediately after the 1989 revolution – free elections/press/travel, rule of law, property rights – have been steadily strengthened. Every few years there were rumours in the media that Iliescu, Nastase or Basescu are about to become dictators, but each of these has proven to be a chimera; each one of these leaders has done a bit to consolidate this stability. (more…)
Crisis? What crisis?
Something strange happened to me last week. I was at the recycling bins with my 7 year old son Luca (who likes to practice karate chops on chunks of polystyrene) when a garbage truck pulled over. Two fat guys got out, wandered over and helped us to load our Ikea waste into the containers. I couldn’t understand it, what on earth had got into them? I’m used to garbage men being morose and sarcastic, reluctantly moving the waste they’re hired to shift but never lifting a finger to do more. Why were they suddenly being helpful? Could it be because of the crisis? Are they afraid for their jobs? (more…)