Funfare for the Common Man

‘A Pang is more conspicuous in Spring. In contrast with the things that sing.’ (Emily Dickinson) If you’re one of my loyal, devoted readers who has been with us since the beginning, then you’ll know how much I love a good rant . If you’ve only read me a little, then be warned: I really love a good rant. Typically, most of my grumbling falls into one of these categories: * people and the idiotic things they do: I’m a misanthrope * technology and what a pain in the ass it is: I’m a Luddite * bad customer service and being wronged in restaurants: I love boycotting places (a recurring theme in these pages: I hold grudges) I don’t have statistics for this and I don’t even think there’s a way of checking, but if I were to do a text analysis of all my posts over the years, one of the most common phrases would have to be ‘one of my biggest pet hates/pet peeves/bugbears is…’ followed by a threat to one day put together an entire post comprising all of my pet hates. The p...

“The greatest gift is the passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts.” (Elizabeth Hardwick) In my first post in this series of reflections on reading, I rambled, as I am wont to do, and waxed lyrical on how to find the time to read. Let me just point out the obvious – my ‘strategy’ doesn’t necessarily work for everyone. And I probably didn’t quite make it clear that when it comes to finding the time to read, trying to cram in any type of reading at various points of your day, it very much depends on what exactly you are trying to read. I came across a great article the other day, which is related to another strategy for catching up on reading books: stay completely away from not only social media, but any internet news. Or, you could do like this guy did and read only print newspapers for two months . I love that idea, but problematically, being in Ukraine means getting hold of a daily [print] newspaper in English is pretty challenging. I als...